What load to zero battle sight on No4 Mk1 & 2?

[fatelvis]

I've found that 20grns of SR4759 with a 314299 boolit is zeroed at my 250yd ladder sight setting @100yds, but is 5" low on the main battle aperture.
Does anybody use a load that actually zeroes their battle sight at 100 yds? I know it is supposed to be a 300yd zero with Mil spec ammo, right? I figured it would be almost there with my 250zero. I know it's a battle rifle, not a target rifle, (although it is performing very well accuracy-wise!) but any help would be appreciated.

[Larry Gibson]

In my C1950 No4 Mk1* I've found the 314299 over 28 gr of IMR 4895 w/Dacron filler [1900 fps] hits POA at 100 yards with the battle sight. Had to tweak the windage a bit but the elevation was spot on.

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[fatelvis]

Thanks Lar. It's interesting that you had to tweak your windage. Does it appear that the hole drilled in the leaf is a bit off-center? I am getting 1657 fps from my load, so I guess if I bump up my charge by about 3 grains I should be in the 1900fps velocity range. Hopefully that'll do it!

[fatelvis]

Normally I'd go to Quickload to do the thinking for me, but 4759 isn't listed. I have always hated how high the battlesight printed with military ammo, as I use the battlesight for most field shooting.

[Bigslug]

I run the 314299 in the 2000 fps ballpark to duplicate the pre-WWI MKI to MKVI 215 grain service loads, and found it requires setting MKVII spitzer-calibrated sights to about the 300 yard setting to get a 100 yard POA/POI.

At 2450fps, even the 174gr. MKVII wasn't the flattest trajectory going, and when playing with the more rainbow-arc cartridges, it's probably wise to get at least a little bit into the old school mindset of "closer than battle sight zero, hold on their belt; farther than battle sight zero, hold on their head". When you start fiddling with the older BP cartridge service rifles, this is usually how they're set up for the factory loads. It was probably the height of frustration to attempt to rapidly train the most mouth-breathy, knuckle-draggy conscript into an semi-effective rifleman, and the above at least gave them a reasonable chance of taking the other guy off the field.

Kinda funny. . .I recently re-read Herbert McBride's A Rifleman Went to War and he actually felt the greater arc of the .303 gave it a certain advantage over the flatter shooting 8X57 in trench warfare as it was somewhat more likely to plunge into defiladed positions.

[Larry Gibson]

fatelvis asks "What load to zero battle sight on No4 Mk1 & 2?"

The "battle sight" is not the sight on the leaf that is adjustable for elevation. The battle sight is the large aperture usable with the leaf in the down/folded position. With MkVII ammunition the zero for the battle sight was 300 yards +/-. My C1950 Longbranch No4 MkI* has the 800 yard No5 rear sight on it. This sight was favored by Canadians and others because of the leaf elevations were in approximately 1/2 moa vs 1 moa for the standard rear sight. Shooting the same lot of MkVII ammunition in my No4 MkI* and a couple other No4s with the standard rear sights shows the same POI at 300 yards. At any rate the 300 yard battle sight zero gives me a 100 yard zero with my cast bullet load.

[Bigslug]

Which I hopefully inferred in my first sentence, since fatelvis seems to grasp that using the battle sight or cranking up the small aperture to 300 will put you in pretty much the same place. His eyes are probably younger and squishier than mine - I need the smaller aperture to tighten focus on the front post. Unfortunately, my battle sight is mostly used as a lever to flip up the target ladder.

[Larry Gibson]

Thanks Lar. It's interesting that you had to tweak your windage. Does it appear that the hole drilled in the leaf is a bit off-center? I am getting 1657 fps from my load, so I guess if I bump up my charge by about 3 grains I should be in the 1900fps velocity range. Hopefully that'll do it!

My post #6 was to explain which sight aperture I was using. By no means was I disagreeing with Bigslug.

Looks to me the holes in my rear sight are pretty much aligned and shooting with both [leaf slide set at "3"] gives the same POA. As with Bigslug, I am much more accurate with the leaf aperture. That big battle sight aperture sure is quick to use but for precise, accurate fire the leaf sight is the one I also use.

