.303 Lee Enfield accuracy article.

[clicboumboum]

Thanks for your answers

[GranddadsDadsMine]

Excellent article! Thanks!

[samari46]

When checking the wood fit on my 1942 Long Branch a few items were noted. Had the forend on and nothing was even remotely making contact with the draws. The back end of the forestock where it touches the front
of the butt socket us not in complete contact.And since the forestock has shown some minor cracking that too will have to be bedded as well. everything along side the action body and the Nocks form will be getting some bedding as well. Many yraes back I had a #5 jungle carbine that was so loose that you could grip the butt stock and forestock and litterally move then in different directions at the same time. Had an almost full Acraglass Gel kit in that one. None of the commercially manufactured ammo here in the U.S. shot well in the jungle carbine. Only remington's 180 grain loading shot acceptable. Greek HXP' South African and the PPU do tend to shoot better than the U.S. stuff. What would be a perfect marriage in heaven would to know the interior dimensions and the exact od of the bullets regardless of the barrels interior dimensions.But that ain't gonna happen except the cast bullet shooters because they are literally fitting their bullets to the barrells interior dimensions.Frank

[leebuilder]

When bedding the "right arm of the free world", dont forget to bed the trigger guard and ensure the "king bushing" has no play, side to side and up and down. I have had more success with center bedding the barrel or free float. Flat base j-thingys fly best in 303.

[nicholst55]

When bedding the "right arm of the free world" Flat base j-thingys fly best in 303.

I thought the Right Arm of the Free World was the FAL - adopted by 93 countries. Just saying.

I have also fund that flat base jacketed bullets produce the best accuracy in the Lee Enfield. I have had excellent results with bulk Remington 180 grain RN bullets.

[Alferd Packer]

Another plus 1 for the .303 and LE with cast boolits and handloads.

[Tripplebeards]

One of these days I need to get some dies,brass, and boolits to try out my endfields. I would like to see how My long branch shoots after I lightened the trigger to approx 3 lbs, did a four day soak to remove all the copper out of the barrel, and acraglassed the shortened forend to float my barrel.

[Hector]

Thanks for posting this.

[BadgerShooter]

I have a #4 Mk1/2 that with 180 S&B FMJ will shoot an inch or better at 100 yards. With any other load, it is horrible. I have worked long and hard to duplicate the performance of that load in that rifle. I am sure it is an issue with vibration of that specific load. When I had a supply of that ammo, I was able to rain on the parade of more than a few shooters at 200 yard vintage matches. "An Enfield - Is'nt that cute" was frequently heard at the start of the matches with just some mumbling at the end. I have just been experimenting with cast bullets in a #4 Mk1 210 grain as cast at .314 with 12 grains of Unique. It is shooting about an inch at 50 yards on the backyard range in sub zero temps. Looking forward to giving it a workout at range this spring. Cold on the fingers but fun. Thanks for this great thread - lots of good information!

[303Guy]

I've mentioned before that I have a 1902 MLE with a No4 barrel fitted that shoots 1 1/4" ten shot groups all day long. I did however, let the barrel cool between shots. It has a sporter butt stock and a heavy fore-end that I made. The action is fully bedded as is the trigger assembly and knox form. Barrel is free floated.



I don't know how many shots that is but I would normally shoot five shots. That by the way is only 25m, so not quite bench rest league. Just not too shabby for cast boolits.

[Firearm Nut]

Great artical but can you givd me a little advice on my 303?

The barrel mikes out to .316. I ordered a mould for it that came from Austrailia and casts a 220 grain plain base bullet at .316. I'm still trying to find a decent load. Everything I've tried tumbles. Am I going too slow with these loads? I've used Red Dot and Unique.

I ask here because you seem to know so much about this rifle Jeff.

I'm not Jeff. Something that might help. I had a Mk III .303, I bought a Lyman 311413 G/C mold, and found when I loaded it with the recommend
Unique load and tested it out, the bullet key-holed about 25 yards. Then I came crossed an article that suggested using about 24 grains of 4895 powder. I tried it out and it stabilize the bullet so well I could take partridges with it.
I later picked up a Pattern 1914 .303 rifle manufactured by Winchester, that would throw bullets all over the target, bullets which I had loaded for my other Pattern 1914 manufacture by Eddy Stone that shot find. With the Winchester rifle I eventually cast a PB . 321 caliber bullet which I resized to .314 and shot at velocities under 1500 fps, which gave me a bullet that finally work not bad.
Sometime you have to play around with powder burning speed, sometimes it can be a combination of bullet velocity and bullet diameter
With a .316 bore you may need to go to .317 bullet diameter, or possibly push the bullet slower with a powder that has a medium burning rate.

[Firearm Nut]

I have a #5 jungle carbine that has a .308 bore yup that is .308 . I use a Lyman 308329 mold , Yes the zero wanders a bit but not to bad .

