Troublesome Long Branch

I've posted this rifle here before when I firstly bought, but after shooting it once a while ago I put it away; it shot so much worse than any rifle I have ever used that I could not believe it.

Well today I got it out again and decided to see how it shot, and it has me confused. Keep in mind this is all only 50 yards since I got 1 out of 5 on target at 100 yards last time.

First 5 rounds: That one off to the left is the first shot, and yes it looks exactly like a sideways 174gr HPBT projectile. The next 4 all seem to be in that tight little group towards the middle of the target.
Attachment 91385

Next 3: Way high but but in a much nicer shape.
Attachment 91386

Next 3: My father shot these and he is not used to the battle sights.
Attachment 91388

Last 3: I used the flip up peep for this and it seems to have hit the closest to where I was aiming, but after the second shot I realised the box/target was bouncing around with every shot, so you might as well not count this one.
Attachment 91387

Also the barrel on this rifle is very dark and lightly pitted for the whole length. I spent some 4 hours cleaning it after I first bought it and it didn't seem to do much. After every group shot here there was little bits of residue at the bottom of the bore. My father's theory as to why it shot so bad first and is now getting better is because the crap in the barrel was very very very very firmly bedded into the rifling and is only now freeing up. I know the crown is pretty tight, and so is the throat.
Attachment 91389

Finally, what does this little L11 mean?
Attachment 91390

Its got me thoroughly scratching my head. Its nice to look at, and it stocks up excellently, but what the hell is it doing?

Without a bore scope you cannot really say whats going on in the lede area so I have put up 4 pics of what it looks like inside, the first is my 1916 Lithgow Pics # 1 & 2 showing the end of the chamber neck with carbon build up & fire cracking then a pic of the bore with pitting and carbonation showing how much is going on in there.
You will note the difference in the 1921 barrel Pics # 3 & 4 chamber neck area not too bad the bore fairly good but not pristine but it indicates minimal use, these barrels had Montana Copper Killer min them with Bore Tech Carbon remover used first the barrels swabbed with Metho then the Copper killer soaking for @ 30 - 40 minutes used up 2 x 7.7mm copper bore brushes as the copper killer likes them as well.

Like all these Milsurps age, past what they have been through we have only the dates they were made and maybe some unit marking to go by everything else is just pure guess work.

I would go with the bedding, draws, is it touching anywhere it shouldn't I found the collar on my sniper T was too long causing the whole action to rock back & forth on it plus the draws were knackered beyond belief @20 MOA at 100yds on a 300M full bore target!
Front sight blade tight, vertical can be A) Sighting issues by the shooter B) Barrel heating up and touching underneath at the fore end C) Damaged/Uneven crown, as for the Keyhole unless you hit the dirt which you would see I have no real explanation, just my take on it I stand to be corrected as I am here to learn also.

If it's keyholing rounds I'd be replacing the barrel, and bedding it while I was at it. If it's throwing the odd one sideways, the stability of the rest has got to be pretty marginal

Hey Cinders I must say that image #2 actually looks pretty close to what I see up the bore. With this barrel I have hit it with Hoppe's foaming bore cleaner, Hoppes No9, Sweets, and plenty of elbow grease with a Parker Hale Brush and maybe a kg of cloths but its still dark in there. Yeah all of these rifles really could be anything under the surface. I paid too much for it without paying enough attention to its details but ah well. I have glanced at the bedding, and it stocks up to the draws and wrist pretty tight in the fore-end. I haven't checked the collar but I didn't notice anything out of the oridinary the few times I have taken it apart and reassembled, but I know the stock does not rock as you describe. I packed the bands on the handguards a little bit since they were a tad slack and I was suspicious the front one may have been slipping forward to touch the rear sights. However, I haven't thought about the barrel heating and whatnot. Is there any reasonable way to check this? Crown looks alright from what I can see, but that isn't saying much.

Tbone, the barrel is worn, but far from the worst I have seen. It also matches so there is a large part of me that wants to leave it. Yeah the one sideways was very strange, perhaps it just doesn't like cold-bore shots.

