More Bad Press For The Enfield

[Alan de Enfield]

Gentlemen, I have also drafted a letter to the editor. I will leave it posted here for 24 hours seeking comment and input from any and all before I send it on.

Hook in guys- I need to get this right!

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Dear Sir.

Having been introduced to your magazine a good while ago through several articles on Lee Enfield sniper rifles, I felt I had to contact you to express my sentiments about your March edition.

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Son - I think maybe you are getting the magazines 'mixed up'.
The magazine in question is "Sporting Rifle" (Not Target Shooter) and Whilst I have been taking the magazine there have been no articles on the Enfield Sniper rifles.

Apart from that - great letter.
Thanks

[Beerhunter]

The article purports to be about advice to TR (Target Rifle) shooter. Now the one thing that TR shooters do NOT like is rifles that have magazines because they are inherently evil and may contaminate the Holy ground at Bisley. Especially as some of the shooters of these nasty guns insist on USING the magazines in some competitions.

If TR shooters such as the author do not point out how evil magazine rifles like Lee-Enfields are then some unscrupulous members of the NRA may even use them on Stickledown. I have personally witnessed them being used on Century rather than Short Siberia - where they rightly belong with all the other 'cowboy' guns.

There is no doubt that the people who shoot these horrible inventions do not 'know the form' and will insist on grinning and generally having good time. (You know know who I mean - LERA. At least some of the HBSA are a bit po faced and have been to 'good' schools.) Unless a stand against Lee-Enfields is made now, the NRA may find that a lot more people are using them.

[Mk VII]

They DO shoot high when they get wet (usually about five minutes high) and it is a fair criticism of a rifle which can reasonably expect to be used in a variety of weather. And the author is referring to the 7.62 ones, so knock off all this stuff about the Somme. A combination of oily cartridge plus strong rain WILL run up pressures and people who think they can repeatedly develop something approaching proof pressure without consequences are fooling themselves.

Geez, anyone would think someone had just spat on the flag. Lighten up.

[Thunderbox]

They DO shoot high when they get wet (usually about five minutes high) and it is a fair criticism of a rifle which can reasonably expect to be used in a variety of weather. And the author is referring to the 7.62 ones, so knock off all this stuff about the Somme. A combination of oily cartridge plus strong rain WILL run up pressures and people who think they can repeatedly develop something approaching proof pressure without consequences are fooling themselves.

Geez, anyone would think someone had just spat on the flag. Lighten up.

Yes, but there is no evidence that oil and/or rain cause a pressure to develop that is anywhere near the elastic limit of the action.

There is not the slightest evidence that, in 40 or so years of 7.62mm Enfield use, there exists any kind of problem related to the use of the round. Show me a "stretched action" - I haven't yet found anyone in the gun trade who can.

Sorry, but publications and the UK NRA should not be perpetuating internet myth without providing some evidence in support.

[Strangely Brown]

I agree with MkVII on this one; rain will up the pressure and it's only sensible house keeping to keep ammunition as dry as possible, I have shot at Bisley in pouring rain next to another club who were using converted No4's and not taking the slighest interest in keeping ammunition dry, and that is not a comfortable feeling!

LERA's take on this is that club 7.62mm converted No 4's will only be used with 144 Grn ammunition, and as TR Captain I believe that this is a sensible course to take. I have reloaded 150 Grn Sierra Match Kings for No 4 actions but would not (my choice) use 155 Grn bullets.

We have to be accountable for our actions when sharing range space with other people, however it does not mean that I agree entirely with the NRA statement which I think was badly researched and worded.

[Beerhunter]

I agree with MkVII on this one; rain will up the pressure and it's only sensible house keeping to keep ammunition as dry as possible.

I agree as well and I even try to keep my .303 dry, for accuracy reasons. It is the hysteria that I object to.

[Edward Horton]

A wet or oily chamber and or cartridge does NOT increase chamber pressure, oil or water in the chamber prevents the cartridge case from gripping the chamber walls and increases rearward "bolt thrust" or force on the bolt.