Maybe the rifle got barrelled with a barrel intended for an Indian Mk III .308 interesting, that said the chamber must have be bored to take the .303 cartridge. They suggest groove diameter for .303 were known to range between
.309 and .317. Curious have you notice any indication of pressure problems shooting jacket ammunition. Probably not as there would be plenty of space in the chamber throat to accommodate the case neck expansions with manufacture ammunition.

[MOC031]

I looked at this great article again before forwarding it to a gunsmith/shooting friend whose interest in Lee Enfields is coming back from his DCRA competition days of 40 years ago. I did see this in a post towards the end, which I thought needed to be addressed for any new people going through this thread seeking information and enlightenment:

Reloading, is where the 303/Lee Enfield does not shine.
It was purposely designed to have a long chamber, sacrificing accuracy, for battle field reliability.

A 303 case is lucky to last 6 reloads, and more likely 4, then the case separates from headspace problems.

First, Lee Enfield "headspace problems" primarily are found between the ears of we Americans - not our Commonwealth friends that have been reloading and using the No. 1 and No. 4 rifle internationally for longer than any of us have probably been alive and up until current day. Now that the world is at the end of even finding a dependable supply of surplus Mk VII ball, never mind government issued ammunition for rifle association's practices and prize meetings, EVERYBODY who's a serious/regular shooter of Lee Enfield rifles is a reloader today for this rifle.

For those having "headspace problems" with their reloads, the problem is with your reloading techniques - not the dimensions of the Lee Enfield chamber. In short, if you're only getting 4 - 6 reloads out of your cases (assuming you're starting out with quality brass), then you're definitely doing it wrong.

The sure way to guarantee short case life in a Lee Enfield rifle is to make the mistake of full length resizing the brass after every firing.

You're starting out already behind the curve because SAAMI (in their wisdom) decided they knew better than the British military what the proper dimensions should be for .303 British chambers and brass. Coming to that conclusion despite the fact the British had established the proper dimensions for the chambers and cartridges over 20 years before SAAMI came into existence. As a result SAAMI specifications for commercial ammunition, cartridge cases, and reloading dies are undersize - as are their Go-No Go guages, BTW. So if you're full length resizing, you're REALLY overworking the fired brass.

The very simple solution is to only neck size the segregated fired brass from YOUR rifle, and bumping the case back a bit when you notice chambering getting a bit tight.

The BEST solution is to begin with high quality unfired brass that most closely replicates the dimensions of WWII/Korea ball ammunition. And in particular, the rim dimensions.

Like numerous Lee Enfield reloaders and competitors in service rifle matches, I spent some time measuring a lot of commercial brass and comparing it to military ball Mk VII brass from various Commonwealth arsenals. The stand-out winner for being closest to replicating military Mk VII brass is Privi Partizan, and better yet it is very reasonably priced at online merchants like Grafs. It could pass as an exact copy of military brass, particularly the thickness of the rim, which is what the cartridge is intended to headspace on. That makes a difference when our North American manufacturers' SAAMI cases have notoriously thin rims, and you're attempting to hit an ideal headspace window of .003".

Having purchased quality brass, the next step is to do a one-time fireforming of your new brass before loading - and to do it without firing a shot.

It simply involves using a Lyman .33" M die or something similar (i.e. the NOE neck expander inserts) to expand the case neck to around .33 caliber or larger. Just large enough that when you start resizing the neck to .303 caliber, you see a "false shoulder" ahead of the factory shoulder forming on the neck.

You run these now oversized necks into a full length or neck sizing die, a little bit at a time, pushing your new false shoulder back a little bit at a time until the bolt will finally close on the case with a very light crush fit.

5-74.1.jpg

[You can see in that fuzzy photo above, how much further ahead of the factory shoulder the new false shoulder is. My rifle that case fits in is a 1950 Long Branch No. 4 Mk1 - unissued when I bought it, and chamber casting shows it has relatively tight chamber and ball seat dimensions in comparison to most Lee Enfields. I take that as an illustration of how much a casing can stretch forward to fill Lee Enfield chambers on first firing. Now fully resize that case each time you fire it... it's not hard to figure out why a casing might only last four or five firing/resizing cycles.]

Having done this, your case is no longer dependent on the thickness of the rim for headspacing: the case is now firmly supported at the rear by contact with the face of the bolt and at the front with contact where your new false shoulder centers the case through contact with the shoulder portion of the chamber. It now headspaces with these cases no different than a case in a 30/06 or 7.62 military rifle.

Now when you reload your "fire formed" cases for their first firing, no matter how big your chamber is, the only cartridge case stretching that can take place is outwards to the case walls. The damaging stretching lengthwise of cases fired for the first time in the military chamber is eliminated.

This is a once and done procedure before the first firing of the case. If all your resizing after that is done with a Lee Collet Die, or a neck sizing die, your case life in Lee Enfield rifles should be no different than that in any of your other rifles. You will eventually have to bump the shoulder back after a while, and if you don't anneal occasionally the necks will inevitably crack. But other than that, that's all there is to it.

The rifle and it's ammunition is indeed designed for battle and not for grouping on the range. But with proper reloading techniques, handloading for the rifle and having normal case life is not a problem.