How much do you SHOOT your Lee Enfield

[PrinzEugen]

True enough Beerhunter - family reasons etc (3x young 'uns) means extended trips are a bit out of the question. I'm lucky enough to live near an Mod range and my club shoots at 25 and 300 yards - normally one morning of each a month. We've had a bit of a dry spell as work has been carried out on the ranges lately together with difficulties in booking due to army pressure...
Anyway on the 300 range, it depends on how many turn up - if you're sharing a lane with 2-3 then probably 30-40 rounds is the max before a stint in the butts. On your tod or with a quick shooter certainly 100+ rounds is do-able.

[tlvaughn]

I guess I have been spoiled and did not realize the challenges others have when they want to shoot (planning, travel time, range time, what to take, and etc). If I decide to shoot, I simply go to the gun room, decide which rifle I am going to shoot and take it to my back deck where I have a 100 yard range set up. It takes me approx. 15 minutes to get everything set up - rifles, targets, spotting scope, and table.

[bigduke6]

So I reckon that the nub of it is that, in the UK, geography dictates how much one shoots

Beerhunter says it all for us in the UK.

I,m lucky as our indoor club has 50m ranges and we have access to a MOD range (Altcar) approx 30 mins away.

I havent used this for a long time, as the dates are out of sinc with my working pattern, but it was similar to what, jss stated, it was becoming a pain because a whole Sunday was used and sometimes 30 rounds was max plus the marking was dire, most of the delys or time was due to people using scopes not zeroed in.

I tend to go over to Wales now and shoot there, when I joined the club one of the tunnels was 475m, but due to politics it was reduced to 100m so they have two 100m indoor ranges.

This is about a 140 mile round trip, average about 6 times a year, but I take as many rifles as I want, and a big bag of ammo, as its a key entry can go when I want and not limited to time, my shoulder gives way before I go through all the ammo, and its excellent for testing a rifle after repairs, etc.

Other option I use a lot more, is downloaded ammo, so can use at the local indoor range, and regarding the indoor range the .22 SMLE gets the most use out of all of them.

[Pablo]

Jeez I've got it good where i am compared to some of you poor blokes.
I live in a residential area with no access to anyone with property BUT still have plenty of options.
My local range i normally use is about 25 mins up the road. It runs a 300 metre military shoot EVERY monday. Open range shoot on a tuesday out to 100 yards and has different variety of events for all calibres and styles every weekend or an open range if no event is on.
When its an open range theres no time limits or anything.....you can camp at your bench all day if you want. First in best dressed. Presure free shotting!

Theres also another range about 40 mins down the road thats only open on sundays. It ranges from 50 to 500 metres. Once again, get your spot and sit there all day if you want.

Then a bit over an hour way in sydney is the indoor shooting range thats open til 10PM every night. Only a 50 metre range but still........if i'm ever bored and feel like pulling a trigger.......off i go.

Really annoys me the restrictions some of you blokes have to face. I feel pretty lucky having heard some of your stories!

[vintage hunter]

A place to shoot is no problem for me but I quit wasting ammo on non-edible targets 4-5 years ago when ammo and component prices began to go nuts. Other than sighting in a new purchase once in a while my shooting is pretty much limited to taking game and guarding crops. We have a 4 1/2 month long regular deer season here and another 4 months through the growing season where farmers can obtain a special permit to shoot nuisance deer causing crop damage. Hogs can be shot on sight day or night year round so I still go through plenty of ammo in the attempt to keep the pests at bay. ( plus the odd turkey or two when my game warden buddy ain't looking) To answer the question of how much I shoot my Enfields, not much anymore. My No.4 T's get the most use nowadays.

[David TS]

Between the L1A1 SLR and the '54 Faz No 4 mk II, I put 178 rounds down range last time out a couple of weeks ago

I am lucky in that I am only half an hour away from Thetford Gallery and the MoD battle training area at STANTA, both of which my club use.

On a gallery day I will probably only shoot 50 rounds or so (we take turns on butt duty) but on the Great Carr range at STANTA (Fig 12 electronic half body targets) you could easily get through 300 rounds in a day if you wanted to (or could afford it )

[dieppe42]

I see there's a few of us that are fortunate enough to be close to a range or other suitable locale. For me, it's 15 minutes away for areas that present upwards of 1000 meters of open space. Only downside is the need to keep eyes/ears open for either cougar or grizzlies. I'll shoot 3 times a month x 50 rounds per rifle.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Sorry if this irritates anybody, but are you looking for QUANTITY or QUALITY?
I have shot 3 x 20 match targets on the same day, with my Long-Range Sharps. At the end of that, I could not have hit a dartboard in a pub.

If you are really going for QUALITY, then I reckon that after 60 careful shots, that is about it for advanced teenagers. The body is complaining and you can't see straight any more. 100 plus in one day? For me that would be an arduous waste of meticulously hand-loaded ammo.

Of course, if you provide the ammo, a cream tea after the second target, and a couple of physios to lift me off the firing point afterwards, well I might give it a try... but only with the Enfield No. 8.

Patrick

[bigduke6]

if you provide the ammo

No problem with the ammo, the rest I cant do much about, but could supply a "nato special" , ( strong tea, loads of milk and one sugar)

[jmoore]

If you are really going for QUALITY, then I reckon that after 60 careful shots, that is about it for advanced teenagers. The body is complaining and you can't see straight any more. 100 plus in one day? For me that would be an arduous waste of meticulously hand-loaded ammo.

It's not always about long range hits. The Ft. Benning CQB courses often had targets at 10yds or less, but under time, and against folk with self loaders, practicing rapid fire techniqe, target transitions, shooting from awkward postions, and reloading the mag on the fly tend to eat up copious amounts of ammo. Hits count, but you gotta be fast! If, by the end of a match, I wasn't bleeding from some scrapes and bruised a bit from crashing into barricades, I reckoned I wasn't trying hard enough! No carefully tailored reloads were sacrificed in these exercises, BTW.