I gave my son my Long Branch No.4 Mk1* as a Christmas gift when he was 11 years old. I paid $80.00 for this rifle back in the early 1990's. It has very highly figured sporter style stocks supposedly done by Elwood Epps in Ontario, Canada. I think something may have been done to the trigger, because the pull really isn't bad on it. It's kind of long, but not heavy, and the break is clean and consistent. I had a local gunsmith fit a thick Limbsaver pad to it before I gave it to my son and with that pad, the felt recoil is about like that of my .250 Savage Ruger M77 Ultralight -basically a flea-bite's worth.
When I gave the rifle to my son, it was about as long as he was tall, but he had no major problems shooting it, and he shot it really well from the get-go, having a few years of shooting a Crickett .22 with aperture sights under his belt.
I know that these things aren't supposed to be match-grade accurate, but this Enfield in my gun room isn't the first one I've shot that shot a whole lot better than conventional wisdom had be believing it should. Before I got mine, a friend bought one and home-bubba gunsmithed it in to a sporter. It would shoot three-shot groups around an inch at 100 yards with no problem when fired from a bench rest. My son's shot really well, too. I'm not much of a bench rest shooter in that I find that kind of shooting to be painfully boring. Once I get a rifle sighted in, I'm pretty much done with the bench and its rest. I like shooting from standing, sitting, kneeling, and prone, and doing that, I don't have much trouble shooting groups under 2 M.O.A. with the Enfield and my fifty year old eyes. It might not win a bench rest match, but where practical accuracy is concerned, it's definitely adequate. I've had commercial sporters that I've shot worse from field positions.
Whoever did the stocking, they must have known what they were doing, because the rifle not only shoots better than most Americans would think a No.4 should, but it has a handling dynamic more like a birdgun than a rifle, in spite of its length. That's what endeared me to it from the get-go and when I bought it, I was immediately thinking "pig gun" and it pretty much was my main ham harvester for 15 years. I never shot a deer with it, but I piled up plenty of California Central Coast swine with the thing.
My son is 16 now. I've offered to buy him a modern rifle many times. He couldn't be less interested. He sincerely believes that his Enfield is the schnitzit. When he goes target shooting with me, he'll do at least as well with that as I do with anything I've got (no bench, no rest -standing, sitting, kneeling, prone). One thing he really enjoys doing is whacking a reactive target ball with the objective being to keep the ball moving. Another is breaking clay pigeons set out on a berm at 125 yards as fast as he can get through a magazine. It amazes me how fast the kid can run that rifle AND accurately hit with it.
He's fond of it for many of the same reasons that I was. He, like I have, would describe the handling dynamics as being more birdgun-like than rifle like. When he pops it to his shoulder, the sight alignment is instant.
A lot of the other things he likes about it are related to ergonomics, too. He can easily manipulate all of the controls -the trigger, the safety, the magazine latch, and even load the magazine, all with thickly-gloved fingers. That's a major big deal to him because our modern gun deer season locally happens when it's pretty friggin' frigid outside.
He can carry it all day long in his hands. It really does carry well because it is so nicely balanced -something I liked about it, too.
He shoots it well. The felt recoil is virtually nothing and one of the benefits of having 25" of barrel is the muzzle blast is that much father away. As high power centerfire rifles go, it is a very pleasant thing to shoot. When we take it out, he can go through 200 rounds with ease.
From his perspective, there's nothing about his No.4 to NOT like. He even thinks it looks cool.
I know he appreciates the history of it, too. Every time we take it out, at some point, he'll set it down and stare at the markings on the left side of the receiver and opine that he wishes that rifle, dated 1943, could talk. How many Canadian boys not much older than him learned to shoot behind it? Did it go to war and what battles did it fight in? When it came back home to Canada, and got a new set of civilian clothes, who bought it's new suit? Did it hunt in Canada, or just punch paper? How did it wind up getting from Canada to California where Dad bought it? Those are things my son wishes his rifle could answer.
My son isn't really all that in to big game hunting. He'll go deer hunting a few days out of the year with me, mostly to humor me, I think. He's shot a couple of deer with it, though. Last year, he shot the biggest deer I've seen in the State of Oklahoma since I moved out here with it. I'm not really happy with the distance he thought it wise to shoot a deer using aperture sights, but he did put the bullet right where it had to go. He likes pig hunting more, and since going with me on my annual California birthday-bash pig hunt for the first time four years ago, he's looked forward to that ever since. He shot two out there with the Enfield and a third with "his" XP-100 pistol in 7mm BR. Quail hunting is the hunting the boy is really enthusiastic over. I don't have to cajole him in going to southeastern New Mexico for a quail hunt with me.
Even though he's a lukewarm big game hunter, he does enjoy shooting the shnitzit out of his Enfield, and he kind of surprised me while we were out pig hunting in California last February when he asked about my Caribou hunting in Canada, and if a U.S. citizen could still hunt in Canada. What prompted the question was that he's got the notion that we should do a moose hunt in Canada as he'd like to shoot one with his old Long Branch Enfield. Apparently, he thinks it might be a little "homesick" or something.
But yeah, I know at least one American kid who hunts with an Enfield every now and then, shoots the shnitzit out of it for fun, and who wouldn't trade it for any other rifle ever made anywhere at any time.
He's pretty fanatical about it, actually.
