.303 Big Brit!

[1shot]

Hi guys, I have a nice "un-altered" Lee Enfield #4 with a shiney five groove barrel I would really like to cast for.
Last night I pushed a pure lead bullet down from the muzzle. After travelling the full length it measured .314 which is a whole lot bigger than I was hoping for as it severely limits casting options. And then, if I do end up with something viable will I have trouble chambering the loaded cartridge?

Any ideas?
Cheers!

[RayinNH]

Lyman 314299 should work swimmingly for you...Ray

[Piedmont]

I have a couple with a .316" groove. They will chamber and shoot a .318" bullet fine. That's no guarantee yours will, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

[Bullshop Junior]

Hi guys, I have a nice "un-altered" Lee Enfield #4 with a shiney five groove barrel I would really like to cast for.
Last night I pushed a pure lead bullet down from the muzzle. After travelling the full length it measured .314 which is a whole lot bigger than I was hoping for as it severely limits casting options. And then, if I do end up with something viable will I have trouble chambering the loaded cartridge?

Any ideas?
Cheers!
That is not bad. We had one with a .318" groove. we got it from a old guy who said it shot terrible.
I wrecked it trying to take the barrel off. I still feel stupid about it.........

[Multigunner]

Hi guys, I have a nice "un-altered" Lee Enfield #4 with a shiney five groove barrel I would really like to cast for.
Last night I pushed a pure lead bullet down from the muzzle. After travelling the full length it measured .314 which is a whole lot bigger than I was hoping for as it severely limits casting options. And then, if I do end up with something viable will I have trouble chambering the loaded cartridge?

Any ideas?
Cheers!

Thats really not so bad, the SAID drawings give a maximum acceptable bore of .319, with .313 the standard. Bores of the nominal .303-.311 are the rare exception rather than the rule.
The British depended greatly on bullet upset to fill out the grooves, a common enough practice with 19th century cartridge designs. The Gew88 also depended on bullet upset, bullets measuring .318 while bores generally measured .321, with some variation.

The bullets should bump up fine, the only source of problems is if the throat is loose enough that the bullet can become cocked out of line before bumping up.

I only size one third of the neck of a fired case, and rotate 180 degrees after first firing.
This centers the bullet and lines it up with the bore so theres no noticable tilting before the bullet enters the rifling.
That alone can cut group size in half.

[JeffinNZ]

CBE in AU have a large range of .303 bullets. Jim makes them to actually fit. I highly recommend this one.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v505/JeffinNZ/Shooting%20stuff/IMG_00391.jpg

CBE 316-240. Mine casts, in WW, at .3165 and 238gr. I shoot them as cast.

Another good one is the 316 175. Again, casts at .3165 but only 178gr in WW.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v505/JeffinNZ/Shooting%20stuff/316175100m.jpg

www.castbulletengineering.com

[Buckshot]

...........You really want to try and fit the throat, so long as it's OD isn't simply insane. Assuming for conversation's sake your .314" grooved rifle had a (say) .317" throat, you could size to .316". Where are you going to get a .316" slug? You could start out by sizing down an 8mm cast slug. I did that for a 7.65x53 Argentine that sported a .305" bore but had a .314" groove. The good ole Lyman 314299 just couldn't hack that .305" measurement. I figured I was truly screwed :-)

Then the wild hair struck and I lube-sized a Lyman 323470 slug (165gr Loverin) to .323" and then used a Lee .314" push through size die, and squirted that .323" slug up through it slicker then anything. Worked a treat! Of course in your case, you'd need a .316" push through die using the supposed .317" throat OD.

..............Buckshot

[m.chalmers]

Enfield sites:
http://forums.gunboards.com/forumdisplay.php?55-The-Lee-Enfield-Forum
http://www.milsurps.com/forumdisplay.php?f=72
http://www.303british.com/id37.html
http://www.enfield-stuff.com/
Then you have the current Bible by Ian Skennerton:
http://www.skennerton.com/

I started with "one" Enfield 40+ years ago. Now, I only need one, a No.1 Mark VI. Then I'll have all the published ones. The wife hates my Enfielidest :)

[bearmn56]

1shot,
NEI makes a 318200GC mould. I got some boolits cast with this mould from a friend. They look similar to the Lyman 314299 but have wider grease grooves. I have a No4 Mk2 that has a .313-314" groove dia. These boolits sized to .314 shoot very well...I am using 25.0gr of H4198. Vel is around 1800fps. I also have used the 314299 sized the same with good results.

