Question for Steve Redgwell . When you use 303's are they mostly SMLE rifles or are you able to get Pattern 14 rifles for use? MB

I own mostly No 4 LB rifles but have a couple of P14s.

So how do they shoot? Mb

I have a P-14 converted to 300 Win Mag by a company called Century Arms. It is a tack driver

kkahmann;
Good evening to you sir, I hope the week treated you acceptably and this finds you well.

In most of my reading and some of my personal experience as well, the Pattern 14 and P17 actions are among the very stout ones out there for sure.

There was a chap - Clarence Ellis perhaps??? - who had an article in one of the Gun Digests in my collection who built a pair of globe travelling rifles on the big Enfield actions and he took them all over and shot all manner of game with them.

They're not in vogue now I suppose as the cock on closing isn't really a thing we're used to, but as far as making something like a .375 H&H length cartridge, in my view there's worse places to start for sure.

Since they have an open top design and not super fast lock time, one wouldn't expect to be winning PRC or F Class matches with one, but for a tough arm that will go bang when asked, well as I say there's worse places to start in my view.

All the best to you as we head into winter and colder weather.

Dwayne

They shoot very well, considering their ages. Both are over 100 years old, but were well cared for in and out of service. With handloads and P14 iron sights, I can shoot about 2 to 3 inches at 100 yd. Most people these days don't shoot iron sights too often. Both the P14 and the No 4 LE rear sight are superior to the majority of other iron sights because they are the aperture type. The eye goes automatically to centre of the aperture and it is easy to concentrate on, and place the front sight where it needs to go. Military surplus rifles, especially the No 4 and P14 were used for many years as hunting rifles because aperture sights were dead easy to use. V and U notch sights have issues at ranges greater than 50 or 75 yards.

If you use irons, the P14 was designed to use the 6 o'clock hold, unlike the Americans who adopted a dead on hold for the front sight.



As Dwayne touched on, the triggers have a slow lock time. My former colleagues called P14s "click bang" rifles. While that was an oversimplification, they were built for the military and not for target shooting or hunting. They were slower to the firing pin.

If I had two "as issued" rifles in similar condition, I would expect the P14 to outshoot the Lee Enfield out to three hundred yards, but not by much. Both were well built.

Both require gunsmithing to use a scope. The protective rear sight ears of the P14 have to be ground off and the top of the receiver prepared to take mounts. Once upon a time it was easy to find aftermarket scope mounts that attached to the rear sight without hacking up or grinding anything off, but I haven't seen any lately. For me, the slow trigger was not as much of a problem as the bolt throw. It was looooong, but not really a problem when hunting.

Century Arms and one or two other companies rebarrelled a bunch for 7mm and 300 Magnum rifles. They were also available as 30-06s. Again, that was a while ago.

If I came across a chopped up P14, I would pick it up.

I have a sporterized 17 and thought I would like to find a 14 with a good barrel to shoot and learn more about the 303. So I figured who better to ask than a Canadian as they will usually tell you exactly what they think. So let's hear some more. Mb

are the 1914 bolts the correct diameter for magnum cartridges ?

Ed

I have P-14 , it my favourite range rifle. Iron sights are so much more interesting to shoot. It has either a Timmy or a Dayton trigger. I forget which, I have three P-17s as well. Parker -Hale rear sight and a coil spring ejector spring. I put an after market stock that fit me perfectly.

That is what I understand. But, significant magazine changes are needed for a belted magnum.

I would love to have a couple of them, one of which would be 9.3X62 and one would be '06. Please don't try to sell me one without the rear sights, wings and all. I don't want them. I need those sights to be part of the whole system. Scopes? I can mount a forward scope in QDs and be happy with a Pseudo Scout. Also in QD mounts will be a dot sight. Another thing don't try to sell it to me if it doesn't have the original ammo capacity. I will have little use for it. Those two rifles could hunt most of the world. You might need a bigger one for ele or cape buff. I think a double rifle on something bigger than 450-400 would be the only other rifle needed. A 22 rimfire for shooting therapy is something that should be understood. Rant over. I love those old military guns. I think my Paleo scout is a #4 MK I in 303. Some changes were done but much of the basic rifle is intact. Please don't ruin the sights on a '14 or '17. Be Well, RZ.

Was hoping to hear some stories of long time use on these rifles and the 303 keeping the family fed from when they were first offered to the Canadian public to present. MB

You are talking about the m1917, not the p14. You'd play hell trying to make a p14 work with either of those cartridges.

Magnum Bob;
Good morning to you sir, I hope this last day of November finds you well.

This is just one prairie kid's take on the subject and as such worth only the time it takes to read, but here goes.

