No. 4 Rifle; Zeroing Instructions Data Inconsistency?

[Surpmil]

I see.

And incidentally, the last reference to SMLE's with BSA heavy barrels; was there some service use of those?

[Strangely Brown]

I see.

And incidentally, the last reference to SMLE's with BSA heavy barrels; was there some service use of those?

I'm not aware that we adopted a "heavy" barrel for the No.1 rifle until 1950 for use in the 1951 Imperial meeting at Bisley, and this barrel had no provision for fitting a rear barrel mounted sight. Instead the rear top handguard was lengthened.
The standard barrel weight for the No.1 rifle appears to be a little over 2Lbs 2 Oz?? (Happy to be corrected on that!) and the BSA barrel of 1950 is shown in the Bisley Bible of having a barrel weight of 2Lbs 11 Oz.
My thoughts on this was that it was an exercise in "up-gunning" the SMLE against the turning tide of popularity for the No.4.

Robin Fulton famously won the 1958 Queens final at Bisley with an SMLE and pictures of the period show him with what looks like a standard barrel mounted rear service sight as well as a P-H 5a target sight, was there an intermediate heavy barrel of some kind??

[Rick]

I'll begin with a reminder that the Shoot To Live pam was released at the end of the war in 1945. For all the war years before that with the Long Branch No. 4 rifles, those troops and NCOs had been zeroing their rifles and using them in battle using the British instructions that specified the 2.5 MOA lower zeroing data. The rifles, the ammunition, those running the ranges; none of that changed - only the 1945 pam changed. And if the zeroing instructions changed for the same aperture sight, rifle, and ammunition after Shoot To Live, how much did the zeroing instructions also change for the sniper rifle?

How about the NCOs serving as SAI at the Canadian battleschools, training new recruits and zeroing their weapons prior to that pam - they just switched how they'd been zeroing rifles upon the arrival of that pam at the battleschools without thought?

None of those NCOs or soldiers still in service noticed? None noticed that their next trip to the range for qualification after Shoot To Live became doctrine, those veterans were suddenly told all their rifles were zeroed 2 1/2" low at 100 yards? And every single rifle zeroed and used in war prior to that pam was improperly zeroed? All 100% of them?

I certainly would! When we were the first issued the C7A2 and accompanying C79 Elcan sight, physically on the loading ramp while boarding the jet flying us to deployment in Yugoslavia, it took very few rounds downrange to zero those rifles after arrival to realize the initial zeroing data we received with the rifles and sights from the Higher Niner Puzzle Palace was FUBAR.

Perhaps your point in citing that was to establish the accuracy standards of the ammunition and by implication that of the rifles?

No, it was to point out that referring to the edges of two different groups shot with a 2.5 MOA difference at 100 yards would slightly overlap does not explain why one country, in one single pam, gave radically different zeroing instructions for the No. 4 rifle. Furthermore, the thought that you would start by deliberately sighting in too high, and then sort out that 2.5 MOA of error at 300 yards later, whether in advanced training or in theater while running confirmation ranges before heading into the FEBA, isn't logical.

Logically the zero obtained at 30 or 100 yards would be mostly concerned with lateral error (windage).

From my perspective as a SAI who has written many Range Instructions for zeroing and done many hours as an RSO on those ranges, what isn't logical is why the SAI senior NCOs running those ranges would only ask the gun plumbers to correct windage errors.

If they're going to fiddling around loosening front sight screws, applying cramps for windage errors anyways, why would those NCO's allow 100% elevation errors to remain unchecked until later at 300 yards - where they would be putting the screwdriver and cramps to 100% of the rifles on that range?

If all the troops have sighted in correctly (or what looks correct) at 100 yards, or the earlier 30 yard range (a holdover from before WWI according to pams from the early 1900's for the Mk1), then you minimize the fiddling around with front sights and cramps when you ultimately get to that 300 yard range. Every SAI and RSO in the military wants those ranges to run as smoothly and with as few little side-trips as possible.

