Webley mk11 Services help please

[Barry Knapp]

Could anyone please tell me how to remove the breech nut which secures the barrel tight against the joint washer.your help is much appreciated.

[le frelon]

Hi Barry, this is one of those 'difficult' jobs but can be done if suitable care is applied.
Firstly, for those of a nervous disposition, you may not wish to read further.......a lot of these breech nuts have already come loose or been removed by the application of brute force! If you look at the nut from the barrel end you will see, on it's flat face a pin of approximately 1/16" diameter. Sometimes these are difficult to find. This pin has to be removed as it passes through the nut and the breech bolt. The normal method is to very carefully set this up and drill it out,
11-12mm depth should do it. Now, as eluded to above, it can be sheared off by force, or may already have been, and has left the pin still in both the nut and the bolt. They will still need to be removed by drilling. I have never tried the brute force approach and would suggest this is best left alone!
I have seen these drilled over size and as long as it's not by much that may well be acceptable too. This could have been a broken drill in there or drilled off centre etc. Only use a soft pin for replacement, eg mild steel, don't be tempted to stick in a small grub screw/allen screw......you may need to take the nut off again and drilling out any sort of hardened device will be a nightmare. Spark erosion is always an option if all else fails.
Do remember that there is also a thread on the bolt/in the nut ( possibly 1/4" bsw from memory ? ). I'm sure I have this written down somewhere as I've made a new bolts for one of mine.

Hope this helps but if anyone else has any other methods I'd also be interested to hear what you've done.

Carl

[Barry Knapp]

Thank you very much for the info, very helpful, job done, thank you again.