Thanks both of you, I now have a bit more to look at with the rifle and in the meantime I will keep shooting groups to see how it performs and if it gets better or worse or even more confusing that it already is.

nijalninja: Is the ammo you were using commercial or handloads? You mention boat-tail bullets which are known to not necessarily work in rifles with eroded throats. You might try some other type with flat base bullets. I would suggest using a lead-sled type of rest or front and rear sandbags to try to ascertain exactly what it is doing while taking yourself out of the equation (as much as possible). I'm not sure what you're hoping to see with a bore of the condition you describe but be aware that service standards for precision may not be what you expect. For example, a later Canadian EME Manual indicates that the "T" sniper rifle needs to group 5 inside a 3" by 3" square at 100 yds with front rest. These aren't target rifles! I had a somewhat similar experience to yours with a badly worn early 1942 Savage. As purchased it simply wouldn't group (or call it 10") at 100 yds. I noticed the "draws" were only bearing firmly on one side so I took the plunge and patched it. After that, and with commercial flat-based bulleted ammo, it would just make that 3" by 3" requirement so I called it a success and moved on. Very rough and uniformly pitted bore- tears up patches badly. Yours already seems to be showing (realistically) some fair potential, given the bore, so keep trying but don't expect miracles. Good luck with it.

Ridolpho

Hey Ridolpho, I am using Handloads which were developed for a MkIII Ross. I supposed they would be half decent in a No4. I am aware of the boat-tail worn bore problem, but I only have two handloads for .303 brit, and the first handloads I tried were 150gr downloads and they were much much worse. I just wanted to see if maybe a heavier projectile would make much difference. I am planning to look at projectiles with more for the rifling to bite into in the future. Well the thing is that the bore is dark and pitted, but the rifling is pretty proud so I had mixed hopes. Next time I strip it down I plan to check all of this including the draws. Hahaha I don't expect a miracle but when I bought I didn't expect nor want the atrocity it produced downrange. Thanks.

You cannot surmise that a load in a totally different action will work in the Lee Enfield the only way to do it is to load up a swag of different weighted charges of the chosen powder get to the range and go from there looking for nodes and pressure 3 shot groups are good enough to find nodes 5 shotters your just burning money.
Without getting too technical I played around & around with reloading the 303 with mixed results over the years so after much mucking around and a couple of dismal failures especially with Win-748 I pulled all the rounds I had loaded think about 300 and went with one that seems to work in all my 303's.

WARNING NO LIABILITY ACCEPTED WITH USING THIS LOAD DATA REDUCE LOADS BY 5% AND INCREASE SLOWLY CHECKING FOR SIGNS OF PRESSURE OR HARD EXTRACTION.
What works in my rifles may not in yours so take your time as the results I attained were very good across my No.4's MKIII and my T having won events using this load with the SMK have not done much with the Bullet Factory one yet..

46 grains of AR 2209 (H414, 4350, IMR 4350 to you in the US) Fed 210 Gold Match or CCI BR2 with RP case (Which we can no longer get here in the west!) I then made it to a P.O.F MKVII COAL with an SMK 174gn bearing in mind the ogives are different as I did not want to have a bullet point hitting the mags front or have feeding issues.
I have the Bullet Factory 174gn FBHP to play with initial results are promising I helped another member here with load data and they are pretty stoked how it worked out using these projectiles I am pretty happy with the overall product from this place about time Aussies got it happening.

Get out and about and buy Nick Harvey's latest book on reloading about 50 bucks

I have never seen a Long Branch serial number stamped like that before. RED FLAGS UP.

Curious, how many grooves does your barrel have? Have you tried any 180 gr bullets without the boat tail? Forest

Cinders, yeah they are just what I had laying around and I knew they were all loaded by me so I trusted them. Cheers also for the load, I might use it as a guideline, but seeing that I have never had an Enfield to build a load for I might just use this rifle as a platform for testing for if I get a nicer one someday. That being said I'll be careful. Never heard of Nick Harvey but a reloading book could be handy (The old Lyman book I have is a little outdated seeing as it is from the 80's).

Bindi, after seeing other rifles posted here and ones in Skennerton's book I too am unsure. Never saw a Long Branch before this rifle. You wouldn't happen to know what the L11 means would you?

Forest, I have not counted the grooves but I will assume it is 5 from memory, and no I have not tried 180gr projectiles, but I'll go out and try a mix of new projectiles (Namely ones with more jacket for the lead to bite.)

Thanks so far everyone.

No I don't know what the L11 is.
There appears to be other numbers under the stamped one and a cypher of some sort.
Show a photo of the bolt handle side of the rifle and the left side of the action please

If push comes to shove and the SMK's dont work you have 2 options try a sample pack from The Bullet Factory 174gn .311" FBHP I think they do them if not just buy 100 they are fairly cheap or try the Hornady 150gn Spire point they are .312" work well to 400M I crimped into the cannular leaving @1/16" of it showing with that load any further and they are getting low on the gas you could up the load by a couple of grains but here's the 303 for 150 to 180gn from Nick Harvey's 9th Ed. Remember start low & work up no liability accepted using these loads.