The highest the "bolt thrust" can be is equal to is the chamber pressure of the fired cartridge. On the .308/7.62 cartridge this is 50,000 CUP or 60,000 PSI.

Below is from Jim Sweets book "Competitive Rifle Shooting" first printed in 1946 and these pressures were from laboratory testing, the pressures listed are for the .303 cartridge.



Item "a" should always be done before shooting.



In simple terms if "ALL" your fired ammunition is oily or wet the life expectancy of your rifles action is cut in half. The first indications you will see from repeated shooting of oiled or wet cartridges is a increase in rifle head space.

As the head space increases on the rifle from excess bolt thrust the pounding the bolt lug recesses in the receiver, bolt lugs, bolt body and bolt head increases dramatical. AFTER your rifles maximum head space has occurred the possibility of the action body stretching and cracks and fractures occurring increases.

Oil or water in the chamber has the same effect on ALL rifles not just the Enfield Rifle. Our new American short "magnum" cartridges because the cases have much less surface area to grip the chamber walls are pounding these new rifles into early retirement.



Know thy rifle. And read the books and manuals on the subject before you go off half cocked and write gun articles on subjects you haven't researched.

[Peter Laidler]

This saga reminde me of an interview with Henry Cooper, the legendary English boxer who was asked whether, when he was still an active boxer, young bloods would try to goad him. He said that they did occasionally, but he never rose to the bait. After all he replied....... ' after my 10 rounds with Casius Clay, I don't have to prove anything'.

After all that the Lee Enfield has gone through, it really doesn't have to prove anything. Its reputation has done all of the talking.............

[englishman_ca]

Sounds like another perpetuated urban myth. A wet cartridge might possibly exert more thrust back onto the breech face due an inability of the cartridge case to grip the chamber wall on expanding. Sounds feasible, but so does using the magazine cut off for making dumdum bullets or snapping the firing pin off in the little hole in the charger bridge.

I have no hard evidence to prove either way, but sounds like a bunch of claptrap to me. Maybe just a CYA. I do get peeved when I hear the same old story going around again and again with a different twist. Maybe this concerns only 7.62 conversions, but I have never heard of any failures due to wet ammo! ???? I sometimes wonder where myths start and comes from.

I hunt. I hunt Ontario in the fall. I hunt in the rain and in saturated wet brush. Often I have water literaly dripping off me and out of the action. I make it a point to carry with the muzzle down to let water drain out. Ever notice the hole in the bottom of an SMLE mag? It is a drain hole!!!

I asked my Dad, he was a cavalry sniper with the Black Watch, Royal Navy when the commie Germans invaded Pearl Harbour. He was the first one into the Reichstag and almost caught Hitler the morning that he slipped out the back door and escaped to Brazil with Stalin in his Zeplin. He did take and keep Hitler's AK47 as souvenir and brought it home duffle cut in his lunch box. After the war, he traded it with a buddy for one of those $50 Jeeps in the crate, but he did keep the leather sling, which I saw, it still had the initials A.H. written on the back.

Dad said that the Lee Enfield was great for house clearing, all you had to do was wet it, cock it on a loaded round and then throw the gun into the room with the safety off and let it hit the floor, apparantly it worked beter than a grenade. He said that both the SMLE and the Ross, were susceptable to wet and mud. Only way to clear them quickly in battle was to urinate into the action. A smart soldier kept his fly open and fourby in the butt trap to use as a hanky to dry each round, otherwise the bolt would come flying out the back of the receiver and get lost in the mud. The rifle would then be useless, which is the main reason for the issue of bayonets.

Dad would not talk much about the war, apparantly he was hit on the head by a V2 while eating his greatcoat buttons in the trenches. Or was that me, I forget. He did not accept his VC cos there was a shortage of brass at the time, he elected to give his medal to the war effort to make cartridge cases and Lithgow barrel bands.

After the war he never forgave Margret Thatcher for handing East Germany over to the French.

:0)

[RJW NZ]

ROFL, Englishman ca, I shall recommend you as the next contributing author to the NRA and this other dish rag mag, its past time the history of WW2 was corrected.

ps, letter of complaint sent...