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[Bigslug]

What us cast bullet guys REALLY need is for someone to start making replacement rear sights that are graduated for the pre-Spitzer service loads that we can replicate with our blunt, slow projectiles. Mausers, Mosins, Springfields, Enfields both Brit and U.S. . .the Krag guys are already there.

A man can dream, right?

[SAN14]

I’ve seen parts suppliers who had front sights for the Enfield in different heights. I don’t know if you could play around with those to get the “correct “ sight alignment for your particular load at a given distance..

[Alstep]

Parker of Birmingham, England makes a nice attachment to the rear sight that is windage adjustable.
A British friend who shot at Bisley picked one up for me. The gunshop there stocked them.

https://www.rifleman.org.uk/PH_Service_sights.html

[fatelvis]

Parker of Birmingham, England makes a nice attachment to the rear sight that is windage adjustable.
A British friend who shot at Bisley picked one up for me. The gunshop there stocked them.

https://www.rifleman.org.uk/PH_Service_sights.html

Those sights look nice! It says they require fitting, but is that just fitment of the sight itself, or do you need to alter the rifle also?

[Lance Boyle]

In my C1950 No4 Mk1* I've found the 314299 over 28 gr of IMR 4895 w/Dacron filler [1900 fps] hits POA at 100 yards with the battle sight. Had to tweak the windage a bit but the elevation was spot on.

DSC02145.JPG

I simply bought a different height surplus sight to shoot mine to the sights at 100 yards.

[Adam Helmer]

Good topic. Most Battle sights shoot high at 100 yards by design with issue military ammo in all my many military arms. Happily, cast boolits shoot very close to the Battle sights in most of my arms. In my dozens of arms, it is impossible to predict which loads will do what; that is why I am on my 15th notebook.

To determine a "good" load requires a fun afternoon at the bench with spotting scope and a good notebook. There is NO "Magic" boolit as each rifle is a law unto itself.

Go to the bench and learn.... Be well.

Adam

[Alstep]

Those sights look nice! It says they require fitting, but is that just fitment of the sight itself, or do you need to alter the rifle also?

The one I got just fit right on nicely.

[Lance Boyle]

Good topic. Most Battle sights shoot high at 100 yards by design with issue military ammo in all my many military arms. Happily, cast boolits shoot very close to the Battle sights in most of my arms. In my dozens of arms, it is impossible to predict which loads will do what; that is why I am on my 15th notebook.

To determine a "good" load requires a fun afternoon at the bench with spotting scope and a good notebook. There is NO "Magic" boolit as each rifle is a law unto itself.

Go to the bench and learn.... Be well.

Adam

But then in time I’ll need another notebook to point out where the note I want is.

Lots of my gunsight setting notes are in one or two of those green USGI notepads that fit in your chest pocket. Every good NCO had a fresh one and a pen on him at all times.

[Adam Helmer]

Lance,

Roger That. I put all my notes in regular notebooks with an Index at the front listing Page Number, Caliber fired and date shot. I use spare pages to scotch tape in target specimens to confirm my findings by each indexed page. It keeps me from "reinventing the wheel" for my many favorites. Be well.

Adam

[MOC031]

Parker of Birmingham, England makes a nice attachment to the rear sight that is windage adjustable.
A British friend who shot at Bisley picked one up for me. The gunshop there stocked them.

https://www.rifleman.org.uk/PH_Service_sights.html

Alf Parker (and his wife) of A.J. Parker has been dead for decades and his wife has probably been gone now for at least a decade. That's one Parker name where Lee Enfield (and other) Service Rifle competition sights is concerned. The other is Parker-Hale... and I'm fairly sure manufacture of anything with Parker-Hale's name on it (whether vernier aperture sights or the Canadian sniper rifle of the time) ended sometime around 1990 due to lack of interest in their firearms and other shooting products.

If some gunshop over across the pond is building replicas of either A.J. Parker or Parker-Hale rear aperture sights and related equipment, there's a whole bunch of Service Rifle and CMP competitors that would like to hear about that.