Nick Harvey is an Australian gun writer that has been doing it for I'd say the last 50 years in Australia his book apart from reloads has a pretty good spread on reloading principles and how to do's its worth getting a copy.

Bindi I'll see if I can get some this arvo.

Cheers Cinders, this fellow would certainly know what he is talking about. Then again I reckon you do too haha.

This seems to be a case of, literally, "shoot the crap out of it".

The bore appears to have sharp-edged pitting. A Garand or .30M1 carbine demonstrates very nicely that a clean hole that is very short, compared with the bearing length of the bullet, will not harm accuracy. But rough edges on the pits tear up the surface of the bullet, thus leaving the residue that you observed. And, as you shoot more and more, the pits become clogged up and the edges of the pits are smoothed off - just a smidgeon - and thus the performance improves a wee bit. You are indeed, "shooting the crap out of it".

However, to save yourself time and the expenditure of hundreds of rounds, may I very seriously suggest that you apply "fire lapping". (described some time ago, please search it out yourself). This will take the sharp edges off the pits and can improve performance to the point where you have an acceptably shooting rifle again -and saved a barrel that looked like it was destined for the scrapyard.

But until you have done that, all musing about loads, bullets, draws etc etc is (guys, please excuse me) an academic waste of time.

Just my 10c-worth of course, but i've Been There and Done That on a Winchester LAR, a Brazil Mauser and an Artillery Luger.

It works - do it.

Patrick, if it saves me time then that is great. Shooting the crap out of it was going to be the plan anyway haha. I wouldn't have thrown the barrel away anyway since it still matched the rifle.

Fire lapings great if you want to cause increased barrel wear, from my experience with my T that would not group because as I discovered by a process of elimination the collar was too long and the draws were knackered so without inspecting it I could have left the two be and been happy with a 20MOA rifle at 100yds. One has to start with the basics having a load that shoots well in a Ross rifle may not equate to an accurate load in this rifle, if I were to suggest anything it would be a good stiff nylon brush, Boretec carbon remover with Iosso paste & scrub the crap outa that barrel.

Cut a strip of a chux super wipe 1/4" wide x @2" long wrap it around the brush smear on the Iosso having already wet the bore with carbon remover, wet the Iosso/Chux with BoreTec Carbon remover using a bore guide scrub the heck out of the bore being sure when not to exit the muzzle repeat as many times as you think patching out then swab out with metho and repeat till its not black. You can then use JB bore paste the red one is the finest one and not to savage on the bore.
You can go the fire lapping way but I akin that to using a dremel up the bore as it just really cuts the crap out of them there is one called Snipex a friend tried it on his 257 Roberts Improved what a whole lot of cods wallop that was dip the bullet in the paste fire it then clean & repeat until the whole tubes gone end result friggin great waste of time & money.
Put it this way your car is running rough so you pull into a servo don't worry about finding out why its running rough just fill her up with methanol and keep driving the methanol will clean out your fuel system as well as evrything else engine wise you'll get there quicker but the wear and tear on the engine will be pretty bad.
I always look at the easiest avenue takes 5 minutes to strip the fore woods off a No.4 if alls well then you've wasted 10 minutes of your time, scrub the bore, try those Ross loads again if they still do not work then try reloads if that fails get the fire lapping gear and wear out some of those pits if that fails get a new barrel the repo's are chambered timed requiring a bit of gunsmithing their reasonably priced as well. Tbonesmith has them...I'll mark this thread to keep in touch with the progress......

Getting the bore bright ...

A fellow shooter had a Long Branch with a dull barrel, never could get it to shine no matter what he did. We had access to almost unlimited ammo, so he got together the guys on the range to shoot his LB. Literally shot the carp out of it, must have been at least 150 rounds in short order. You literally could hear the oil in the wood boiling [you know that crackling sound boiling oil makes?] it was that hot, hot oil all over the wood; couldn't hold on to the wood fore end, it was too hot.

Guess what - absolutely brilliantly shiny barrel! Now I'm not saying that is the solution to all dull barrels, but it certainly solved his. He never had a problem getting the barrel bright afterwards.

