Any Isphore fans out there?

[Andrew Quigley]

I love mine. Bought it several years back at a gun store for 100 bucks. Wood and finish were like new and the action great. Bought a scope mount for it and my father-inlaw had a NIB Weaver 6x9x40 scope, he bought it in the early 70's, so I put it on.
Shoots great. Haven't shot it much in the last year or so cause I was down to my last 200 rds mil-surp 308. Planning to start casting and reloading for it. Got the dies but not the mold. Only use it for target practice. Don't have any pics or I'd show her off.

[mike in co]

i have one, long thin bbl makes it tough on buulet accuracy, but think boolits in a lite load might do fine. anything from the 150's up...i'm pterry sure mine is a 1/12 twist.

have done no load development with this rifle.'

mike in co

[Gunfreak25]

The Ishapores are great, very well built weapons. I got mine when they were $99 from AIM as a "shooter grade" special. It required some fiberglassing of the internals of the stock to repair it though. These rifles were shot very little, but were handled like hell.

The barrels on these rifles are specially designed all around the the new (at the time) 7.62 nato round. Meaning most will shoot their best when loaded with 147 grain, or any Milspec type bullet. There were less than 500,000 made, so collectors value will really skyrocket in the years to come. That and with the economy the way it is, lots of people are on the lookout for inexpensive 7.62NATO chambered weapons in an effort to standardize their calibers.

Here's mine:

[Andrew Quigley]

Bought a spare mag for mine on a vacation down to Clearwater Florida some years back. If I remember right I had to pay 40 bucks for it, but since I hadn't been able to find one anywhere else I went ahead and got it.

[Freightman]

Lee 185 gr boolit shoots great in mine, up to 2300 fps with no leading, have shot 147gr fmj with IMR 4895 2700 FPS all in the x ring at 100 yds. As you can see I like mine.

[JeffinNZ]

Smokemjoe did a write up in the CBA Fouling Shot recently on his experiences. Worth a read if you can get a copy. OR, if you ask him nice he may post here.

[Andrew Quigley]

Freightman, that 2300 was with no gas check?

JeffinNZ I'd like to read that. Maybe he'll see this thread and be so kind to post it.

[Freightman]

That is a gas ck boolit, I did shoot it without but with 10gr Unique no problems, but not as accurate as GC even with the same Unique load.

[Gerry N.]

I had one of those pot-irons for a while. It looked as if it had been built in the dark and test run downhill. All the metal had a thick coat of what looked like gloss black enamel, then slathered in locomotive waste oil. The wood was coated in some sort of foul smelling grease. The buttplate seemed to be a rough zinc casting held on with a couple of screws salvged from a junk box.

That said , once I got the grease off and out of the rifle, it did shoot fairly well. Not well enough to keep, though, I sold it for $150, three times what I paid for it.

The only Enfield I have now is a '44 Long Branch #4 I paid $50 for in the cosmoline. It is a wonderful shooter, a great deal more accurate than I am.

Gerry N.

[mike in co]

I had one of those pot-irons for a while. It looked as if it had been built in the dark and test run downhill. All the metal had a thick coat of what looked like gloss black enamel, then slathered in locomotive waste oil. The wood was coated in some sort of foul smelling grease. The buttplate seemed to be a rough zinc casting held on with a couple of screws salvged from a junk box.

That said , once I got the grease off and out of the rifle, it did shoot fairly well. Not well enough to keep, though, I sold it for $150, three times what I paid for it.

The only Enfield I have now is a '44 Long Branch #4 I paid $50 for in the cosmoline. It is a wonderful shooter, a great deal more accurate than I am.

Gerry N.

that "gloss black enamel" has an official name..."stoving" ( i guess from stove black) and its the real finish.

mike in co

[Gunfreak25]

The buttplates on these are aluminum, and the common belief is that the Indians used these are drill rifles. Hence the many stocks repairs. Cracks in the stocks were repaired with splicing in a small sliver of wood running opposite with the grain, which cuts the crack off and keeps it from enlarging. The Indians wasted nothing, my buttplate was also broken once, instead of replacing it, the Indians brazed the two parts back together. Very sloppish I might add.
The Indians made great rifles of very high quality, but these rifles were made for one purpose. They were tools of war, and were treated as such. Rough abuse to say the least. They were rode hard and put away dirty. The black paint prevented rust, and the main reason the bores on most of these are in good shape is because they were fired little, and there is no corrosive 7.62x51 nato in existance. Once cleaned up though, they make great weapons. If you own one that isn't accurate, it's probably not the rifle. But the shooter.
So yes, I am a big fan of the Ishapore made 2A.

[Andrew Quigley]

I must have lucked out on mine as it was in pristine condition when I got it. Wasn't very accurate with some Chinese ammo I bought with it. But when i went to some mil-surp Israelia (can't spell) it went down to 2" groups at 100yrds using open sights. Little better with a scope added later.

