Lee Enfield (No4) in action.

[303Guy]

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...d-smle-mk-iii/

Enjoy.

[samari46]

Good read and both my Lee Enfields thank you. One is a 1947 Faz and the other is a 1942 Long Branch Parker Hale sporter. Frank

[Adam Helmer]

303 Guy,

I tried several times and ONLY read about the MkIII*. The No4, Mk1 is a lesser rifle than the Original MkIII before lesser nit wits removed the windage adjustable rear sight, in my humble opinion. ANY military rifle without an EASILY Windage adjustable sight, is junk!

I have read how a windage adjustment sight is beyond the dumb draftee's mind set! WOT? "Tommy" cannot correct for different shot placement per shot placement by different ammo lots?? A brain transplant per soldier may be needed before we REMOVE the Windage Adjustable rear sights. WHO DEEMED an EASILY Windage Click on The MKIII rear sight was a "Bad" thing?????

Webley

[bruce drake]

Because when you are drafting millions into the army, its easy to teach them how to lead their target as well as lowers production costs of the rifle themselves by using a battlesight versus a windage adjustable rear sight...square receivers over rounded receivers saved time in the milling machines... Same reason why they went to Zamak for the buttplates and saved the brass for the cartridges...9" Spike bayonets over 16" bayonet blades...

Sometimes the wars are won on the battlefield but WWI and WWII was also won due to economics.

Bruce

[Bloodman14]

The Enfield family of battle rifles are just that; battle rifles. Competition shooting wasn't in the minds of the logistics people when these rifles were being designed and manufactured. That's what the aftermarket is for. Not having an adjustable rear sight does not make them a 'lesser' rifle by any means. Just sayin'.

[northmn]

They had an windage adjustment for the front sight. You can see on mine where the front sight has a screw that can be tightened to hold the front sight. Takes a special wrench. It was a one time deal. They did have some problems with adjustment during the early days of the Boer war but that was remedied. The 303 had a long history and like many military rifles took some time to work out its quirks.

The SMLE was considered by many to be the best bolt action battle rifle made. The bolt was located such that no unnecessary hand movement was needed to work it. The loose goose chambers accommodated the variations of ammo made available by different suppliers. The Canadians made the Ross rifle that was too tight and had problems in WW 1 with it not feeding right. Military ammo is only fired once and headspace was not an issue. It was accurate enough. May not win bench rests but it does work. At one time military rifles like the Mosin mentioned in the article had longer barrels. They found the troops preferred the shorter barrels. Germans started out with 29" barrels and shortened them to about 23".

Got my first deer with my SMLE #4. Always had a soft spot for them.


DP

[atr]

got my first deer with a $35.00 SMLE#4 also
I always like the rifle. They were not target grade but the could get the job done.

[leebuilder]

Got my first deer with an LB#4,since sold it and got another that I still use today and a fancier one with a scope. Growing up here everyone had a #1, #4 or a ross tucked away in the corner.
The finest battle rifle made. The right arm of the commonwealth.
Be well

[FLINTNFIRE]

Have got a few critters with the number1 mark3 and with number 4 both fine rifles and well worth having

[303Guy]

I have a 1902 MLE with a No.4 barrel fitted and a scope. It shoots 1 1/4 MOA ten shot groups all day long. Then I have a scoped LB #4 two-groove with a 'rust textured' bore that as far as I can tell it shoots sub-MOA. I've never done a ten shot group with it but it always hits the point I was aiming at. It has a 'semi-suppressor' on it that takes the recoil right out but it's not as quiet as I would want. Ok, so this one is no longer 'military' - nor is the 1 1/4 MOA rifle. One thing I do regret is not having a full military dress Lee Enfield.

I once put together a MkIII with a new barrel, scope and fiberglass stock I made. It couldn't do better than 2 MOA but it could do it with any ammo - same POI. That thing was so sweet to shoulder. I wonder whether it would have tightened up if it had a device on the muzzle to dampen muzzle whip. I have a No.III chambered in 303/25 with a No.III profiled barrel and with a small suppressor it shot sub-MOA.

