Lee Enfield No 4 a really great buy....

[Klaus]

Dear gent`s

a nice Enfield No 4 followed me home

some pics from the Rifle and Tagets i got last Saturday

If you would be so kind and tell me some Facts for Date of manufactoring and serial number....


















I shoot on 50m first to find some Zero for Sight setting

after some work i got this one with the round centered in the Bull with a 6 o'clock hold




Rounds .303 PPU Brass
Lee Cast Bullet lubes with Ben`s LL
Alu Checks and .314 Lee pushed through sizer

12,5 grains Lovex D036 Powder

slight tapercripmed



100 m

two follow the first experiences Note this is an electronical Target



followed by



thx for sharing

Klaus

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Here is a website with much information on the markings etc:

http://www.allaboutenfields.co.nz/no4s/no4-mki/

ROF means Royal Ordnance Factory, probably Fazackerley or Maltby, which were both in the north of England, to reduce though not eliminate the possibility of bombing. The website says that a serial beginning with 2 means the Fazackerley factory, but I'm not sure whether there is anything preceding the 2 in yours. FTR means factory thorough repair, and the /46 apparently electrically engraved at the same time may mean it was done in 1946. It seems quite an ordinary wartime No4, but not having the simplified rear sight is a plus.

A high degree of accuracy wasn't expected of these rifles as issued, although the Lee-Enfield is pretty good at not getting worse. There are two ways it could probably be improved. One is by bedding, on which you should find plenty of information on target shooting sites, from the days when the use of the military rifle with minimal alteration was the dominant centrefire target discipline in the UK. Many No4 rifles were also made with oversize groove diameters. You may ind that it is much improved by the use of a larger diameter bullet. The .314 you have, unsized, might be a low-investment way of seeing if a diameter increase looks promising.

[Adam Helmer]

Klaus,

Very Nice #4 Enfield. Ballistics nailed it: You have a Factory-Through-Repair WWII rifle. As a serious military arms collector since 1958, I must say you have a nice rifle.

Good Shooting! I have several accurate cast boolits for my many .303s. The best are the Lyman 311467, a 175+/- grain gas check projectile. The other is the Lee 312-185RN gas check boolit. My best powders are 2400, IMR4198 and Unique, depending on the specific rifle. I suggest you keep good reloading notes; record the good and the bad to prevent reinventing the wheel!

Be well.

Adam

[Scharfschuetze]

That's a good find. The No 4 Mk 1 (and Mk 2) is a great long range rifle.

I was just shooting one of mine at our annual weekend shoot-a-thon in Central Washington. The target was a 2' X 2.5' box at 500 yards and magazine after magazine went into it from the sitting and prone positions. There was a full value wind out of the west at a steady 10 knots, but I have an AJ Parker attachment for the Mk I sight (like your sight) which handled the 3 to 4 MOA of deflection needed in the wind.

I have both a Lyman 314299 and an NOE 316299 moulds for normal and oversize Enfield bores and they are just great at fitting up a bullet properly for the various Enfield bores.

Have fun with yours. I hope that it shoots as well as it looks!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

If you want an alternative receiver sight, try putting up a followed search on ww.ebay.co.uk for Parker Enfield sight . That will get you Scharfsheutze's attachment under A or Alfred Parker, and also any of the wide range of receiver sights by Parker-Hale. The class act is the 5c, which despite being made for no-drill fitting, is about as good as target receivers get. It is likely to be expensive, but not as expensive as I have seen dealers selling or hoping to sell them. Your best chance of a bargain, though, is with someone who only knows it by the Parker-Hale number, and not what it is for.

It is also rather bulky. They did make more compact sporting receiver sights which are more compact with more fresh air around the disc, and should be cheaper. I'm not sure whether that includes a version of Parker-Hale's Sportarget sight, which is a sort of horizontal folding micrometer tang sight. The military aperture is larger than you need for target shooting or amusement, so if you become aware of a slight error of the elevation scale with your loads, you can stick on a piece of sheet metal with a smaller and higher or lower aperture, using epoxy or double-sided tape.

http://www.rifleman.org.uk/PH_Service_sights.htm

[fifty four]

A 1941 Fazakerley (as Ballistics in Scotland says) is pretty early, as they only started production sometime in the middle or so of that year. The "A" suffix in the serial number means that it's not entirely interchangeable, probably because it was originally made on a leftover No. 4 "Trials" receiver. After Dunkirk the British army was short on rifles, and couldn't afford to be wasteful where production was concerned, so they used everything they could lay hands on. The trials rifles were apparently slightly different somehow, though I can't really tell (I have one like yours, down to the hand stamped ROF 41 & serial on the butt socket) and some standard No.4 parts weren't 100% interchangeable, hence the "A" as a heads-up to armorers. Just some interesting trivia.

[nekshot]

One of my deep desires is to someday have one like yours! Great buy, enjoy it.