Cinders, I agree that the incautious use of fire-lapping is likely to produce a small-bore shotgun barrel. But it is not the same as using a rotating tool. Rotating tools produce rings that irretrievably ruin the barrel, The paste I use was made by Neco (not sure if they still exist), is extremely fine, and used in almost microscopic quantities, being pressed into the surface of lead bullets, not applied as an abrasive smear. So "dip the bullet in the paste" is indeed wrong, as this results in an excessive amount of paste that piles up in front of the bullet as it passes down the bore and causes real wear.

And the aim is not to wear out the pits - impossible, since they may be deeper than the rifling - but just to take off the sharp edges. The amount removed is in the micron range.
It is a touchy job, and only to be used for really desperate cases, the slower (but safer) alternative being VFG bore-cleaning paste, which feels like an old-fashioned gritty toothpaste. I imagine that JB bore paste is similar.

Whatever the method, the longer the bearing surface on the bullets, the better they will be able to ride over the pits. And, incidentally, provide some compensation for a worn throat. So forget any kind of boat-tail and use bullets such as the Hornady 3130 (if you can get them) which I have found to provide instant improvement in all the .303/7.65 caliber rifles I have had: Argentine Mauser, Lee Enfields, and Mosin Nagants.

Hey Patrick I just used the Dremel as an outlandish example, I understand what your saying Patrick But I have seen the results of fire lapping I just try the cautious approach first before getting things out like JB's bore paste of which there are 2 types the red one is super fine the other is a greeny colour and is a fair bit coarser, everybody knows about Iosso paste which I think is made out of either pumice or shells anyway alls good we will see where this goes with Nijals rifle.

OH geez there is a lot to read here.

Patrick, I have looked at fire lapping and must say it sounds interesting but effective. After some consideration on it I do not think I will use it with this particular rifle. However, I have some older barrels on other rifles that are even worse in the area of pitting and almost useless to me, so I may as well try it with them when I get the chance. Thanks for bringing that technique to my attention.

Cinders, I will very thoroughly inspect the fore-end and all that whenever I get the chance. I planned to do it this arvo but ended up hauling in a massive roo for dog meat. In regards to the load I will leave a comment at the end about what I plan to do. Also I've never heard of boretec stuff or Iosso paste. It sounds pretty brutal but I suppose that is only if you you want it to be, from what I have looked at you can be more tame with it if need be.

Daan, that is kind of what I am looking at doing. If you look at the bottom of this comment I'll explain. You'd think the wood would warp after that kind of abuse.

Patrick again, I will be chasing down long bullets for this rifle.

ALRIGHT so my plan: With what I have heard so far and the state of this rifle, and my current state of marksmanship I believe it best to use this rifle for extensive handload testing. Why? Well some have said to just shoot the thing into the ground, which sounds great, and others have said I should take the time to develop a good and safe handload to gauge the damage in the barrel better. Now couple that with the fact that I am an average shot and I reckon by the time I have tried heaps of different loads the barrel will have cleaned up considerably and my shooting abilities with the rifle may have improved too. If the barrel still does not improve after this time then consider it an experiment that I saved someone else doing. If it comes to that I will consider fire-lapping and other more abrasive techniques, or I may just leave the rifle in its state and look for a nice one.

Lots of typing here, but does that sound reasonable?

As a bit part, not too experienced old time real Armourer I can't believe what I'm reading in this thread. It seems to defy all that I've learned about metallurgy - and small arms engineering - over the past one or two years.

Apologies Mr Laidler but I know nothing of metallurgy at this moment, hence I'm not jumping into it. Am I going about it the wrong way you reckon?

I strongly suspect the little "L11" is either an inspectors mark or a batch mark when the rifle went for rebuild or refinishing at LB. I have found similar marks on LongBranch (and British) stens out of Canadian service, but only on the ones that are refinished to the grey park. The mark will normally consist of a letter and 2 or 3 digits.

Thanks Sten Collector I guess I might find such marks on future rifles.

OK so I don't mean to drag this thread on but the subject matter is still the same and I don't see any reason to start a new one, so I guess I'll just continue the journey of diagnosing this rifle here.

So I pulled it down today and had a close look at everything and there are a few things that are not 'in-spec' or perfect. So to start with I looked at the bearing of the barrel and knox form in the fore-end: There is plenty of up-pressure at the muzzle (I don't know specifically how much but some), but the barrel seems to sit slightly to the left for almost the whole length of the barrel (It is however still free floating properly where it should be). Looking right at the end of the fore-end I noticed the black marks from the barrel sitting in there and there was more black to the left than the right, then I compared that with the barrel wear and noticed the black was also more worn on this right side. So that is one problem.
Attachment 91698Attachment 91699Attachment 91700Attachment 91701

The draws are shiny and pressed back a little but the fore-end is still very tight to pull off and squeeze back in, so I am leaving them for now.