What I recall most when hearing "the men" talk about hunting and rifles was that volume fire was a thing to be desired.

Why that is would be both the lack of game - my late father said that up into the '60's it was a notable thing to see a deer in our part of Saskatchewan, that even a track spotted was the subject of a lot of speculation, so the hunting emphatically was nothing like we'll see on the hunting videos where the hunter sits in a tree and has the luxury of pronouncing a nice 4 point not a "shooter buck", you know?

The hunting methods were often a party hunt where the best shots were "posted" at the end of where the rest would be "pushing bush". Those shooters would shoot all and I do mean each and every "jumper" that came out and the others would tag them. My wife's late Uncle Cy was one such shooter and according to my father in law was always invited on a lot of hunts because if it ran past Cy, it was as good as gone.

If a hunter rose to that status in the group, they'd like as not try their best to buy a rifle which showed that they were in that class. The $15 war surplus rifles were looked upon as either beginner's rifles or a sign of poverty or not being a "serious" hunter more or less.

The shooters mainly used Savage 99's - I recall seeing .250 and .300 mostly - Winchester 88's with .308 being by far the most commonly seen or Lee Enfield .303's. Now the Lee Enfield was somewhat counter intuitive - but - although it was a war surplus arm, it had a 10 shot magazine capacity which meant it could be shot twice as long without reloading. There were also lots of 94's out there, mostly in .30-30, but also .32 Special and they were either owned by non farmers who hunted socially or farmers who were doing well enough to afford a $125 rifle but perhaps weren't quite serious enough to get a 99 or 88.

When I started big game hunting, one of the goals that I personally set out in my young mind was that I wanted to shoot it once. Now that again sounds strange and perhaps amusing to us now, but back in the '60's, when a deer or moose was spotted all members of the party would shoot at it until it either ran out of sight or dropped. Indeed I recall some very shot up moose coming back from Dad's annual moose hunts.

Now all that said, the one group who I saw did keep either a beat up 94 or a .303 of some description for feeding the family were First Nations subsistence hunters and trappers, Metis farmer/trapper/hunters or even farmer/trappers who lived on the edge of farmable land, so the beginnings of the Canadian Shield country which was just a half an hour north east of us.

Hopefully that was somewhat useful for you or someone out there sir. Again that's just a wee small sound bite of Saskatchewan and certainly the old timers I got to know when I moved to BC had different criteria for rifles depending on where they lived and what they hunted.

All the best to you as we head into shorter days and colder weather.

Dwayne

Dwayne, that's the kind of stuff I like to hear about because it's factual history by someone who saw it and lived it. Thank you. I grew up in se S Dakota in the mid 60's when I started hunting. Driving and party hunting were the way of life 94's, 99's, 760, 740 remingtons . 30-30,30-06, occ. 270 and 300 Sav as well as occ.35 rem and 32 win spcl. In the early 70's bunch of local guys got tired of bowling started an archery club and league shoots they started deer hunting with the bow out of tree stands. Some were quite successful and those that owned those river bottom timbers realized the could shoot their own nice bucks from the stand during rifle season and no longer allowed party drives on their land. It simply changed how deer hunting back then was done. Over the years there was movement to bolt action rifles and nice scopes from the K-4 generation. I shot my 1st whitetail in 72 with a m93 mauser in 7x57 a rifle I had sporterized my self. In 1970 I had bought 1 of the first 7mm Rem magnums around that area, I was looked at like a 2 headed goat. Anyway thanks for the Canadian history. Mb

From a different part of Canada than the prairies . I didn't start hunting until 1980, there is a story there but I won't wander too far off topic. In Vancouver there was a discount department store called Army and Navy, it got it's name from selling surplus from the Great War. This was in the early '60s, they still sold surplus. One of the other things they sold were hunting and fishing gear. , One of things were sporterized Lee Enfields, Monte Carlo stock and all., You could easily buy one, a box of Dominion brand cartridges and a hunting license all for under $50 . In those days CIL loaded the 303 to almost 30-06/308 levels. Many a time, as a kid I would look at the column where they were displayed on.

I use 308 loading data for my P-14

I've just dragged mine out, hoping to get it to the range for the first time in a long time. It was sporterized by BSA, with a Timney trigger, that I picked up from a local fellow back in 2005 for $150 I added a 4x Weaver scope and headed up to the range and was pleasantly surprised. I subsequently had it reamed to .303 Epps but somehow the project got abandoned a little later, so now I've loaded up some fireformed cases I found in a box to see if it will still shoot. (I also have Steve's book on shooting the .303 & .303 Epps). I'm sure IT will still shoot but my eyes aren't what they were and I've just found that a 3-9 scope I had hoped to put on it requires higher bases, which I don't have on hand, so the old Weaver 4x will have to do.