Anyway, did y'all see how fast and accurately the guy in the vid was shooting that No.4?

Here is the rifle with the fiberglass stock.

Notice the notch at the front of the come? That's because the come is so high and too long for the bolt to come out. To remove the bolt one has to turn the cocking piece sideways. It was my first attempt at making a fiberglass stock. The guy I made it for was very happy and shot plenty of game with it.

This is what I mean by 'rust textured'.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Got my 1st #4 Mk1 Enfield thru the mail from JC Pennies store in Chicago back in 1960. I believe it was $15 and 100 rounds of ball ammo was $8! The rifle turned out to be a US Property stamped made by Savage. Still got it and it still shoots very nice.Robert

[MOC031]

The Canadians made the Ross rifle that was too tight and had problems in WW 1 with it not feeding right.

This is an oft repeated explanation, but it fails to discuss all the issues in the debate. My brother is the Ross Rifle freak in the family; do a cerrosafe cast on the chambers of a few Ross rifles, measure them up, and the "chambers too tight" rational kind of falls apart. They're not much different than a chamber cast from a Winchester Model 1895 in 303 British and another chamber casting my brother has from some other rifle.

Furthermore, as this became part of the dispute flying back and forth between Britain and Canada (and in Canada between Charles Ross, Sam Hughes, and others), Ross chambers were quickly reamed out (if you have a military Ross, look for a "LC" stamp on the action to indicate Large Chamber). That did nothing to appease the cat fight, particularly with the news media at home abuzz about Canadian lads dead because of their rifles... kinda the precursor of the M16's entry into Vietnam. Very similar story in many ways.

It starts with a minor political spat between Canada and Britain about arms and military arsenals, with Britain refusing to build an arsenal in the colony. That led to the Ross. The Ross had been around for years by the time WWI started; it worked perfectly fine both on ranges and on military exercises (Camp Aldershot has LOTS of wet and mud for those who believe "if it ain't rainin', it ain't trainin'). But it worked fine with CANADIAN .303 British ammunition, loaded at Dominion Arsenals in either Lindsay Ontario or the Dominion Arsenal located in Quebec (can't remember what city).

The headlong plunge into WWI, the sheer volume of ammunition expended, and the quality of British .303 ammunition became, most charitably, *****. Tolerances with .303 ammunition were, again most charitably, all over the map for the first two or three years of the war. When soldiers with Ross Rifles were issued Canadian ball ammunition, there were no particularly unusual problems. When the ammunition was British, that was when there were problems. It didn't help that at times "the colonials" were issued lots of ammunition that the British had rejected as being too poor for their use in their SMLEs. If a SMLE couldn't digest it, a Ross had no chance whatsoever. The Canadian soldiers, incidentally, were well aware of this and went to pains to have Canadian ammunition as much as possible.

The Ross remained in front line service with the Canadians for the first three years of the war, gradually being replaced by the SMLE by the end of 1916. They remained in service as sniper rifles to the end of the war, mounting a Warner & Swasey 5x scope. Francis Pegahmagabow, a Canadian Ojibwa native, was credited with sniping 378 Germans with that Ross Rifle setup. Many of those his victims were during the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Passchendaele - where there was no shortage of mud. Pegahmagabow would probably have been awarded the Victoria Cross for one action where he went out into No Man's Land to retrieve sufficient ammunition to allow his section to continue fighting and drive off a German attack - except he was a native.

The "can't take the mud" story usually doesn't mention that the ***** British ammunition often necessitated soldiers getting a stuck case extracted by placing the butt on the ground in the trench and then stomping with their boot sole down on the bolt handle to generate sufficient force to extract the case. Doing this with muddy boots helped to get an unusually large amount of mud in the action - something any rifle would have had a problem with. Slamming the bolt into the bolt stop also burred up the mating metal parts - which didn't help any either. Stomping the bolt latch to extract a stuck case came back into vogue with the FN FAL, incidentally. The FN FAL was an incredibly reliable battle rifle, but when a case did get stuck, soldiers commonly resorted to the old trick of placing the butt on the ground and stomping the bolt latch... infantry doesn't change much, generation to generation.

