Well after first shooting here's the report:

The good: It shoots like a laser: both winchester and federal factory loads ran great, no failures to feed, fire or eject and it hit a literal bullseye on the first shot (and was solid for the rest as well). The recoil on it feels like a .22 compared to my 1903 which I was going back and forth from

The bad: The cases came out deformed (federal did worse than winchester) they appear belted with a notable bulge near the belt-line and the primers are palpably pushed out. The Wolf military classic berdan ammo didn't even go off (despite the firing pin hitting the primers). It went 0 for 4 so I'm not necessarily blaming the gun for that but I will be talking to wold about it as the primers are obviously deeper than either federal or winchester.

I also had my friend video my first salvo and on one round you can see some gas escaping from forward of the bolt.

I'm gonna gauge the headspace when I can get my hands on a .303 gauge (let me know if anyone here has an extra) but its not looking good for this old girl.

The ugly:
I was having such an awesome day shooting iron sights (probably one of my best days ever accuracy-wise, but thats not saying much because I'm not exactly a Seargent York) that when my friend asked me to try shooting his scoped remington 700 I positioned myself totally incorrectly and got a nice 1 inch gash in my forehead from the scope, but there was no line at urgent care so c'est la vie.


The bottom line: I love this rifle and want to have a complete, matching enfield so bad but I'm thinking I might've gotten burned this time. I got it as part of a trade that included a nice 1907 enfield bayonet, a repro canvas bag and sling, an original enfield cleaning kit still in was paper and 100 rounds of wolf classic ammo so the rifle was only about $450 of the value. It looks like my options are at this point:

A: offload it as a display piece.

B: pay to get it re-barreled.

C: Cry long and hard.

D: Both A and C.

E: Both B and C.


I'd love to hear what you guys think