[Gerry N.]

that "gloss black enamel" has an official name..."stoving" ( i guess from stove black) and its the real finish.

mike in co

The glop slathered on my 2A was not stoving. My #4 is stoved and you can barely tell it from parkerizing without instruments. The 2A had runs, hair, bugs, and dirt embedded in that locomotive enamel as well as paint brush bristles. I could get a thumbnail under it in places and lift chunks of it off the steel.

I don't think the buttplate was aluminum, I'm pretty sure it was zinc and was liberally strewn with gas bubbles. lt wasn't fitted, only slapped on, and had at best a tenuous relationship with the buttstock.
There were two nasty splits in the forend which were held shut by two non matching wood screws, a round head brass one and a badly burred steel one.
It also had the "Ishapore Screw" in the forend just forward of the magazine.

I was told by my neighbor, who had been a Captain in the Indian Army that the government needed to arm conscripts who they A: Didn't trust with automatic rifles, and
B: Had great difficulty training as most were illiterate and totally non mechanical.

So they did some re-engineering on the #1 Mk III Enfield to strengthen the reciever and adapt the magazine to function with rimless cartriges. Stocks from junked #1's were reused as well as new ones made from whatever tropical hardwoods were adaptable, teak was one.

The reason they used the Enfield design is that the Ishapore arsenal could turn them out quickly in vast quantities, and it's simple in operation.

All that said, it did shoot well enough, I could keep surplus Indian 7.62x51 in a four inch bull at fifty yards. I kind of liked it in a red headed stepchild sort of way and only sold it because a friend really fell in like with it. He's already popped two Coast Blacktails with it.

Three Hawks

[Gunfreak25]

That is an interesting story, and good information on your neighbors behalf to boot.
Is there any way you could ask your neighbor what the hell Indians used for screwdrivers?
The majority of the screws on these 2A's are all buggered up. I had to peen the heads of all mine, then use a dremel to recut a new slot. Came out like new.

[Gerry N.]

That is an interesting story, and good information on your neighbors behalf to boot.
Is there any way you could ask your neighbor what the hell Indians used for screwdrivers?
The majority of the screws on these 2A's are all buggered up. I had to peen the heads of all mine, then use a dremel to recut a new slot. Came out like new.

Unfortunately they moved a couple of years ago. I did get the impression that he considered the conscripts to be barely human and arming them with anything more lethal than a stick was folly. Training them was almost impossible as out of three hundred, there would be ten religious and ethinic groups all hostile to each other, and as many different languages. Just getting them to eat together without killing one another was a major breakthrough. That country has got some real problems.

And from all the 2A's I've seen the Indians have only heard rumors of a screwdriver. I'd go so far as to guess their idea of a screwdriver is what we'd call a piece of flat bar pounded with a rock to sort of a flattish point. I was made to understand that to most Indian peasants the closest thing to a machine they know is a wooden pry pole or a wood cart wheel.

Three Hawks

[smokemjoe]

My best load in the Ishapore is 33 gr. Ball-C and CBE bullet 313215, at 100 yds. 4 shots at .730 and my flyer = 2.618, or same bullet ,14 gr. 2400, 4 shots at .846 and my flyer = 2 in.
14 gr. 4759,27 gr. 3031 and 27 gr. Rel.7 are all good loads. I have a P&H real sigth that a fellow from NZ sent me and I glass bedded the action in 4-5 steps, I have shot a mold from CBE that wt. at 240 Grs. which was a good shooter also. Hope this helps. - Joe

[jh45gun]

I had one and it was disapointing would not shoot well with factory ammo or my handloads or milsurp ammo either I tried it all. Even scoped it did the same groups so I dumped it. I was very disapointed but then milsurps are a crap shoot. The bore looked great but is sure would not shoot well and yea the crown was good.

[Andrew Quigley]

What bullet weight is best for these rifles? 150gr?

[jonk]

Mine will shoot south African surplus very well; but doesn't shoot handloads that well. At least not using 150 gr M2 bullets.

I've not gotten to cast for this one yet. Some day.

[LEDSLINGER]

that "gloss black enamel" has an official name..."stoving" ( i guess from stove black) and its the real finish.

mike in co

While I cannot speak as to what the Indian arsenals used as a finish on the 2A's I do know that the original wartime finish on the British made #4Mk1 rifles and #5 Mk1 was called "suncorite" a fairly hard durable type of paint, nothing like stove black. In fact with today's new awareness of "hazardous " materials Suncorite is considered pretty nasty and should be applied with sofisticated respiration equipment. Once dry it is fairly inert as far as any hazards are concerned. Savage & Long Branch #4 Mk1* were given a traditional blueing finish