If 60, 70, 80% or whatever of the troops who fire their sighters at 300 yards already have POA=POI with their 300 yard aperture and bayonet fixed, that is far better when the gun plumbers only have to deal with the remainder whose arrived to shoot and who AREN'T properly zeroed.

Do you want the interruption of your gun plumbers getting out their selection of front sights and cramps for 20, 30, whatever infantrymen from the Company on the range? Or for 100% of the entire company of 125 +/- troops? Less is more efficient range; less is better.

Perhaps you have already ruled out the types of targets used and the points of aim to be taken on them as variables that might explain this?

Yes. The target referred to in Shoot To Live sounds like the same aiming point as seen in the Second Class Figure Target specified elsewhere for 300 yard zeroing: THE second method of accurately zeroing the .303 rifle would be to use the standard 100-yard range. Here, we use the standard four-loot target with the hour-glass figure and a centrally-located auxiliary aiming mark shown as a white square.

Same dimensions of the overall target and same dimensions for the hourglass figure: 12"x12".

Can somebody explain how the Canadian targets in 1945 were different than the UK and Australian targets, and as a result, when actually aiming at bad guys in battle, the 1945 different Canadian targets and zeroing instructions resulted in a higher percentage of hits when aiming at real bad guys than with the previous zeroing instructions used throughout the war?

The sudden large difference in zeroing instructions that occurred in the Canadian 1945 pam (and was apparently unchanged after that) still remains inexplicable.

[Rick]

MkVI vs MKVII is another subject :
comparison in trajectories of MkVI & MkVII

Alan, that off-topic subject is dangerously close to sending me down yet another military pam rabbit hole unrelated to conflicting zeroing instructions.

So if the potential enemy infantry of 1929 was apparently 5'3" in height... what are they today, almost a century later?

And if that potential enemy were seated on horseback as calvary, now the top of their heads are only 39" higher? How many hands height were cavalry horses back then? Short legged little compact ponies? Seems a fair question because I never rode a horse back when I was growing up on our place where the stirrups were either even with the top of the horse's femur or the same height as my instep at the crotch.

And then there's the difference infantry company/platoon/section commanders would consider between the two regarding beaten zones and first catch/first graze.[quote=Alan de Enfield;547175]No, I don't think so - In the past I have read reports of SMLE sidewalls fracturing.

---------- Post added at 03:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:32 PM ----------

No, I don't think so - In the past I have read reports of SMLE sidewalls fracturing.

I think the examples of fractured bolts has generally been found to be poorly cast (granulated) steel in the bolt body.

Alan; fun personal trivia... when a friend bought the remnants of the failed Montana Rifle Company, compete with both modern Haas five axis CNC machinery and surplus Springfield Armory WWI Pratt and Whitney gun drills and reamers, I worked for him for a few months as the ops manager to sort through the chaos and get some simple manufacturing and cash flow going.

While sorting through the carcass for any and all useful information, I went through the Customer Service files. In some of those complaint letters from purchasing of Montana Rifle Company's reworking of the classic Model 70 action, were letters relating to cracked receivers and bolt lugs. Those receivers and bolts were made on very, very modern machinery in that facility, from modern bar stock and castings, and then test fired with proof rounds and then inspected again before shipping.

In the case of the cracked receivers, I later found out that MRC was getting shipments of castings where some were misshapen - some to the point of almost resembling a banana. Rather than reject them and request replacements (and better QA/QC), MRC had their machinests muckle together some jigs, and then trained a couple of eager, conscientious young employees to use a hydraulic press and an array of dial indicators to bend those crooked castings enough so that they could be fitted into the tombstones of their CNC machines and then machined into a finished receiver. They then shipped them back across the country to have the heat treating and hardening redone to be as it was when the castings were received.

You don't have to be a machinist nor a genius to realize that machining those imperfect and still crooked blanks would invariably result in thin and thick parts at various points in the finished receiver. Nor stress points induced from being reshapen in a 20 ton hydraulic press.

BTW, they also fired their head machinist and CNC programmer (a brilliant guy they hired away from the aerospace industry) because he told them the problem with the receiver blanks was mould slump in the castings. Later on, a rep from the company that did the castings came around, looked at the castings that resembled bananas, and said it was mould slump... no wonder they went T-U when being run by that boutique consortium that purchased MRC from the original owner.

