Mk4 SMLE - loading advice

[West Creek]

I just acquired my father in laws british enfield. He baught it to hunt deer probably back in the 50's. He kept pretty good care of it. Fired remington ammunition. Once I get the copper out of it I plan to shoot what ammunition he had left and load cast for it. He and Uncle Charlie bubba-ized it but I think I'll leave it as such. They cut down the wood, floated the barrel, checkered it and carved initials on one side and deer head on the other. Uncle Charlie did a real nice job on the checkering too. It has alot of those two guys in it. This might be the one gun I have that might bring a smile to my wifes face when I play with it!!!

I don't have any dies or moulds for it. Probably look for two loads - plinker-target load and another in case I run across the opportunity to hunt something biggern a coyote or deer. Any advice on loading boolits would be greatly appreciated. I cast and load alot for pistol caliber and a 32-40 but this will be my first bottle neck cartridge.

[DIRT Farmer]

When you get the bore clean and slug it you might find you alredy have a mould for it. The 32-40 casting may be close to what you need. What model is it and how many groves in the barrel

[doubs43]

Enfield bores are all over the map diameter-wise so do slug yours to see what it is. I've found that a 165 grain cast boolit sized .001" over groove diameter and loaded with AA-1680 between 19.5 and 21.5 grains will shoot quite well in most Enfields.

[jonkzak]

I have several lee's and I shoot cast in them all day and have a blast. I cast the lee 303-185 gr, and the two 7.62x39-155 gr. and 160 gr. molds lee also offers. Tumble lube all, and try to keep the fps under 1800. Gas check all rounds.

I have two, five, six grove rifling, and I find the 2 grove to be the most accurate.

One load I use is 5050 (50cal) powder to the top of the case and seat the 185. Runs about 1600fps...

Have fun and keep the pressure low as the enfield action is rated for about 47,000-52,000 psi...

Jonkzak

[Boz330]

Absolutely keep the rifle as is. When your FIL sporterized this rifle they were really cheap compared to factory rifles and you don't need all of that wood on a hunting rifle. From the sound of it, it is well done and a family heirloom.
Considering the collector value I don't advocate reworking good milsurp rifles now days. In days gone by though these rifles sold from $10 to $15 when a factory rifle was a weeks pay or more. Some of these bubbadized rifles were real pieces of art and some were just utilitarian chopped up military rifles that put meat on the table and to the user just another tool. And they owned the gun and were free to do whatever they wanted with it.

Bob

[longbow]

I have two moulds I use for Lee Enfield:

- NOE 316299 (200 gr.)
- NOE 0.314" x 129 gr.

The 316299 casts a hair over 0.315" in my alloy and I had to lap the 0.314" x 129 gr. as it cast right on 0.314" which is right on spec. I knew I would have to open it up a bit for my gun when I bought the mould.

My throat is 0.315" so I need a fat boolit. As mentioned by doubs43, bores for these guns are all over the place but most seem to be large requiring a boolit of around 0.314".

There are two group buys on right now for the same moulds I have:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=107545
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=104096

First thing to do is slug the bore and throat to determine what size boolit it wants and go from there.

Good info here too:

http://www.303british.com/

There is a good article by David Southall on shooting cast in Lee Enfields along with some load data.

Longbow

[beemer]

Using a Lee collet neck sizer instead of a full length sizer will help case life, the necks are worked a lot less with the collet die. You can also back off the full length sizer and not set the shoulder back. Annealing the necks helps brass life also.

If loading jacketed bullets things work better if you stay away from max loads, better case life again and usually better acuracy.

I use the Lee 185 more than any other boolit I have. For cast I mostly use IMR 4198, for jacketed I have had the best results with Reloader 15.

Dave

[drklynoon]

I have a number 1 mk 3 from 1951 It's not quite the same but close enough. I do shoot lead through it but not for much more than plinking purposes I use the 185 gr lee mould. for accuracy I use a 174 gr hornandy bullet with 31.4 gr of 3031. This is a starting load but it gives me case life and it shoots about an 1" MOA. The gun was bought about 20 years ago at a gun show with at least a half inch of gook and some wood rot and she was banded for launching grenades. turns out it's one of the best milsurps I own who'd a guessed it.