Lee enfield no4 7.62mm

[leebuilder]

Wow 303 guy. Been there!!!.
Be safe.
I have never used a safety on a civie range. You are loaded and shooting or unloaded and off the line. During military matches i have used a safety. Never a big fan of the half cock, since i scared a big deer away with the click for it. Live and learn

[jr86]

Good information to know thanks! I've really only shot my enfields on ranges and farms. Where I live, hunting rifles are restricted to calibers .275 and below.

[Reverend Al]

Just thought I'd add an update to this old thread. I also have one of the DCRA 7.62x51 Nato conversions on a No. 4 Lee Enfield. I've been told that there were about 2,000 of them converted in total and mine is marked as number "1538". The bore is perfect and I look forward to getting it out to shoot sometime soon. I've owned it for about 2 years, but with so many other project guns on the go it has been neglected ... until now. At our last local gun show I actually managed to find some real live "unicorn poop" ... a Sterling 7.62 Nato 10 shot magazine for the No. 4 Lee Enfield! With just a minimal amount of fitting work this one is now a perfect fit in my 7.62 Nato conversion rifle and feeds, extracts, and ejects the dummy test rounds I put together flawlessly. Now I'm a bit more excited about getting it out to test it at the range.
Just curious if you did more testing in your rifle and what you've been shooting in it for loads? I'll be shooting both "boolits" and "bullets" in mine, since I have a fairly large supply of pulled 147 grain FMJBT Canadian bullets to load for it, plus several different mould options which will produce "boolits" from 125 to 220 grains. Since I'll just be shooting it at our local range as a casual target rifle I was planning to load down to sensible pressures for the jacketed loads considering the age of the rifle and the No. 4 Lee Enfield action. I would think that pressures in the 42,000 to 44,000 pound pressure range should be safe and suitable.
Here are a few teaser photos ...

[Reverend Al]

It's fairly unlikely I'll find the proper Parker Hale 5C target rear sight to mount on this gun without having to pay two arms and a leg for it (the wood around the safety has been lightly inletted to fit one previously), so for now I bought an Adderly scope mount base so that I can mount a scope on it for load testing. (Old and blurry eyes sure don't help these days ...)

[Multigunner]

Some versions of the MLM and LE were manufactured without a safety, relying on the half cock. There were enough accidents with these that WW1 era regulations for musketry forbade use of the half cock.

Using the half cock can also lead to damage of the upper leg of the sear. I've had to straighten one of these . It appeared someone had tried to pull the trigger while at half cock and bent the sear. The bend was bad enough that when pulling the trigger at full cock the sear caught in the half cock on the way forwards damaging the nose of the sear even more and preventing firing.

[Outpost75]

Absolutely lovely rifle! You are wise to keep loads under 45,000 psi, ~2550+/-30 fps with NATO 144-148-grain FMJ with 39 grs. of RL7. otherwise you may need to swap bolt head for next longer one before barrel is shot out.

[Reverend Al]

OK, thanks for that! I have some Re7 on hand and lots of pulled military fmj bullets so I'll give that load a try and see what it does in my rifle ...

[flyin brian]

Wow, those are a neat variant I had never heard of before. Thanks for posting these up.

[leebuilder]

Reverend AL, that is one fine rifle, and a sterling mag, holy, holy grail! !!!
I picked up a PH 4T this summer, never heard of the 4T till I seen this one.

PH 5E4 sight

20T or 20 ton stamp

Six hole disc and locking bolt clearance

Massive fore arm

Massive PH front sight

Be well