Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire I think I'd like to have an Enfield rifle.

Here is my 303 SHT L.E. MK III spiffed up a bit.

You know, another thing I've been wondering. The rifle I liked had a silver dot on the top of the bolt lug. I wonder if they paint it on there after inspecting it. Could they make the importers do that? I had a short scary moment thinking if maybe that weld let go, you'd get a bolt in the face.

not sure what that would be Rob....

BTW never say you cant learn something from TV....they hade a No3 on Top Shot this week.....their expert showed an interesting way to run a SMLE even faster......always keep your thumb and trigger finger on the bolt head and run the trigger with your middle finger.....had to pull mine out of the safe and try dry firing it that way.....took a bit to get used to but worked slick....

I was in fleet farm in Lakeville,mn just an hour ago,SMLEs were $200 each.

His experience does not match mine. I have all of those mentioned except the 1917, and my Mausers out shoot the others by a wide margin.

Steve Redgewell on this site knows a bit about SMLE's, as does medicman. I have a No 4 Mark I that I have used to successfully take the heads off grouse. Love it! Mine has been sporterized slightly, but it's a hoot to shoot.

+1 what bird watcher said. I prefer the look of the #1 over the #4 , but having had both, I reccomend The #4, also, for the same reasons.

Look at the muzzle , for clean, prominent, sharp lands.

No kinks in a very clean looking bore, and you should be very happy.

To-boot, there are 3 generations of shooters around who have accurized them, so you will have lots of support.

Best,

M-

will say it depends......had quite a few milsurps and the best shooter was a Moisin Nagant......the Mausers and SMLE's vary from good to poor shooters depending on the individual gun(possibly depending on the model but ive never had 2 of the same).....will say the sights on alot of mausers aren condusive to great shooting even if the rest of teh gun is....No4 SMLE's, 1903A3's and 1917's have MUCH better sights than most any Mauser

Winchester 1917's tend to be VERY accurate, they were a favorite for making sniper rifles....Eddystone 1917's are often noticibly less so with Remingtons in between....

I'm only comparing my rifle to each other. Maybe I have good Mausers and poor Springfields and Endfields. It happens. Re the Mauser sights I find that they work better for me than the others for the windage, and as good or poorer for the elevation. This isn't really a bad thing for the rifles original application.

guess ive just always shot better with peep sights, though like i say a Nagant was my best shooter and it has sights comparable to most Mausers.....have one mauser that when im having a good day looks like it can shoot real well but the rear sight sucks and i have to be having a good day to shoot it well....

I have a #4 Mk1 which shoots okay. I would like to find a #4 mk2, which were made after WWII and will have less wear & tear.

Oh yeah, just for the record, headspace gauges are your friends.

No3 version like mine.....depending how strict the military shoots you do are Rob.....still has the military issue sights...

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=280556879

actually he is using a 1917 winchester in competition, which i think is a hoot, the bavarian fellow i was talking about.
I have loaded some jacketed bullets for the smle, and it is recommended you keep the brass dedicated to the rifle, due to the variance in the bores/chambers. A good thing to do is to slug them to get the right bore diameter, like i said they are all over the place. Then i have a lee mould i use to cast a lead bullet for them. They are quite mild too shoot. I have a mint 1918 that i have never fired then a number of the WWII smle's. Stick a toad sticker on them and they are a kick. I got some of mine from J&G, and at the time they came with rod bayonets. Like a lot of mil surp's opinions are based upon what people see, and often times that is stuff that is really used. Much different animal if you find a clean one. The WWI ones had a brass buttplate too that is kind of cool. They grow on you. For a long time i thought they were pretty ratty, until i woke up to how well they were engineered. The mags are specific to the rifle too by the way and not meant to be interchangable. I would not say they are quite as good as a finnish mosin, or a swede, or a schmit rubin, but they are better than a russian mosin in my opinion, if in good shape of course.
You just about have to reload for them, as the milsurp ammo these days for them is pretty poor.
I collect milsurp's and i have some smle's that for all intents are new rifles, and a K98 Scout rifle,(think schindlers List) that is 100%. Problem is I don't want to shoot them, I just look at them. It would be interesting to take them to the range and put them up against one another.
As to the mauser's another interesting little aside. In talking to a survivor of the eastern front, He indicated they liked the WWI mauser better than the K98, in that he thought they shot better. I was too polite to ask him how he came to that opinion, but i would think a few russians knew. As to the springfields, i have always thought the 1917 was a better rifle. the 1903A3 i have always liked better because of the rear peep, rather than that leaf sight.

No, I just size to fit my chamber, have not had any of my reloads let go yet, and some have a few firings on them, but then again I don't feel I am running them that hot either, I use the middle load in the old speer books.
Here I hope will be my 200 yard target showing how it shoots not too bad.

The Lee neck-sizing Collet dies are the best .303 British accessory ever invented for a reloader!



$29 bucks at Midway USA

A buddy back in Canada lubes his cases for the first firing, so that the shoulder blows forward rather than stretching at the base and separating like the photos.

Yes, it does increase bolt thrust, but not that much. I can't find the source for the calculations I have seen, but if you assume that the neck expands and the case pulls back, one can use the thickness of the case and the tensile strength of cartridge brass to calculate the maximum amount of backthrust that the neck can keep off the bolt. It isn't that much, but it is there.

Also, be aware that many users of the .303 British lubed their cases in competition.

My friend has sectioned cases which were lubed or fired dry, and the dry-fired ones do have a thinned area (just as shown in the pictures).

Keep your loads mild, and use a Lee neck-sizing Collet die, and your cases will last well.

Sorry for the diversion (not really a highjack!) but we buy rifles to shoot them!

John

Here's mine a No 4 Mk 1 made in England in 1942 since it was "sporterized" the peep sights never lined up even close to hitting point of aim so I installed a scope base and have an ATI fiberglass Monte Carlo style stock coming so the scope can be used properly. This was the family gun, I'm getting it ready for a young guy to shot his first big game animal, a black bear hopefully in a few weeks. Have some 180 gr Speer RN's, Big Game, H 4350 and Varget for fuel I'm sure some kind of decent load can be found.

jpb, thanks for the info on the Lee dies I need to find a set. I'm necking up my cases to 35 cal and then necking them back down in a 308 die with the shoulder moved forward.

Edit: Just ordered a set of the Lee dies, thanks

Rob. Don't do it. DON'T DO IT.

Of the dozen or so I had come into the shop when I was gunsmithing, only one had correct headspace.

Headspace is corrected by changing the bolt head- and it took me 3 years to find the correct bolt head for the first one - after that I never even tried, just handed the POS back to the potential customer and explained why.

The one that had correct headspace, and the one I corrected were shooters, tho!

If you do go for it, headspace the sucker, and if it isn't right, run - do not walk - run away!

Enfields, IMO, are at least a notch down in construction from Savage 110's...

Man- I'm on a roll.... I'm gonna get flamed from 2 directions.....

tt

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These were sold for the princely sum of $9.95 back in the early 60's.... wish I had bought more. This one was purchased over a campfire for $5 !"pre-sporterized", I trimmed the barrel, took off a ton of excess wood, trimmed the magazine flush and installed a floor plate. The scope mount is not great, but there are new ones that mount low and solid, all in all not a bad rifle, shoots well and I don't cry if it gets banged up a bit.