Does the difference matter?

[JohnH]

How are the MKIII and MK 4 magazines different. Promag is making two different parts. Does it matter? Can the MKIII be made to work in the MK 4?

[leadhead]

I don't think so..........
Denny

[lefty o]

as far as i know, yes it matters, and yet dont buy a pro mag. find an original if you expect it to feed.

[Ehaver]

as far as i know, yes it matters, and yet dont buy a pro mag. find an original if you expect it to feed.


Do you have any expirence with the Pro mags? I have only one, and have not had a problem with it. Was thinking of getting a few more...

[Ehaver]

Do you by chance mean a Lee-Enfield No. 4 and a Lee-Enfield MKIII?

[BruceB]

The magazine latch surfaces, on the backs of the #4 Mk1 and #1 MkIII magazines, are DIFFERENT, and the magazines will not interchange between the two rifle types.

[lefty o]

i dont have direct first hand experience with the promags, but for the enfields 90% of people have feeding problems with them. some can be tweaked , and some cant.

[Bloodman14]

I bought 1 Pro-mag many years ago; I gave it away.

[PAT303]

Do you have any expirence with the Pro mags? I have only one, and have not had a problem with it. Was thinking of getting a few more...
Buy stripper clips. Pat

[lefty o]

Buy stripper clips. Pat

stripper clips would do the job, assuming you have one good functional magazine for the rifle.

[Multigunner]

As Bruce B said the mags are different but not in basic form, the body of either mag will fit the mag well and theres no difference in angle of feed.Theres quite a difference in the manner of construction. Then again there were many manufacturers and several methods of construction were used at various times.You can fit a No.1 Magazine to work in a No.4 rifle, though you may have to file a bit off the mag's latch surface. Some will fit without difficulty if the latch surfaces of mag or rifle are already worn.Some No.4 Magazines will fit a No.1 rifle but will bind the magazine cut off plate if it is in place.Once fitted theres no difference in how well the mag feeds the cartridges. Most mags require some tweaking of the feed lips for smooth feeding, especially if the mag had once been fitted to another rifle even if it was of the same model.The best mag I've found for each rifle in a late war generic mag suited to either rifle. These have an open seam down the center at the bottom and appear to be a sort of clamshell construction.

[nekshot]

I got the pro mag to work perfect but I used a source from a english chap on the internet who really detailed how to tweek the clips. I made some bends that were very interesting but thats what made it work. I definetly like the originals better, but at least we have alternate source.

[Multigunner]

When they issued "Territorial" troops the MkVII ammunition they found that the older rifles which were optimised for the MkVI cartridge with round nose 215 grain bullets would not feed the MkVII ammo from the magazine.Those troops were stuck with single shot rifles till a shipment of replacement magazines got there.I'm sure they could have tweaked the lips enough to feed the MkVII but trying to fix each magazine by hand at the front would have been a nightmare. They'd have ended up with many ruined magazines and more than a few magazines that failed at just the wrong moment.The older magazines had features the SMLE magazine doesn't normally have. One is a C curved spring rather than the Z shaped spring.There are actually dozens of variations of the Lee Enfield and Lee Metford magazines, with capacities of 6,8,10,and 12 rounds. They settled on the ten rounder.There was even a 20 or 25 round trench magazine. Almost all of those were scraped but a few have shown up at outrageous prices.Had they kept those in storage instead of sending them to the chopper it would have simplified the Charleton LMG conversions and other semi auto conversions of the older Enfields. There might have been more of those in use.