The originals have now caught the attention of the collector crowd, most of whom don't have a Lee Enfield (or Martini, or whatever) to put it on. So when a good A.J. Parker or Parker Hale rear sight hits the market, the price they sell for is ridonculous.

I purchased my current sight back around 1985 when I wanted the ability to easily switch back and forth between (a) and (b) classes. It was used, and I think I paid something around $125 for it after testing it for backlash, etc to confirm it wasn't badly beaten and abused. Last one on the market that somebody brought to my attention sold for approximately $600.

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For some context for anyone deciding to dive off the deep end where Service Rifle/CMP sights for Lee Enfields goes, the rifles in good nick are about a 4 MOA rifle as issued. James Sweet points out in his seminal texts on shooting the Enfield rifles of assorted patterns that a Lee Enfield rifle being used at Bisley, etc, capable of shooting 2 MOA after being worked over in all respects competition regulations allowed was considered to be a very, very good rifle.

[MOC031]

Does anybody use a load that actually zeroes their battle sight at 100 yds? I know it is supposed to be a 300yd zero with Mil spec ammo, right?

The zeroing instructions get complicated between the Commonwealth countries - and particularly where those renegades in Canada are concerned. To summarize the issue, after zeroing their Long Branch rifles the same as the Brits did theirs from day one, in 1945 the captain of their Bisley teams wrote the first edition of their military marksmanship pam: "Shoot To Live". Suddenly, the instructions were to zero for 300 yards by bringing POI to 8.5" above POA at 100 yards, versus the Brits who continued zeroing +6.0 MOA above POA. Zeroing instructions for the Lee Enfield rifle where never seen in Canadian pams after that last time in 1945, including through the Korean War, despite the fact the Canadian Rangers up until the last couple of years were issued the rifle. There were a final three or four pams published by the Canadian Government for the No. 4 Mk1 in the early 2000's, but the one thing missing in all of them is zeroing instructions.

Same rifle, same Mk VII ammunition, same back sights... two completely different zeroing instructions. Clear as mud yet? (if you throw the numbers into a ballistics calculator, you quickly realize it is impossible to get a proper ballistic match to the MkVII round from this rifle that matches the graduations on the back sights when using Canadian zeroing instructions).

BTW, to properly zero the No. 4 Mk1 rifle, you will do so with the bayonet fixed. I have never seen in ANY book on the rifle, including Reynold's very detailed book, the rational expressed for zeroing at 300 yards with bayonet affixed. That is not where bayonet fighting occurs...

Anyways, from the pams: Amourer's Précis No. SA/19A

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And the infantry pam from post war:

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As for matching sight settings: which rear sight do you have? The wartime expedient MK2 only offers 300 and 600 yard apertures, two others offer click adjustments between ranges, and the final Mk 3 utilizes a slide that only allows choosing a specific range and nothing in between those range notches.

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If you're only going to shoot cast bullets at relatively close ranges, any of them will be fine: adjust the sights to the POI, rather than attempt to adjust your handload to coincide with a sight setting.

The usual road that most Service Rifle/CMP competitors use when shooting with the issue sights and FMJ ammunition over the course is to determine the best grouping handload for their rifle, and then zero the sights to where POA=POI at 400 or 500 yards. Purchase a slightly too tall front sight and then carefully dress it down while shooting groups at that distance until POA=POI. You'll only be a bit off when a few hundred yards shorter or longer than that, but close enough for most use when your ammunition doesn't match the sightgraduations ofyour sight. Again, this is a 4 MOA rifle - 16 inches at 400 yards, so a couple of inches high or low isn't going to make much difference.

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For windage, you do as the Commonwealth militaries did: use a set of cramps to push the front sight until zero was correct. There's a guy on EvilBay that sells his own version for about $30 - the originals are coveted by collectors and the price they sell for is as ridonculous as the price sights sell for.

The way the Brits threw out scrap containers of perfectly good parts for Challie tanks, Land Rovers, etc when they shut down at BATUS and headed home, I wonder how many dozens of sets of cramps are sitting buried in landfills somewhere all over the former Empire.

[Noah Zark]

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That sight looks well and properly British.

Noah