[Klaus]

Hi gent`s,

thx a lot for your answers to my questions.
there are some more stamps on this Rifle and i will take additional pics.

i measure the bore and got a result about 7.88 mm to 7,92 mm seems to around .312 ?
The Lee Bullet drops pretty close to 312. and i have no change to set a G/C with my Lee PT Tool .314
just setting the G/C with a Lyman .321 sizer without any pressure.

Untill today i avoid to dismantle this Rifle before i take the first target expriences. There are occur some Horror storys about the accuracy about the Lee Enfields but for my Rifle i have to say that this buy was a great success....

KLaus

[Texas by God]

Great score on a proven #4. I want one like yours.

[Klaus]

i was looking for a long time to find a No 4 or No 1

on the usal internet websites like E-Gun these kind of Rifles are rare and if available pretty expensive. I saw a price range at E-Gun between 300 and 600 Euros.
Dealers like Sportarms www.sportarms.com or Transarms http://www.transarms.de here in Germany have no Enfield on Stock

But i have had some luck by scrolling down on page 4 or 5 at my google site and found a local GunShop primarily a shop for conservative Hunters
and what did appear on their "used Weapon page"... a Mauser K98 SN 42 / 1937 pre war and the Lee Enfield...

what a day....

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Be careful with bore measurement, as with the five-groove barrel there is no spot where the true groove diameter or true land diameter can be measured from side to side. Actually corner of groove to corner of groove is good enough to give you a pretty fair idea of the bullet diameter you need. But it is better done from a lead slug driven through the bore, than from the muzzle itself.

Making that slug is also a useful guide to bore quality, if it pushes through smoothly, without encountering tight or loose spots. An advantage of an early No4 is that it is unlikely to have the late barrel which was a tube shrunk and pinned into a threaded stub. Most of these are fine, but I have heard of them loosening.

[Scharfschuetze]

But i have had some luck by scrolling down on page 4 or 5 at my google site and found a local GunShop primarily a shop for conservative Hunters
and what did appear on their "used Weapon page"... a Mauser K98 SN 42 / 1937 pre war and the Lee Enfield...

Klaus,

Are you in Germany? Just a guess from the photos of your range.

Did you also buy the Mauser? It's fun to shoot them side by side. Both are just great rifles.

Here is my No 4 MK I. It was made at the Long Branch Armory in Canada.

[Klaus]

Hi Scharfschütze,
unfortunately i can not open your link

yes you are right i am in Germany and yes the Range are terrible typical German, i will post some better picture about the range
it`s a pity and in no way comparable with shooting Ranges in the UK or the US or Canada or...... but we are lucky to have it 25 m 50 m and 100m

No the Mauser remained at the shop so far....

it is a very chaep price for it but i have a Mauser M 96 Carl Gustav a Turk Mauser sporter and the Lee Enfield....

Klaus

[Scharfschuetze]

Klaus,

I look forward to your photos of your range. Can you make a new thread on "Shooting in Germany?" That would be of interest to many of us here in the USA. With a thread about shooting ranges, we could all share photos of our home ranges. I have shot in Germany and thus I recognized the German style of ranges in your photos.

Viel Glück mit dem Enfield Gewehr!

Here is a photo of shooting a No 4 Mk I in the high desert of Arizona. I make a road trip once a year to shoot in Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming.

[Bad Ass Wallace]

My No.4 has the PH 5C fitted. Truly a rugged and precision instrument.

[Scharfschuetze]

Very nice Bad A$$.

I have a similar sight for the No I Mk III rifle, but I've never gotten around to installing it. It is the Parker Hale No 5 sight, which is a no gunsmith installation sight. It looks a little rough, but it is mechanically in very good condition for deflection and elevation.

[Klaus]

@ Bad *** that a very nice rear sight

@ Scharfschütze, well that`s a very good idea, i will open a new Thread under Shooting Ranges in Germany

but it depends on you if you turn sadly...... If you was in Germany at your Army Time most of the Soldiers are in the Middle or South of Germany like Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Munic. in the Areas the US Army had some Long Shooting Ranges but for the normal Guys here a 100 m Range is the top of Distance.

My Next possibility ( around 180 km ) for a 300 m Range is Wiesbaden Shooting Range .

i was there for the Germany Quickly LOng Range BPCR Match in 2014

For my Enfield i post some more pics in a follow up thread

KLaus

[Bad Ass Wallace]

I have several 303's with original sights, A Martini with Meus special, a 1902 "Longtom" with PH 7A





And a P14 with Parker Hale 5B

[Scharfschuetze]

Some of those sights are worth more than the rifles!

[Bad Ass Wallace]

I should imagine that English No. 4 would have a 4 groove english barrel? They lend themselves to plenty of cheep reloads by shooting cast boolits



No. 4 loads with 190gn 0.314"boolit (left) Martini Enfield with 220gn loads (right)


This 100yd group from an 1896 Martini Enfield 303