One oddity that I have is a Lyman 311414 boolit mould. This boolit looks like a 30cal 150gr FMJ bullet....like found in the 30cal Ball M2, 30-06 military round. This mould casts a .315" boolit. I just discovered how oversized it was and have fired a few in the .303 with good results.
The first two boolits with the heavy round nose do not reliably feed out of the magazine of my rifle. Surprisingly, the 311414 feeds great...more experimenting is in order.
Bearmn56
Montana Territory

[Jack Stanley]

1shot , it's good to hear you got one with a nice tight groove diameter [smilie=1:My first number one measured out to take a .318" diameter slug . I sent a slug of the throat to Veral Smith and he made a nice double cavity mold for the rifle .

I tend to believe the guys when they say that .311" is an oddity , I had a Savage number four with a .317" and a P-14 with a .316" groove . There have been a couple of group buys for "fat"bullets and NOE has one on the list for a 314299 . If the nose fits , you are in good :)

Jack

[Boz330]

CBE in AU have a large range of .303 bullets. Jim makes them to actually fit. I highly recommend this one.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v505/JeffinNZ/Shooting%20stuff/IMG_00391.jpg

CBE 316-240. Mine casts, in WW, at .3165 and 238gr. I shoot them as cast.

Another good one is the 316 175. Again, casts at .3165 but only 178gr in WW.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v505/JeffinNZ/Shooting%20stuff/316175100m.jpg

www.castbulletengineering.com

+1 to what Jeff says. The CBE 316240 saved my #1 from being sold off. Not only that but it arrived at my door for $64 US. You can't get an NEI for that price and the CBE's quality is heads and shoulders above anything NEI puts out now days.

Bob

[PAT303]

1shot , it's good to hear you got one with a nice tight groove diameter [smilie=1:My first number one measured out to take a .318" diameter slug . I sent a slug of the throat to Veral Smith and he made a nice double cavity mold for the rifle .

I tend to believe the guys when they say that .311" is an oddity , I had a Savage number four with a .317" and a P-14 with a .316" groove . There have been a couple of group buys for "fat"bullets and NOE has one on the list for a 314299 . If the nose fits , you are in good :)

Jack

.311 dia groove dia aren't an oddity,they never made them.All .303 enfields had .303 bores but the groove dia was .312 to lower the pressure as cordite burned hotter in the South African heat when the rifles first saw combat there.When the rifles were made the dia then got bigger,95% are .313-.314 and then when the brits fought Rommel thier No.4's were made with .316 bores that ended up being .317-.318.As Jeff has said many times if you shoot an enfield CBE molds are the only way to go. Pat

[docone31]

Paper patch. You can make it any size you want and keep a standard mold.
You will need to get your dies re-sized though. I had to send mine back to Lee with two castings to compensate for.
Came back pretty quickly and, did a great job!
Mine sizes at .314.

[Multigunner]

.311 dia groove dia aren't an oddity,they never made them.All .303 enfields had .303 bores but the groove dia was .312 to lower the pressure as cordite burned hotter in the South African heat when the rifles first saw combat there.When the rifles were made the dia then got bigger,95% are .313-.314 and then when the brits fought Rommel thier No.4's were made with .316 bores that ended up being .317-.318.As Jeff has said many times if you shoot an enfield CBE molds are the only way to go. Pat

My 1915 MkIII has a .311 bore, not because it was intentionally manufactured that way, but because wartime production sometimes leads to out of spec barrels slipping past inspection. By that point any bore not too small to let daylight through was acceptable.
At some point they even decided that straightening barrels was no longer necessary so long as the last six inches of the bore was reasonably straight.
I've heard of bores as small as .309 being found on wartime production rifles.
A worn barrel was still acceptable if the central bore (major dia) was no more than 307.

To further confuse matters the SMLE MkI came out with a reverse tapered bore, the last fourteen inches lapped oversized to reduce friction to allow a MkVI bullet fired from the shorter barrel to match the velocity of a MkVI fired from the Long Lee barrel. The reverse taper barrels can slug out at the muzzle as high as .321 and still have been accepted.
A parallel bore replacement barrel for SMLE MkI rifles was approved in 1917, so SMLE MkI rifles can be found with either type bore.

I've slugged a few of the various Enfields and found one .312 1918 and one British manufacture No.4 also with a .312. I have my eye on that No.4, it belongs to a friend and I plan to trade him out of it sooner or later.

.311 is the industry standard for a commercial sporter barrel in .303, though how many sporter barrels actually would slug out at that is debatable. Especially since so many .303 sporters were built by BSA and others using the same machinery they used to supply military Enfields under contract.
The industry standard headspace for the .303 is minimum .064 and maximum .068, and we know that means next to nothing when it comes to Enfield headspace.
Cartridge dimension tolerances were also all over the map, with the British loosening their acceptance standards till not only Ross rifles often couldn't chamber British manufacture ammo, but ammo for use in aircraft machineguns had to be carefully inspected for rim thickness and weight, and finally drawn from specially marked lots known to fit into the narrower range of tolerances and the crates marked first with a Green Cross (1917) and later (1918) the ammo especially made for the RAF (or RFC) and marked in Red.