My interest in bolt action military rifles primarily focuses on Long Branch No. 4 Mk Is... but every time I shoot my brother's Ross Rifles, I think I might be missing something. They're disgustingly accurate, and the strength of the action is the equivalent of modern rifles.

Sorry to go on... military history wonks easily wander off into trivia world.

[Texas by God]

Good read, MOC. I'm hitting the imaginary LIKE button.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[JoeJames]

My Faz that had been bubbaed pretty much up to and including the removal of the upper handguard, half the forestock, and the front sight protector. I restored it to close to the Canadian civilian issue No 4's.

[Adam Helmer]

.303 Guy,

I own many SMLES in all "Flavours." The No. 4 was ok for the draftees who had no rifle experience for various reasons in England. Why did the Brits seek a BETTER caliber and the P13 Rifle pre-World War One? Why did the Brits stay with the archaic Rimmed .303 cartridge? Why did the Brits drop the .455 Eley Cartridge for the "Anemic" .38/200 handgun cartridge? The same "Military Intelligence" folks DROPPED the windage adjustable rear sight for their rifles. Wotever!

Adam

[justashooter]

i have a scoped #1 MK3 sporter that i added a bipod and L1A1 flash hider to on a lark. had a stroke that took most of my vision for 6 months and accidentally walked into the bayonet night after i got home from the hospital. ****, those things are sharp. right into the meat of my right calf. bled all over the living room floor on the way back to bed.

who the hell forgets to put the sheath back on thier bayo when they set up their rifle in the middle of the living room for shooting groundhogs in the front pasture thru the open living room door?

one of about a dozen enfields. cases of that HXP ammo 70's headstamp and boxer primed.

[Bad Ass Wallace]

These 1901/2 LE rifles had no windage adjustment in the rear sight blade, the next model MK3 had adjustment, which was dropped a few years later with the progression to the MK3*.

[Adam Helmer]

i have a scoped #1 MK3 sporter that i added a bipod and L1A1 flash hider to on a lark. had a stroke that took most of my vision for 6 months and accidentally walked into the bayonet night after i got home from the hospital. ****, those things are sharp. right into the meat of my right calf. bled all over the living room floor on the way back to bed.

who the hell forgets to put the sheath back on thier bayo when they set up their rifle in the middle of the living room for shooting groundhogs in the front pasture thru the open living room door?

one of about a dozen enfields. cases of that HXP ammo 70's headstamp and boxer primed.

justashooter,

PLEASE elaborate HOW a fixed bayonet on your living room chuck rifle was needed to shoot chucks? Not many of our PA chucks storm my living room. How often did you bayonet a chuck in your living room? Different strokes.....!

Adam

[tbx-4]

In reference to a few posts above.
A No4 Enfield is not an SMLE. It is a No4, you will not find SMLE stamped on a No4. SMLE production ended with the No1 Mk5.

In reference to post #12
It was not common practice to stomp on the charging handle of an FAL/LAR to unseat a stuck case. The typical procedure was to hold charging handle in left hand and hand guard in right hand. With the rifle pointing straight up and slamming the butt hard on the ground while lightly pulling down on the charging handle, the inertia will force the stuck case and bolt back and the case will fall out. It may take a couple tries to get the case out. This is called pogo-sticking and it was/is the SOP to remove a stuck case.

Cases sticking in FALs and Ross rifles happen for totally different reasons. In the FAL it is because of not enough gas pressure acting upon the piston and bolt carrier, thus causing a short stroke. The cartridge is fired, extracted only part way without contacting the ejector then jammed back into the chamber by action of the recoil springs. Adjusting the gas regulator to vent less gas from the gas port and more to the piston solves the short stroke stuck case.

[BigEyeBob]

My Son used my No1 MkIII on camels this week .