That's one of the best loads, Stuart.

I haven't shot my P14s in a while. The last time was just after I had made a 200 gr., semi-pointed, jacketed bullet and needed to test it. I took it on a whitetail hunt and dropped one at about 80 or 90 yards. Not really the best first test. The deer went down like it had been hit by a truck, but at that range, it wasn't a surprise. Since then, it's gone on to take moose, black bears and more whitetails. They aren't available for retail sale.

And for those who haven't figured it out, because my shots are always taken at no more than 400 yards, heavy and slow - and cheap - works for me. I am certainly not against copper or partitioned bullets. I just don't see their value for my hunting.

Early in the development of my 303 bullet, some guy from BC tried copying the design. Since the start, I had posted my progress online. I used several rifles, including a P14 in 303 Epps and another in 303 British. My prototypes were also going to a business in Ontario. I got wind of this guy's copies when the store owner called me. Because I posted my progress about the new bullet at my website, many people had been following it. That fellow from BC attempted to make and sell his copies. The trouble was, the development had not finished and the store here was kept apprised of the progress.

One day, I got a phone call asking me to drop by the store. I saw my prototypes in a box. George said that they looked like mine. The light bulb went on. I told him that I would put up some false information, just to see if it was a coincidence. I didn't think it was, so I posted some bogus modifications, the individual copied it, and sent his "improved" prototypes to the store.

After his bullets arrived, complete with the design flaw, George turned him down and we had a few laughs. It's obvious that the counterfeiter wasn't testing anything. If he had, he never would have sent them.

I also have some of those Mark 9 bullets. I didn't know about the counterfeits, though. Very crafty reponse on your part! I take it our local (ie BC) shyster is no longer in business.

I've made up some test loads with H4350 and RL15 and PPU 180 gr. bullets. Hope to get out this week to test them. I had to reacquaint myself with loading for this as I've been into handguns mostly in the last few years. One interesting discovery was that my assumption from years ago that RN bullets wouldn't feed in the P14 in .303 Epps was horsepuckey. I vaguely remember having difficulty with this for some reason. Then, when reading your OALs, and seeing that the Prvi bullets had to be loaded further out than the cannelure, I made up a dummy round with a Remington 180 Rn and... no problem. Sometimes letting a problem sit around for a few years can be beneficial.

There's no reason to seat to a cannelure. They are put on bullets where they expect the most use. For example, consider commercially made 303 bullets. Seating the bullet to the cannelure will virtually guarantee proper chambering for the Lee Enfield. For most commercial bullets though, most notably 308 diameter ones, cannelures are often there for the 308 Win. There's no danger or accuracy problems when you do not seat them at the cannelure.

I don't know if my counterfeiter is in business anymore. Some of it was my fault. I didn't realize that someone would do that. Especially when you consider that the design had to go through various phases in order to come out right.

That wasn't the first time that stuff has been lifted from my site. 20 odd years ago, I posted an article and a picture about the difference between 308 and 7.62 NATO chambers. The picture migrated over to the Dean Speir's website, The Gun Zone, in the late 1990s.

There have been others who use things I have written, but asked if it was okay. www.6mmBR.com for example. https://www.6mmbr.com/308Win.html - .308 Win vs. 7.62x51--The Straight Scoop

This particular article has made the rounds on the Interwebs. http://www.303british.com/id36.html The picture "Long Chambers" has been copied a lot.

1917, try a 9.3X74 then. Or do the feed and magazine work and go with the 375 H&H. Be Well, RZ.

I've built a number of rifles out of P-14 and '17 actions. They've all been memorable.

My current main competition/Palma rifle is a .308 built out of a '17 action, with the mag opening welded to make it into a single shot, and the original recoil lug removed and replaced with a Rem 700 style recoil lug. It now wears a new JC Custom barrel with a 1-11.5 twist, six groove (as per JC's recommendation). So far, it seems to be a solid 1/2 moa shooter with Sierra 155s at 2,960 out of the 30-inch barrel, which is what I use for competition.

I previously had a P-14 that I had rechambered with a .300 Win Mag reamer to create a ".303 Win Mag." It started life as a sporterized .303 that I bought at a gunshow for $40 in 1999. That rifle shot like a laser until I burned the 1914 barrel with 70+ grains of powder for each shot, and I then took the rest of it apart for parts.