The action bedding in the fore-end looks like it is bearing properly gauging by the discolouration of the wood towards the front and back of the action recess. Green light.

Trigger guard seems to not quite be bottoming out but looking at the circle which approaches the collar as you tighten it you can see there is a faint ring which looks like the shape of the collar, which leads me to think it is close to bottoming out. Couple that with the fact that when you secure the guard by the rear screw and leave the main screw out it doesn't 'spring' out of the recess, which from what I know it is meant to do (Or is that just a MKIII thing?). Discolouration of the wood indicates it is bearing strong at the front and rear but loose in the middle, which is correct for the No4 right?
Attachment 91702Attachment 91703Attachment 91704

Final thing that I find a little confusing honestly is the trigger and sear bent surfaces: They are blacked over instead of polished. Its my first No4, but I am fairly certain that is not normal. A certain Mr Laidler indicated when I first got this rifle that it had likely been refinished in britain at some point with a bead blasting process (Please excuse me if I am wrong). Surely they would not have refinished every single surface of the rifle including these surfaces which are meant to be slippery, or has this rifle been bubba'd by someone wanting a black gun?
Attachment 91705Attachment 91706

I should say as you have discovered nijal it is bearing on one side of the fore end which would tend to disperse the group, not sure on the blackened surfaces on the sear and trigger all mine are mirror like.

BUGGER I meant to say "Bearing to the right". Serves me right for rushing it. Thanks for confirming Cinders, my only question is how to fix it without replacing the draws? Is it possible the stock is just warped in that direction? Yeah I think I might try and remove the blacking on these surfaces, since they really are not that slippery. The rifle doesn't have a super heavy or draggy pull but this could make it a little nicer I reckon.

I also meant to ask whether the old graphite powder in the barrel bearing is actually a viable way to help the barrel return to as close a position as possible to its 'normal' position after each shot.

I am not that qualified to say how to repair the fore end but would first of all have a look along it from the front to see if the stock warps to the left (Hence Rt side touching barrel) if this is the case then there are the armourer's here that will advise of you of the best course of action to take.
As these old girls have given sterling service to countless shooters across the decades its the least we can do as enthusiasts is bring them back to how they were meant to be.

You are going to do more harm than good messing about with this. The bedding looks fine and probably just needs some finessing and crush collar adjustment.
That is a common look on your trigger parts. No bubba there, no bubba tell tales anywhere that I can see.
You can tinker with the bedding all you like, but it’s your barrel that’s had the hairy banana.

Yeah the bedding I agree looks fine, and yes the barrel is the most obvious problem, but how does one fix that? Is there a certified armourer's how-to on non centered barrels? The collar I want to examine a bit more to make sure it is actually crushing onto it before turning it down.

I’m no Enfield surgeon, but I think Peter is inferring that the barrel is toast and needs to be replaced.

As for centering the barrel in the channel I think it’s a matter of removing a very small bit of wood from the rear of the fore end. And then possibly repairing the draws after that if needed. But barrel first.

Ah I see. Well for the sake of originality I want to keep the old barrel despite its shape. There is also the fact that I paid too much in the beginning and don't want to spend more.

That is what I was thinking for the fore-end but as Tbone said I could always screw it up and make things worse. It might even be that the fore-end is warped anyhow, so for now it is more Oil and turps. Cheers Baal.

Seems you've maybe some sort of bitzer there. The "5" of the original serial number on the butt socket does not corespond to where the "5" of "53L" would have been, so it is part of the rest of the SN.

This would raise the suspicion in my mind right away that the action was re-numbered to match a bolt - not the original of course.

Poor or uneven contact of the bolt lugs would definitely affect the accuracy.

Maybe post some photos of the contact surfaces on the bolt lugs and in the receiver?

It is a little odd but in this case the fore-end, barrel, and bolt all still match regardless of the reciever so they wuold have had to either get a complete fore-end and barrel and bolt with a bodge action and renumber an action to suit, which sounds a bit crazy especially if the barrel is meh anyway.

Haven't payed too much attention to the bolt as I was going by it matching the reciever and thus likely being in the realms of acceptable. I will however take a look when I get a chance. Thanks.

At the moment the wooden furniture of the rifle is soaking in some RLO and Turps to rectify possible warping.