The Enfields were like the AK47 of Bolt Action rifles, and like the AK quality ranged from excellent to barely passable, with many shortcuts taken to avoid production bottlenecks and to put as many useable rifles in the hands of the troops as possible.

The Black Powder era design allowed for endless repair and upgrades that could keep a rifle serviceable for generations.
The British thought no more of replacing the action body than we would in replacing a bolt, it was just another part rather than the heart of the rifle. Up until the 1920's the serial number of a receiver meant less than the number on the barrel. They still used the same numbering system used in muzzle loader days.
This is probably why so many WW1 and earlier Enfields show signs of the number being scrubbed and restruck, to match the number of a replacement barrel I suspect.
Struck through or overstamped numbers are common, force matching or humping is the common term, but I figure they came from long term storage like this rather than being altered by an importer.
I've found obvious grinding away of numbers under bolt handles, and found the missing numbers had been a sort of tracking number to keep bolt and acion bodies from getting mixed up before proof testing and numbering of the finished rifle. Sometimes these numbers can still be found intact, and they bear no resemblence to the numbers on receiver rings.

Matching numbers do increase value, they at least indicate that a replacement part was installed and tested by a company armorer, but so long as the lugs are evenly seated and headspace within reason one bolt is about as good as another so far as shooting qualities go.

[PAT303]

If you have a rifle with a .311 groove dia that is the only one I've ever heard of. Pat

[Multigunner]

If you have a rifle with a .311 groove dia that is the only one I've ever heard of. Pat

Its the only one I've found so far.
The Minor is .303 and Major .311, which means the grooves are .004, which would put groove depth under the supposed .005 minimum according to the SAID specifications.
Its the only reason I got this rifle, because I had always intended to try cast boolits and my two groove Savage is unlikely to work out well with cast.

On first looking up the bore the relatively shallow grooves are obvious, but the lands are flat and sharp, the bevel of the short cone is clear and sharp. Theres no sign of wear or erosion.
While the barrel number and receiver ring numbers match I suspect the rifle was rebarreled at some point.
Theres what appears to be the small N denoting Naval issue on the triggerguard, but its hard to say since the markings sort of run together in places.

The action strap markings show no sign of ever having a * or of one being overstruck.

I've read that action bodies were produced in runs, and sometimes not assembled into complete rifles till many years later on, don't know if the date on the strap would denote the year the action body was made or of the year the finished rifle was proofed and issued.

I recently downloaded a PDF book on WW1 rifle production, it might offer some answers.

[dualsport]

Don't rule out that Savage, it just might be a cast boolit shooter, you never know.

[Multigunner]

Don't rule out that Savage, it just might be a cast boolit shooter, you never know.

I'll probably try a few cast loads in the Savage when I begin working up cast loads for my No.1.
The mold I'll be using throws the bullets at around .313 or so, I have a .311 sizer/lubricator and Lee handpress.
The sizer became badly rusted due to being in the same drawer with a canister of salvaged powder that went bad, disintegrating the steel canister and rusting every steel object nearby with corrosive fumes. So I'll probably try polishing the die out to .312 or larger before going further.

The two groove barrel handles .312 Hornady bullets with great accuracy, but other bullets of .311 don't work well at all.
The rifle is extremely accurate with the loads I worked up for it, and I have a goodly suply of those loaded on fresh brass, so I'm basically going to put it aside till I do some shooting and load development with the 1915 rifle.
I picked up an excellent condition PH5A sight with six position apeture, so I'll be able to judge just how well each load is suited to the rifle. The better the sight picture and longer the sight radius the less the effect of sighting error.

PS
Just remembered that near the Naval N marking on the triggerguard (if that is indeed what it is) theres a small stacked rifles mark that may mean the rifle went through BSA at some point. Theres no FTR marks or Sold out of Service markings.
The buttstock thats on it has the south Africa "U" or horseshoe, but Its an obvious replacement, being beech rather than walnut as it would have been when the rifle was manufactured.

[dualsport]

My experience has been the same with a Savage and the Hornady RN, shoots great. I'm working up loads with a .318 custom GB Lee.

[Stoats]

I have a Canadian-made 1950 No.4 which slugs at 318, and just to make matters interesting the throat is also 318.

I get good results at 1100 feet per sec with the 160 grain Lee as cast (313) pushed by bull's-eye-equivalent powder, but trying to increase the velocity and/or use slower powder causes the accuracy to completely fall apart.

2 minutes of angle is a representative group, but I have had several 5-round groups in the 1 minute range with this load.

[JeffinNZ]

[QUOTE=Stoats;791262]I have a Canadian-made 1950 No.4 which slugs at 318, and just to make matters interesting the throat is also 318.
QUOTE]

I hear the Canucks cut their barrels to allow for captured 8X57J ammo..............:bigsmyl2: