Thank you sir, will probably order some if I cant find any locally. wonder if cabela's would have any? might be a good excuse to go to the new store.

I noticed a comment on the midway field ad.

"This gauge is .070 , not the .074 specified by the Enfield armorers manual."

And this is what I was trying to explain. The SAAMI Field Guage is going to be equivalent to what the Military No Go Guage was.

Some loose headspace, but in safe limits, is normal with these rifles.

right, I was reading that the max was .074 and that these rifles are not the tightest rifles and that is on purpose... read an article how they were designed a little looser so that the would work when grimed up with dirt and/or other debris that one might encounter in war times.

my first cousin has deer hunted with a scoped 303 for at least 30 years that he got from his dad, he has killed the heak out of deer and hog with no problem

I belive your talking about Walter D.M. Bell also known as Karamojo Bell. Capstick talked about him alot in one of his books, said after dealing with a bad flinching problem he reverted to well placed shots, mostly earhole or eye.

My dad gave me a sporterized 303 that he bought from a friend. It was used as an Elk rifle in Colorado. I have never shot it. It apparently had a side mount scope on it at one time but now its just iron sights.

yeah, this gun will probably act as my plinking and backup hunting rifle. I may kill a deer with it this year just to say I have killed a deer with iron sights... I think its kind of strange that I have hunted all these years and never even attempted to deer hunt with iron... killed lots of rabbits and squirrels with iron sighted 22's but no big game

I own 3 Lee-Enfields, a pair of No.4 Mk1's and an SMLE (No.1 Mk III).

I've shot one of the No.4's out to a thousand. No pretty groups, just 'we scared him a bit i think' on paper and on hard-target known distance ranges. At 300, man size was easy, 600, still doable. As others have said, the .303 British was comparable in it's day to the 8mm Mauser and .30-06. The '06 is a little more powerful so the .303 never really caught on here in a big way, but anywhere in the old British empire, it saw heavy use, from elephants and all the African game to Moose, elk, deer, Germans and Japanese...... with good aim and a proper load the .303 will take down anything reasonable to it's size.

I've never hunted with mine yet, simply because I haven't been hunting that long.

Yeah, I was wondering about the sight mine has the adjustable out to like 2000 yards I don't expect to shoot anything remotley that far. Realy, for me 300 with iron is going to be stretching it, but would be cool if the adjustments were accurate enough to play on the 600 yard gong

I got my .303 when I was 17 and after returning from the service I decided to sporterize the old battle rifle and put a scope on it, and then I hunted with it nearly half my adult life taking unknown numbers of deer and hogs, and I'm now 64 and I still have it, and I have rifles in most of the other popular calibers that I've hunted with also, but if I had to give all of them up but one, I would still have the old .303 British.

I have been researching and reading just about everything I can about the 303 and the enfield rifles... for some reason this round is refreshing to me... we are in a world where speed and long range shots are the main focus and it is nice to play with a round that is not the fastest and not the flatest, but still very adequate for anything I may have a chance to shoot here in texas

It is an interesting round with a relatively long military (and sporting) history. Definitely not something you see everyone using, at least not much in the lower 48. It seems to be REALLY popular in Canada and Austrailia.

We had the .30-06, so the .303 got kind of shuffled to the side, but anywhere the .303 was the service round, it stayed popular.

The Australians didn't replace the L-E in service officially until 1957.

All WW1/WW2 rifles pretty much had insanely-long sight ranges listed. Before WW1, when most armies had few machine guns they used to practice volley fire. 25-40 guys, officer says "see that bunch of guys waaaaaay over there......set sights for 650.. FIRE"

more or less using a platoon of troops as a human machine gun, much like with muskets just at far greater range, for harassing fire. Wasn't all that accurate and as WW1 found out, nobody goes around standing up in big obvious units anymore where the enemy can see them from a mile off.......

The sight settings stayed though.

The action on that rifle during the war was known for being one of the fastest of it's time.

There is a story I read where the Germans thought that the Brits were using semi automatic rifles on them, and it was just the amount of firepower being put down by the fast actions of the .303 riles.

After I read that article I remembered one of my seasons as a teen using my .303 when I shot this buck that had appeared in the creek just thirty yards below me, and the first shot spun him around and knocked him down, and as he started to get back to his feet I put another round into him on the opposite side before he could run off, and this seemed like it all happened in one constant motion.

So yes, that action is fast!

ok, I have another question, what is the difference in the No.1 N0.2 and no.3 and so on? I understand the mkI and mkII and mkIII part but how the numbers differ from style to style?? I see some that have a peep sight on the receiver and I see some that have sights like mine about midway down the length of the gun...

any insight would be great

Ok, it's kind of a long drawn out explanation with dates, improvements and so forth. I suggest the entire series by Charles R. Stratten on the Lee-Enfield rifles, I have Volume 1 (second edition) titled "SMLE (No. 1) Rifles, Mk I and MkIII" by North Cape Publications. It is an exhaustive description of all things Enfield with dates, manufacturers, descriptions, etc. and is illustrated.

Take a look here as well for starters..

http://www.surplusrifle.com/no4/index.asp

Thank you sir, I will be ordering a copy of that soon. I really do like the rifle, and would not mind having a few more, but I would like to learn more about what is desirable in these rifles and what is undesirable... Just want to know what to look for so I can make educated purchases...

They are addicting. I have my C&R FFL, you might want to look into getting one, it opens a lot of doors for you as far as collecting goes and you can normally save a lot of money as you more often than not get dealer pricing and can get firearms shipped directly to you when ordered online. I got hooked on Enfields and Mausers at first... then it was Springfields...Garands...Mosins...

lol I like the enfields, and I am looking at all the other service bolt rifles.... generally I like stainless rifles with synthetic stocks for hunting, but I really like the old war horse rifles too..

Yup. It gets even worse if you hand load..then you get the opportunity to buy all the stuff to load for all those rifles. In the long run it's cheaper and you get better quality ammo (read-"non corrosive") doing it yourself. Have you seen what a good box of 6.5x55 goes for??

The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE) was in use from 1912 or so till 1957. It's the rifle the UK troops (Australia, India, Canada, NZ, Britain, Scotland) used, as well as some US troops attached.

Leaf rear sight. 10 shot magazine. "Snub" nose. Used a sword type bayonet. This was the classic Lee-Enfield and one that remained in production for the entire service life of the weapon (not counting the older "Long" models).

Also known, after they attempted to simplify British naming, as the No.1 Mk III (also No.1 Mk III* and others). I own one.

Between the wars, they attempted to improve and speed up production. This resulted in various prototypes,and somewhere around 1939, the new No.4 Mk1 and later No.4 Mk1* or Mk2.

These had an exposed barrel tip, a slightly stronger action and steel, and an aperature/ladder rear sight.

I own two. One was my very first rifle.

All shoot fast as hell, more than accurate enough, and as a battle implement are superior to the Springfield and arguably the Mauser.

Both have 10 round magazines, an improvement over the older Long Lee-Enfield and Long Lee-Metfords that came before it (used in the 1900-1902 Boer War).

India still uses a stronger-steel-and-improved model in 7.62 Nato/.308, the No.2, as a substitute standard issue weapon for police and rural deputies, etc. You could still see a few in the Mumbai terrorist attack in the backgrounds.

For ammo, if you're shooting ball, Sellier & Bellot (Czech) still makes it. It's not cheap, but it's full power and accurate. I had about 600 rounds at one time, down to far less at the moment.

The battle referred to above was the battle of Mons in Belgium, 1914. The British Expeditionary Force (highly trained regulars, who shot ALL THE TIME because they didn't have much else to do) put the German force under fire. They had very few machine guns, but British troops were trained to put out a beaten zone (like machine guns do), so 25 guys at a time rapid-firing at the same spot throws a lot of lead, even from bolt guns.

The world record for bolt-gun speed (accurately, not just firing and throwing the rounds away) was set by a British army instructor in the '30s using an SMLE. Using their standard method (work the bolt with thumb and index finger, fire with middle finger) when shooting fast, i think he got somewhere around 37 rounds aimed off in 1 minute and hit the target with the majority.

Yup. I think they called it "The Mad Minute" which was 30 rounds (aimed) in 60 seconds.

I had a '42 Lithgow and it shot 1.5" groups at 100 meters. It was a great shooter and very smooth with no recoil.

I almost regret trading it, but then again I traded it for a Swedish Mauser so no I don't!

My first deer rifle was an Aussie No4 Mk1, purchased at Monkey Wards for $14.95, which a gunsmith at Holts' Sporting Goods told me was a sniper model. It consistently grouped about 2" at 100. Took its share of deer, but it got replaced with a new Marlin 336 that the lease owner gave me for working the lease all summer.

I still believe the Enfield to be one of the strongest bolt actions I've ever seen, and would love to have one of the new Jungle Carbine conversions (the ones where the action wasn't "lightened"). Perhaps someday...