New Long Lee, did I over pay?

[Fred G.]

Ray, when you inserterd the cleaning rod into the rifle, did it screw into the threads of the rod stop nut or has the rod stop nut been removed? I just had a man make me two rods for those missing on two of my rifles. He had to make a couple of rod stop nuts for them to thread into as well because the originals had been removed. Although they are CLLE's, they had the empty rod channels which were sas to look at and so I now have the rods in them even though they shouldn't have nay technicly. But, They DO look nice! Congradulations on your two Long Lee's. they look really great. One of mine also has a miss matched bolt, but I don't care. Now you have to get at least one more so that you can stack them together by the swivels. I started out getting one and I now have four. It seems that I've got Enfielditis for sure! I paid any where from 1,150 to 1,500 dollars for them. I consider them worth it.

[rayg]

Hi Fred, yes the cleaning rod screwed in the rifle. The fellow took the rod out of the gun he brought and gave it to me and I put it in the rifle I just bought from him. Of note though, the nut was evidently missing from the rifle he took the rod out of also as the rod wasn't screwed in nor could it be.
I saw your posts when you got your rifles and it was responsible for me wishing I had one as they looked so good.
About getting a 3rd one, I have been seriously thinking about buying the one the guy still has but haven't quite convinced myself yet. Some thing to do about money. It has a mis matched bolt also. Ray

[Fred G.]

Ray, Though the rifle may have a mismatched bolt, it still has collector value. The rifle of mine that has the letters painted on the stock KWC and the number 73 on the other side has a mismatched bolt. However, I was told by an advanced collector that such occurences happened to rifles used by cadets at a college and is no big deal. In this case King Williams College on The Isle Of Man where the rifle was used after it became obsolete for regular military service. I think that a matching bolt is really just a collectors thing anyway and really doesn't detract from the rifle. When rifles were used in the field for long periods of time, parts were mixed by men and ordinance workers. If there were other parts that were numbered like on a Mauser, we'd probably see even more parts mixed. My 1914 dated GEW 98 mauser retrieved from a trench in the Somme by my wifes father in law in the Great War has a lot of mixed parts on it. It was being used by the German soldiers that way when it was obtained by a yank before it could be put back into service again by the Germans.



A Mauser collector offered to swap my mixed parts for identicle parts from him that had the last two numbers of my receiver and bolt, but I declined, The rifle went through several trips to the ordinance unit and was put back into service again and I wanted to keep it just as it was found in the trenches. Ironicly, I feel that most Mausers from the Great War that retained all of their original parts throughout the war probably didn't see much combat
I was lucky in finding two Charger Loading Lee Enfields and an original Mk I* and a Mk I with it's original rod. The CLLE with the stenciled letters on the stock and the MkI* have bores that are clean but are noticebly more worn than the other two which have practicaly unused bores. I can feel the difference when I run a cleaning patch on a rod down them. Not quite as tight. However they have good rifling and I don't consider them to be any less desirable and I'm happy to own them. If you get a chance to obtain the third rifle, I wouldn't put it off. It seems that the rifles infrequently show up for sale and are usually from another collection. They don't walk into the gun shows for sale hardly at all and I can't remember when one has for about fifteen years at the Missouri Valley 700 table antique arms collector show in Kansas CIty. It was being carried by a guy who was asking $850 for it then. I haven't seen one since. They might not be rare, but they aren't common enough to ignore if one wants them. If you DO get the 3rd rifle, I know of a Scottsman who lives in Germany who machines cleaning rods that are a perfect match to the originals and he'll also make a rod stop nut for you threaded to match what that particular rifle originaly had. Lee Speed patent or Govt. contract. I like having at least three to stack togehter, The fourth has no stacking swivel because it is a custom target rifle and was owned by someone who didn't want it stacked together with others. If you can afford to go out on a limb for awhile and will just need to tighten your belt a little for a few weeks until you have enough to splurge again, I'd get the 3rd rifle. They only go up in price. How much was he asking for it?

[rayg]

Well I took the NZ one out to the range today with some SA, Mk VII military ammo just to try it out. Here are nine shots I fired at 50 yrds after the first rd was fired to test the rifle. The three low shots were my sloppy sighting errors. The tight group is were I concentrated more. Not bad for the old girl and my old eyes that have difficulty seeing the sight vs target at 50 yrds. I didn't try to adjust the sights, just wanted to see what kind of a group it would shoot. Ray

[Fred G.]

Nice Ray, real nice! when you fired the rifle with the Mk VII ammo, was the bolt ever hard to open? Fred

[Fred G.]