I also have a Remington '17 in .300 Win Mag, which wears a Shaw #3 contour barrel. It once was one of my most used rifles, and it was the first "custom" rifle that I had a gunsmith put together in the late 1990s. I haven't fired it in a few years, but it would regularly shoot any decent .30 cal bullet into between 1/2 and 1 m.o.a. when pushed with H4831.

I recently put together a .300 Win Mag hunting rifle out of a P-14 action. I did all of the work myself on this project, except for installing the barrel and drilling and tapping the receiver. (I'm no gunsmith, but I ground the ears and contoured the receiver, opened and polished the feed rails and the internal dimensions of the receiver, cut and re-shaped portions of the receiver, polished and blued all of the metal, lapped the bolt lugs, built a sporting stock out of an old military stock by adding wood and then re-contouring it to build in a pistol grip, bedded the action, etc.) It wears a #2 contour E.R. Shaw barrel and will put five 175 Barnes LRX bullets (launched at 3,170 fps) easily into 3/4 m.o.a. at 200 metres if I don't overheat it--and this is just one of the first loads I've tried in it. The rifle fits me well, and I went out on a limb and added a screw-in Anschutz handstop so I can shoot it prone with a sling when the mood suits me. I've been able to make first shot hits on rocks out to 650 yards in the limited amount of shooting I've done with this rifle so far. It has a Timney trigger, but the original cock-on-closing striker.

I also have an ERA P-14 that I have used with iron sights. With IMR 4320 and Hornady 150-grain .303 bullets, I have been able to shoot 3-4 inch groups at 300 yards, if I read the wind correctly. This is with an original 1914 barrel and my Central No4 competition rear sight.

I think these are great actions!

They are. I only have two ERAs. I did have a rechambered Winchester P-14 in 303 Epps, but it got traded off.

friend of mine went through colorado school of gunsmithing. his project, he gave to me. parker hale custom sights on back,he smoothed action, anda custome 7.62.51 barrel.
it gloverleafs bulllets on target.

I'm fond of the P-17 and the P-14. . I have three P-17s, two of them were BSA sporters conversions and the other a Eddystone sporter. . One of the BSA is still a 30-06, the other a 358Norma long neck. The Eddystone is a 308Norma. My P-14 is a Winchester.. It's my favourite range rifle. I have a Parker Hale rear sight, and a Boyd semi inlet I finished. They all have either a Timmey trigger or a Dayton-Traister , and coil spring ejector conversions .

The P-17 usage is the official Canadian government designation for the 30-06. It was used during the WW2 for troops in Canada. We bought 100,000 from the United States. My Eddystone was one of these. The BSAs ones were likely part of the Lend-Lease to Britain.

These rifles used nickel alloy steel like the pre war Winchester M54 and M70 .

downwindtracker2;
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope the day is looking good for you in your part of our province and that those who matter in your world are well.

Thanks for that historical tidbit about Canadian purchases of the P17, that's news to me and very cool to know.

If you have any recommendations for reading or articles on them I'd love to hear about them. One imagines that in the early days of the war, before we got the arsenal at Long Branch really rolling that obtaining all types of arms for Canadian troops would have been a tricky proposition sometimes.

Thanks again and all the best to you folks this year sir.

Dwayne

Very nice. The BSA's should be nicely done sporters. BSA did some of the best work for sporterizing these old rifles, however they only did it for a very short time (49-51 I believe). Im also a believer in the Timney or Dayton Traister triggers and coil spring ejectors. Almost a required modification in my book. Also something guys dont know is you can use the pre 64 model 70's extractor in the m1917. I like using them because they look better and work great. One modification im on the fence about is cock on open vs. cock on close. I have both and they both work great. However, one thing that can be said about a properly tuned m1917 with cock on open conversion is they are smoother feeding than even the pre 64 model 70 that is known for being exceptional in that department.

Canadian battle rifles. Steve likely has much more information than I do. There was a web site/forum dedicated to the "Enfield", Pattern of 1914, Model of 1917, Remington model 20?? and the Remington model 720. Someone posted letter from the great C.D. Howe and Canadian army documents on it about using P-17. The history, between the wars Great Britain surplused out a lot of their stock of rifles.. So to help out GB, Canada at the beginning of the war sent them a 100,000 Ross rifles. We did a smaller lend-lease. This left us with a shortage, now. The government was offered a some P-14 from a dealer, but instead chose to buy the P-17 off the States. If GB had chosen the P-14 over the Lee-Enfield after the Great war, Canada was willing to convert the Ross factory over, but nothing came of that.

The BSA ones had their ears clipped properly, the Eddystone required the work of a fine magician/gunsmith, Greydog, to straighten out..

Had one, sold it, regret it.