So that's circa 2018... I can easily imagine all the various possibilities that could result in failure from poor castings a century beforehand, manufacturing under the pressure of WWI conditions.

[Alan de Enfield]

So that's circa 2018... I can easily imagine all the various possibilities that could result in failure from poor castings a century beforehand, manufacturing under the pressure of WWI conditions.

A couple of pics of fractured No4 rifles

[Bindi2]

A d E
that photo is a good reminder of why Lithgow would not convert N1 Mk3s to 7.62.

[Surpmil]

Bottom line I'd say is that the statement of 8.5 inches, give or take two inches, is repeated at least three times in "Shoot to Live" so it cannot be a typo.

Lt. Col. Johnston knew his business and wrote probably the most comprehensive manual on military marksmanship and in particular how to teach it, that has ever been adopted by any country. Given his extensive Bisley level shooting experience I doubt he made any error in the ballistic curve of Mk.VII ball.

How long "Shoot to Live" remained an official publication I don't know, but presumably until the FN FAL was adopted in the late 1950s.

Had there been any issue with the coordinates given in the manual a correction could easily have been issued, but none apparently was.

From your statements both UK and Canadian manuals agree that POA and POI must coincide at 300 yards.

The obvious conclusion is that this variation was not thought significant at the time; in reality its only possible effect if any, would be the location of the "rough zero" on the 300 yard target and the amount of zeroing required to get the POA and MPI to coincide.

The very fact that a 2" range of variation is mentioned in the manual demonstrates that this was a known and expected phenomenon at that time.

I suspect that if there was an "error" it was more likely to be an accidental carry-over from earlier times in the UK manuals.

[Rick]

Bottom line I'd say is that the statement of 8.5 inches, give or take two inches, is repeated at least three times in "Shoot to Live" so it cannot be a typo.

Must be the repetition of an error - there's another obvious conclusion.

I have personal experience with faulty zeroing information with new pams at the advent of the initial issue of the C7A1 - and a letter of thanks I've kept from Philip O'Dell, then at Daemaco, after I wrote them when the Armed Forces was supremely indifferent to the fact the zeroing information they were pushing out to us was wrong.

Mistakes in published pams is not a new thing, and SMEs do make mistakes.

Lt. Col. Johnston knew his business and wrote probably the most comprehensive manual on military marksmanship and in particular how to teach it, that has ever been adopted by any country.

The business of competing internationally, certainly.

And that manual is more comprehensive than any other manual, or even just Canadian manuals?

Does that judgement of yours cover the "Gunfighter" operational shooting program Canada put together and battalions started using during pre-deployment training for the battalion headed out on the next Afghanistan rotation? On top of the 1989 version of Shoot To Live that was built on?

I taught both, teaching both BMQ recruit and infantry courses, and predeployment training. I think they're very effective programs; I'd be interested in you pointing out to me what shortcomings you see of either of those shooting programs in comparison to the 1945 pam as far as the training is concerned (the single issue regarding zeroing criteria aside).

And in particular, your views on where the 1945 version of Shoot To Live is superior to the Gunfighter program that Small Arms Instructors and returning battalions developed and spread through the infantry regiments, built on lessons learned in TICs fighting in Afghanistan.

Given his extensive Bisley level shooting experience I doubt he made any error in the ballistic curve of Mk.VII ball.

Did the external physics of the Mk VII ball round suddenly change after 1945 when fired in Canada rather than in England or the battlefields of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific, and only after Shoot To Live was published in 1945?

All those war years of training and zeroing beforehand, where the resulting 300 yard POA=POI was wrong, but all those lazy seasoned infantry NCOs never bothered to take note of it?

Those senior NCOs working as SAIs in Canadian battleschools (many returning veterans) training recruits to shoot and zero their rifles did it wrong for four long years of war, continually sending troops into battle with their rifles improperly zeroed until this Canadian pam was published at the very end of WWII to set things right?

