No. 4 Rifle; Zeroing Instructions Data Inconsistency?

When our yardage ranges were changed to Metres we had to change the elevation slides on the sights as there was no corelation or do up dope charts. The POA used also had an impact. Civvie range shooting had the advantage of adjustable slides on the sights. Military sights did not they only had fixed marks. The only adjustment to zero was the front sight when changing POA.
Being a F Open shooter now days barrel harmonics and tuners with all sorts of tweak's with powder loads, seating depths to make accurate shooting shows to some degree how good the designers of the Lee Enfield system were.

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Originally Posted by Alan de Enfield

Cordite was used throughout the 'life' of the Lee Enfield and there are a number of period documents exlaining why the rifles should not fire ammunition of both types (Cordite & Nitro cellulose)

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Thanks for sharing that information once again Alan. I don't think I have a .pdf copy of that pam you reference when sharing that. If you have a web link to it, I'd like to add it to my small collection of old pams that I collect and read purely out of interest.

It is unlikely that a round of cordite or Mk VIIIz will ever be knowingly fired from my Lee-Enfields, but the topics of those days past relating to anything having to do with the infantry biz always interest me.

I have two battle boxes full of paper pams dating from the 1950's forward that the regiment had no interest in when I retired as they were all in with the latest .pdf versions of the pams. There are .pdf versions for some of them, but for others the military hadn't gotten around to yet. There was a rich collection of stuff from the Boer War, WWI, WWII, Korea etc (not the Regimental silverware and war trophies)... but the regimental museum's curators had wisely laid claim to anything that surfaced within the walls of the regiment from those eras.

Still, that information has nothing to do with explaining why there is a 2.5 MOA difference when zeroing at 100 yards between the Canadian's 1945 pam and the British and Aussie pams dating from both before and after that Canadian pam was published.

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Originally Posted by Bindi2

When our yardage ranges were changed to Metres we had to change the elevation slides on the sights as there was no corelation or do up dope charts. The POA used also had an impact.

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The differences would be true for any weapon in service when the issuing country converted to meters. The C1/C2 rifles which replaced Canada's Long Branch No. 4s were manufactured at Long Branch with sights graduated in meters, long before Canada as a country made the switch to metric.

If Canada ever changed the elevation slides on the Long Branch No. 4 rifles issued to the Canadian Rangers, I never saw or noticed that the times I was sent off to do SAI and/or RSO assignments in support of them. I believe (assume?) those rifles had the exact same sights they left the Long Branch arsenal with (or after an FTR at 202 Work Shop at Longue Pointe Garrison or Diemaco after about 1989).

But again, the Rangers or civilians using the original sights can choose whatever range/aperture sighting to zero at i.e. zeroing the 300 yard aperture at 300 meters instead.

But it still doesn't explain the fact there is a 2.5 MOA difference in zeroing instructions between that 1945 Canadian pam and the British and Aussie pams for the same rifle using the same ammunition from both before and after that 1945 Canadian pam.

Furthermore, you cannot fit either the Mk VII or Mk VIII ballistic parabola to have either a 300 yard POA=POI or a 300 meter POA=POI, and have POI at 100 yards be 2.5" above POA

All the bets are off using the MKVII data simply because of A) Powder burn rates and more importantly the higher BC projectiles I've faffed around with this no end using MKVII data and trying to emulate the trajectory mid flight of SMK's (Velocity Rates V's Trajectory)to get the hit at the desired range.

I can tell you I used Litz's program, Load Data program with lots of shooting which led me to the conclusion that I just settled on a load that pretty much matched the 2440FPS of MKVII rounds and then shot the ranges we do in all types of weather to get the DOPE.
You'll find the correlation when using high BC projies like the SMK your having to dial in @50+ yards (They fly flatter than MKVII's) more onto the elevation to get a hit but the better catch here is wind drift is not as pronounced with the new projectiles.
I've lucked onto 400 Highland 174's these I have been told emulate pretty much the MKVII flight characteristics Sellier & Bellot use them in factory loadings AFAIK.
Along with 1500 SMK's, I also luckily have 500 TAIPAN .312" FBHP's which are a very rare, seeing as Malcolm Bone has probably passed on & the new owner gave it away after break in's & theft's.

So the best thing is to try and get your new projectiles your going to have to do the range time like we all did, in fact 3 weeks ago I watched one of our shooters off a bench at 500M using old MKVII ammo out of a scoped No.4 (Not a T) with the shots going in the general vicinity of the bull!
So my load I settled on after the adventure was 46 Gns of AR-2209 (H414-H4350, IMR 4350) Fed - Match primer, AMP annealed RP case, I set the 174 Gn SMK to the COAL of a POF 1967 MKVII round using the Ogive may had had the round to long for the mag. (No responsibility with others using this load data)
I have won comps with this load most notable one was the 2016 invitational to the SASR range at Swanbourne multi positions over 300-200-100 yards against 40 other shooters I also won the 600 yard shoot with my 308 APRS as well on a Fig.11 against the same amount of shooters.
Shot a perfect 10 round 50 points however it was a very hot day we walked everywhere I neglected to manage my water & electrolytes properly and stuffed up with heat stress on the last match for possible a triple win!

So the good thing here is you are going to do lotsa shooting.

