Correct Enfield pattern rifling available today...

[mrclark303]

Hi all,

Although there are a number of high quality barrel makers running today, its an interesting fact that only a single firearm engineering company still makes Enfield pattern barrels for Long Lees, SMLE's and No4's using the exact and correct Enfield rifling pattern....

That company is Armalon Barrels here in the UK

If you are an Enfield Anorak (lets face it guys, we all are here), then returning your worn out Enfield to as close as possible, its original service specification has to be high on the agenda for most collectors/shooters, especially as good quality shooting originals are now sadly getting hard to obtain with the passing of the decades.

Even the once plentiful £125 'and take your pick' No4 mk1's (in my earliest shooting days) are now getting scarce in good shooting order, with the resultant collectors price steadily rising past £750 for a 'good' shooting grade No4 here in the UK.

Re-barrelling is certainly going to be the only way to go for the future....

Peter Sarony penned the following rather interesting story I would like to share below....


"John Krieger of Krieger barrels, relates in his Guns Magazine article, how his friend and highly respected fellow cut rifling barrel maker Boots Obermeyer came up with 5R rifling in the late 70’s. Boots told him that he was commissioned to make barrels for Aberdeen Proving Grounds to test some Russian 7.62x54R ammunition that had been secured and had ball powder loads which they wanted to evaluate. He said The Russian barrels were believed to have been hammer forged and had peculiar slope-sided rifling which he called 4R (R for Russian) pattern. In fact we also know that those rifles also had small radii at the transition between the base and the edges of the grooves. He then made a similar form but with 5 grooves and discovered not only that it shot better than the 4R barrels but it shot with particular accuracy and he then called it 5R rifling. Krieger admits that he came across an 1861 English patent for a rifling head showing a 5R pattern of rifling this being a 5-groove rifling with more pronounced than normal sloped or angled sides to the lands. Such 5R pattern rifling has become highly respected by many, who recognise that by not having lands opposite each other the bullet jackets are not so highly stressed and the fouling is also reduced.

So, one may ask, what does this have to do with .303 Enfield rifling and with Armalon Limited’s hammer forged barrels of that precise pattern? The Enfield pattern 1 turn in 10” left hand twist barrel pattern which was adopted around 1900, with its distinctive 5 groove form with a radiused transition between the base of the grooves and its sloping edges, is also the same bore size as the 7.62x54R of the 4R grooved Russian rifles that Obermeyer had copied. Thus in fact the original 5R barrel format is that of the true and authentic .303 Enfield pattern, of which Armalon is currently the sole manufacturer worldwide. Their enduring high accuracy is an attestation to the Enfield design, especially when cold hammer forged as with the Amalon barrels, and is also a salute to Boots Obermeyer’s recognition of its beneficial performance of what he called it, namely “5R rifling”. "

Peter Sarony – July 2023.

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