Lee Enfield bore size after slugging

[Peter Laidler]

Sorry if you feel like that Mal, but as I say fairly often on the forum, the place I learned about straight talking and no mincing of words was in Australia! And to be fair, I did apologise even before I continued. You're right, someone did ask the Q. so I answered as best, truthfully and above all, as honestly as I could. That said, it's not all '....in my day.....' although 'in my day.....' second best was never good enough. I actually SAY that in my day, in the 60's, we did do all this stuff. And to be honest, it was a load of crap compared to currrent thinking. The CURRENT way is to just VIEW the barrel for straightness (better than any 'GAUGE, testing straightness of bore believe me.....), see that the calibrated bore gauge runs and accuracy test it on our test range. There's nothing 'in my day.....' about that. It's just good plain bleedin obvious to me!

And JUST to prove my point, I'll ask you how we do our current megga accurate sniper rifles (both sorts.....) Yep, you got it in one. View the barrels on the rollers, dry the bore, run the gauge through ensuring that it drops on its own weight and then accuracy test. Passes all of that and he gets it back!

Peter Laidler
Pete the Pom.
Australian Army 1967-70

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[ireload2]

I have been blunt on this forum but I get warned for it. You can talk about scrapping a barrel for how it shoots but you are missing one element that you admit to knowing nothing about and that is reloading. Just because a rifle shoots poorly with the military ball load does not mean it will not shoot well with other ammo expecially handloads. And I don't mean highly developed handloads. I mean ordinary handloads put together with care, using an appropriate bullet and powder. That is, no experimenting beyond the first 20 loads. And so what if I do burn up 50 or 100 rounds if I save a barrel for another 1000 rounds? Your barrels get a little gauging, a little run out check, an accuracy check and you throw them in the trash if they fail?

Sorry if you feel like that Mal, but as I say fairly often on the forum, the place I learned about straight talking and no mincing of words was in Australia! And to be fair, I did apologise even before I continued. You're right, someone did ask the Q. so I answered as best, truthfully and above all, as honestly as I could. That said, it's not all '....in my day.....' although 'in my day.....' second best was never good enough. I actually SAY that in my day, in the 60's, we did do all this stuff. And to be honest, it was a load of crap compared to currrent thinking. The CURRENT way is to just VIEW the barrel for straightness (better than any 'GAUGE, testing straightness of bore believe me.....), see that the calibrated bore gauge runs and accuracy test it on our test range. There's nothing 'in my day.....' about that. It's just good plain bleedin obvious to me!

And JUST to prove my point, I'll ask you how we do our current megga accurate sniper rifles (both sorts.....) Yep, you got it in one. View the barrels on the rollers, dry the bore, run the gauge through ensuring that it drops on its own weight and then accuracy test. Passes all of that and he gets it back!

Peter Laidler
Pete the Pom.
Australian Army 1967-70

[Patrick Chadwick]

Your barrels get a little gauging, a little run out check, an accuracy check and you throw them in the trash if they fail?

Yes, quite rightly too!
Peter is writing about the military environment, where the user does not normally make up his own reloads. The rifle must produce satisfactory results with "off the shelf" ammo. Maybe snipers are permitted to select ammo, but surely not the non-specialist troops. As private persons we may indulge in spending a great deal of time and material on experimentation to our heart's content, but if we were to cost that in proper commercial terms, then in many cases a new in-spec barrel would be cheaper and faster.

Of course, we are also babying along many ancient weapons for which there is quite simply no replacement barrel available. Or the original bullets, let alone ammo. Can anyone point me to a source of a new original-spec barrel for an Egyptian Rolling Block? I doubt it. I am one who indulges in the above-mentioned entertaining activity of individually-tuned reloading, and successfully shoots with battered old smoke poles that may look ghastly on the outside, but work - sometimes after a lot of faffing about. But loading long, fat flat-base bullets as far as possible out of the case in an attempt to overcome worn throats and bores - "to save a barrel for another 1000 rounds" - is not a solution for a professional soldier. In such cases, Peter and his colleagues would rightly say "bin it". We are, however precisely we may go about it, still really entertaining ourselves with "boys toys", not being dumped in the back of nowhere in a situation in which lives may depend on the equipment functioning flawlessly without any fussing and fiddling.

Which was, for instance, the doom of the Ross rifle in WW1. Considered by many, at the time, to be a better target rifle than the Lee Enfield No.1, it was apparently plagued by malfunctions in the mud and muck of battle, dumped by many soldiers as soon as they found a SMLE. Which would still work with ammo that had been dropped in the mud, stepped on, picked up and wiped down on the battledress trousers, and popped into the magazine without checking for the last 0.001" of seating depth, the special bullet, the ideal powder etc. etc. It just plain worked. And thoughtless reloaders ever since have been griping about its tendency to split reloaded cases if they are fully-sized. But that's another story...

Reloading is for hobbyists, not soldiers.