While at the same time, the Brits with the zeroing data they developed, they didn't have any Bisley competitors of Lt. Col. Johnston's quality in their programs, and so they didn't realize they were zeroing their rifles wrong?

It's not a criticism of the character, his teaching theories, or the competitive shooting ability of the man to point out that his zeroing information cannot fit the external ballistics of the No. 4 rifle when using the Mk VII ball round.

I will however, go so far as to say that I doubt very much that he actually physically went to a range, asked for an issue No. 4 rifle and bayonet, and actually confirmed the zeroing data that is published in that book.

Had there been any issue with the coordinates given in the manual a correction could easily have been issued, but none apparently was.

Or the error could have simply been ignored because the instructors had much more important things to do during a war than get into a round table discussion with Higher Niner at the Ottawa Puzzle Palace in hopes of pushing the publishing of a correction to the pam.

Alternately, had there been an issue, those veterans of years of fighting with that rifle may have decided to ignore the Bisley competitor's zeroing instructions when they didn't result in the proper results with his new zeroing information that differed from the British instructions they had been using all along, failing when attempting to confirm zero at 300 yards.

Would not be the first or the last time that an expert's specific instructions on one thing were ignored when they didn't work as expected. Also not the first time a pam has some errors in it, even when published during the luxury of peacetime.

Most Commonwealth countries including Canada have long had a tradition of fielding competitive rifle teams, so there's a wee bit of competitive shooting knowledge on the Canadian ranges there as well as the author. Some of whom quite probably had shot in the same matches as Lt. Col. Johnston prior to the war.

From your statements both UKicon and Canadianicon manuals agree that POA and POIL must coincide at 300 yards.

Better than that: physics says that no matter what is published in anybody's pam, the physics of external ballistics says you can't have two separate differing paths for the same bullet, with the same muzzle velocity, from the same rifle, from the firing point to the exact same POI at the butts at 300 yards.

The obvious conclusion is that this variation was not thought significant at the time; in reality its only possible effect if any, would be the location of the "rough zero" on the 300 yard target and the amount of zeroing required to get the POA and MPI to coincide.

The actual obvious conclusion (particularly if you accept Occam's Razor when you consider the possibilities) is that the most likely explanation is that this is an error that conflicts with what you get with real ballistics on the range.

As for "roughly zeroing" theory, and then having to go through every single man's rifle a second time on the range when the day came to change zero and then confirm zero at 300 yards...

That's a theory I just can't see any seasoned Small Arms Instructor NCO (or commissioned officer put in charge of that range exercise) wanting anything to do with when time at the range is almost always short. Not to mention the concurrent activities also planned for the same time for the troops when they aren't actually firing on the firing point or working in the butts..

I suspect that if there was an "error" it was more likely to be an accidental carry-over from earlier times in the UK manuals.

Likely?

The UK manuals for the No. 4 rifle are available from it's introduction, through the war, and then though the 1950's i.e. Armourers' Wing Precis, Volume II, Precis No. SA-19A, Zeroing Of Rifles (1950).

There is NO change in their zeroing information for the No. 4 rifle from beginning to end. If you are aware of an error at any time during the UK zeroing instructions for the rifle from it's inception until the end, it would be instructive at least if you were to point them out. A pre-existing error has to exist for the theory of an error being carried forward to have oxygen to live on.

Meanwhile, if anybody can actually get a proper 300 yard POA=POI zero with the No. 4 Rifle, bayonet fixed, using genuine Mk VII ball and the zeroing specifications from the Canadian 1945 Shoot To Live, I would genuinely be interested in hearing how they actually worked for you as the 1945 Shoot To Live claims.

Because I've tried it several times - once again recently - with HXP ball, even substituting a PH4 sight for the Singer sight, and the ballistics simply do not work when you zero that height above POA at 100 yards.

[Surpmil]

Well Rick, you're plainly vastly more qualified in this field than I, so we'll have to rely on you to solve the mystery, if there is one! I'll see if I can locate a 1950s Canadian manual that may be relevant.

[Alan de Enfield]

Rick - there is a lot of 'good stuff' on 303 accuracy and sighting in this book 13Mb and 100+ pages (do you have it ?)