Ray, here's the rifle that I'd like to shoot to test it's accuracy, but I've been hesitant about using the Mk VII ammo from pakistan in it. I do have some South African 303 that's cordite. I'm not sure if that would be safe either. Anyone know? The rifle is competition grade and it' sports a Parker 9G target sight with 6 peep holes of different sizes that can be dialed into place. I wish I could shoot it safely. The rifle has a mint bore that seems to have seen very little use if any. I'd hate to ruin it.

[Fred G.]

[rayg]

Fred that is one beautiful rifle. That stock finish looks like the same finish that is on mine that came out of that large collection in Canada and imported by Brian Dick. Does it have his import stamp on the small flat just in front of the bolt?
I had no problem with the bolt and the ammo showed no excessive presures. The NZ rifle is a well used gun but it had no problems with the ammo. I shot South African ammo. I had shot some pakistan ammo in one of my other guns a few years ago and it was real bad as it had delayed ignition, it was click bang.
These Long Lees were used well into the MkVII period and shot with that ammo for years. I researched it before I shot mine and every thing I read, stated the MkVII ammo is safe to shoot in the Long Lees as the chamber pressure of the MKVII ammo is well within the capabilty of the Long Lees action to handle.
The ammo is probably corrosive but presents no problem as you just clean it property using water to disolve the corrosive salts. I use a mixure of water and ammonia very wet down the bore to disolve the salts follewed by Hoppies then a oiled patch, Ray

[Fred G.]

Ray, no there is no import stamp there or anywhere that I can see. The collector that I bought the rifle from was known to have traveled to New Zealand and probably England too where he would obtain rifles. Also, he might've obtained it from "within the network" as he's described before when he talked about how most Long Lee's are bought from other collectors.
That's really good news to hear that the rifles can be fired using Mk VII ammo. So far, I haven't had any click bangs coming from the Pakistani stuff, but I haven't fired more than one round myself. The other ten rounds were fired by my step son. The ammo was stored within boxes that were in sealed cans. It's pretty clean stuff. I'm wondering why the rifle that was being used (a CLLE) had the bolt seize up from shooting the ammunition though. A sharp strike with my palm would open it, but gosh, I'm wondering if the preasure from those cartridges was too hot. Does anybody know if some Pakistani ammo is like that? I've two cases of Mk VII ammo from WW II that came from machine gun belts. It certainly is Mk VII and not Mk VIII. Maybe I'll try some of that out and see if the bolt sticks again. The bolt of the Ishapore No 1 Mk III* didn't stick when it was used to fire the Pakistani stuff. I've got about 2500 rounds of Mk VII and I sure hate to think that I can't use any of it in my Long Enflields. But, your advise on it being safe to use in my Long Lee's sounds like good news to me Ray. I'll buy more Pakistani stuff if the price ever comes back down. Maybe that'll be in three years when the next administration comes into the White House. The ammo has gone up to twice what I'd been buying it for earlier which was $175.00 for a case of 780 rounds. I like the idea of having lots of 303 around just in case there's a Maou Maou uprising or the Kafir's start stealing livestock. Not likely in Nebraska, but I can allways hope, and it's a good excuse to stock pile it. What I'd really like to find is a double barreled cape rifle in 303. I passed up one that was chambered in 303 and 16 guage. It had the African sights too. The 16 guage barrel wasn't Nitro proofed but the 303 was although the rifling was Metford.
OK, thanks for the good advice Ray. Say, have you seen the leather bandoliers that are available for the old Lee's? I've got two new made MLE types of the Victorian pattern that have the flaps all the way around for 50 rounds of un-clipped 303 as well as one of the new 5 pocket pattern with the flaps for 10 stripper clips. There's a new version out now that is a copy of the older 9 pocket with flaps that contains 18 stripper clips. If you ever get them, just treat the stiff leather with a good lanoline based leather conditioner (NOT neats foot oil) and it'll stretch the leather to allow two clips each as it was designed. You shouldn't need that model of bandolier though unless and until you get a CLLE. Just a neat thing to have. You can get any of them from What Price Glory or International Military Antiques which carries the Martini Henry bandolier for 50 rounds but not the 9 pocket version for 18 .303 stripper clips.

Here's a neat thing to have, They aren't very expensive yet and are known in Briton as a Ventometer

[rayg]

Fred, if I understand right, the ammo that was sticking the bolt was the Pakistani stuff that came from machine gun belts.
I know that some machine gun ammo is loaded much hotter then the regular ammo. Maybe that Pakistani MG ammo was that way and was loaded hotter also. Did you happen to look at the primers to see if they showed excess presure like flattened instead of a bit rounded?
I had an original leather British bandolier from Boer war once. It still had a few rds of the old 303 round nose ammo in it and some period 7mm Mauser ammo in it. Ray