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

All the bets are off using the MKVII data simply because of A) Powder burn rates and more importantly the higher BC projectiles I've faffed around with this no end using MKVII data and trying to emulate the trajectory mid flight of SMK's (Velocity Rates V's Trajectory)to get the hit at the desired range.

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But I started this topic focused on military pams containing information on zeroing with military ball ammunition, whether WWII era or through the 2000's with the Canadian Rangers using Canadian .303 British military ball up until their Lee Enfields were replaced with a new rifle a few years ago.

I think you're straying afield into the realm of addressing any reloaders out there hoping they can somehow or other find a magical reload recipe of components that replicate the Mk VII/MkVIIz ballistics. Like many here, I've also already been there done that many years ago, hoping I would discover something that others who had also tried had somehow or other missed. Like them, I also failed to find a replication, and then just ran with the best of what I developed while doing so - so the effort wasn't futile.

The question still is why the 1945 Canadian pam from WWII has a 2.5 MOA difference in zeroing instructions from what British and Australian pams from both that time period and afterwards provide for zeroing instructions?

Same rifles, same conditions for zeroing at 300 yards with 300 yard aperture with bayonet affixed. And exact same military ball ammunition. But two very different zeroing instructions.

NOT reloads - a completely separate issue (and I doubt anyone reloading for matches does load development with a bayonet affixed either).

Development of reloads that a competitor is happy to take to a match and compete with is always a great topic on its own. Actually, for me at least, ANY reloading topic for the .303 British is interesting.

So I'm still searching for Canadian pams that may be out there from the interval between that 1945 pam and the 1991 and 2002 pams (which, curiously, do not include zeroing instructions).

That 1945 Canadian military pam, BTW, was written by a very successful international competitor who would presumably have spotted any errors in zeroing data in the official pam he authored for the Canadian military. From the forward to that pam:

The Johnson Method of Coaching was developed by Lt. Col. Stephen Johnson over a period of 20 years' experience in the art of shooting. During that time, Lt. Col. Johnson has earned an enviable reputation as one of Canada's outstanding rifle shots, winning several championships and being five times a member of Canada's Bisley team.

During the war he put his ideas into practice in the training of the Canadian Army with excellent results, and his methods have been put together in this handbook for the guidance of future instructors in musketry.

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Originally Posted by Rick

I think you're straying afield into the realm of addressing any reloaders out there hoping they can somehow or other find a magical reload recipe of components that replicate the Mk VII/MkVIIz ballistics. Like many here, I've also already been there done that many years ago, hoping I would discover something that others who had also tried had somehow or other missed. Like them, I also failed to find a replication, and then just ran with the best of what I developed while doing so - so the effort wasn't futile.

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41.8grs N140 under a 174gr SMK or PPU is supposed to replicate the MkVII round.

On a personal note I use 41.5gr N140 and find it works out to 900 yards with target sights...barrels may vary!

Some members here have jumped on that Greek HXP I found currently being offered for sale on the Web:

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=81181

If any of them are curious enough to see if that Greek HXP Mk VIIz ball sights in correctly for a 300 yard zero when using the 1945 Canadian military pam's instructions, all they have to do is affix a bayonet and give it a try.

(How could anyone NOT have a proper bayonet for their No. 4 rifle? How else could you zero!)

I bought a bayonet when I bought those case lots of 1950 Long Branch No. 4 rifles originally 30+ years ago for two reasons:

1. Curiosity to see whether the rifle grouped better or worse with the bayonet attached.
2. Curiosity at how much the POA=POI at 300 yards differed after removing the bayonet after zeroing with Mk VII ball

So I already had the bayonet when I tried zeroing with military ball again, using the instructions in the 1945 pam.

The results, on paper, across the range after zeroing following those instructions, showed me the zeroing instructions in the 1945 Canadian pam do not match their zeroing instructions. Not even close.

But... I could still be missing something!

I went a tad further when getting the stickers for my No.4's I lucked onto a cruciform one at a reasonable price, today they are getting expensive, I've shot with them mounted it does alter the feeling of the balance a bit.
The real game changer when shooting the 303's is the '07 pattern affixed to the No.1 MkIII's that long sticker certainly makes the rifle feel nose heavy as we know it does not attach to the barrel so poi is not affected but boy the balance sure is.
We sadly never get any surplus 303 like HXP here if any surfaces it is usually Aussie or Indian manufacture and often WWII vintage (collectable) the POF I was using at one time was 1967 it was junk and due to my lack of knowledge at the time caused degradation of my 1916's brl.
I aptly called that P.O.F ammo = Possibility Of Firing lots of click/bangs with copious quantities of smoke & confetti exiting the barrel after the projie along with "Where did that go"!!

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

The real game changer when shooting the 303's is the '07 pattern affixed to the No.1 MkIII's that long sticker certainly makes the rifle feel nose heavy as we know it does not attach to the barrel so poi is not affected but boy the balance sure is.

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That is very strange, as the official, period, documents show a large change in POI with a No1 MkIII when using MkVII ammunition - up to 4 feet change at 600yds. !

I only shot it standing at 100 yds at a Fig 11 target Alan, what would one think seeing a group of guys standing firing away with bayonets fixed !

With our military or service rifle shoots now we are not allowed to shoot at Fig.11 or 12 targets anymore only round bullseyes such is our nanny state laws & regs.