Long Lee marked "for cordite only"

[jbrid]

A friend of mine recently purchased a Long Lee. The receiver is marked "For Cordite Only". Is it safe to shot modern smokeless cartridges in this gun? We haven't been able to find any data showing pressures produced by cordite vs. those produced by more modern smokeless poweders anywhere.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jim

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Patrick Chadwick]

First of all: a warning and disclaimer: What follows is an utter simplification of the story, and you yourself and no-one else are responsible for the consequences of any reloading for and firing of your rifle.

The very first 303 rifles (Lee-Metford) used cartridges filled with black powder. With the Lee Metford Magazine Rifle Mk I* the powder was changed to cordite - the British did not have any other kind of smokeless powder. Experience soon showed that the hot-burning cordite was very bad for the Metford rifling (which was an invention from the black powder era) and so the Enfield rifling was introduced with the Lee Enfield Magazine RIfle Mk I in 1895.

In other words, the marking can nowadays simply be interpreted as "Do not use with black powder cartridges" - something which is hardly likely to be a problem! And since modern powders burn cooler and are less corrosive than cordite, there is no problem with using modern powder instead of cordite, with the usual safety precautions and care in working up a load to be taken with any rifle, especially one that is so old.

You did not state which model you have, but as it has this marking I assume it is one of the Lee Enfield Mk I versions. In which case, as this is the same basic rifle as the SMLE, it should be OK to use loads for the SMLE, but from the options you may find I would use the bottom end of the load range and the slowest powder in order to get the most out of the long barrel with the least strain on the rifle.

And as the throat will be long and worn, do not waste your time on boat tail bullets, but get long flat-base bullets in the 174-180 gn range. Likewise do not waste your money and frustrate yourself by acquiring modern headspace gauges, which will just tell you that your rifle is not up to modern specs. Just follow the method for setting up cartridge OAL and seating depth that I have described several times in these forums, especially for BP rifles for which there is no loading data at all.

Rifles that fire rimmed cartridges are straightforward in this respect, because the rim will always hold the cartridge in a position so that it can be fired, regardless of where the shoulder is in the chamber. You just treat the very first firing as a fire-forming exercise with a very mild load, to get the shoulder to move forwards to suit the rifle.* After that, you only use neck sizing and keep that set of cases exclusively for use with that rifle.



Patrick

* In my experience, that may easily be of the order of a millimeter! Do not worry! Old service rifles usually have nominal maximum chamber dimensions ++ and modern cases are often made to less than minimum CIP/SAAMI dimensions, i.e worst case - -
The slop of new cases in old rifles is often considerable!

[Rowdy]

His rifle will be a commercial model for target shooting most probably made by BSA.
BSA had some problems in 1896 with some rifles being returned from South Africa where
they had suffered from damage due to excessive pressure.
They traced the problem to an early type of nitro powder called Rifleite which tended to
break down in tropical conditions and become unstable.
I believe the "for cordite only" marking is to protect themselves from such incidents.
Cordite was developed to be very stable and "tropic proof" because of the British Empire.
Most modern ammunition would develop similar or less pressure than Cordite.

[Fred G.]

So, any LSA target rifle with a reference on the barrel or receiver indicating that Rifleite was used as a proof load would be an indication that that particular rifle was made and proofed before the use of Cordite was adopted? is there any timeline or approximate date of the change? Also, in the case of the stamping of Lee Speed on a receiver, is there an approximate date when that term was dropped as well? Thanks.

[Patrick Chadwick]

So, any LSA target rifle with a reference on the barrel or receiver indicating that Rifleite was used as a proof load would be an indication that that particular rifle was made and proofed before the use of Cordite was adopted?

No, that conclusion seems to be incorrect. According to the info available here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.303_British
and here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_mm_Lee_Navy
and here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordite
it would appear that cordite was used first. The first .303 cartridge, loaded with black powder appeared in 1889. See L.o.C. 5883 / 20. Feb. 1889. Cordite was also developed around 1889, and was introduced for the 303 round in 1891 - see L.o.C. 6735 / 03. Nov. 1891. Rifleite was one of several experimental/trial powders that does not appear to have ever been standardized for military use, even though it may have been used commercially. It also appears that the powder used for the British "Nitro proof" was rifleite. The nitro proof was introduced in 1896 - several years after the introduction of cordite. So the time sequence does not permit the deduction you proposed.

Patrick

[Fred G.]

Thanks Patrick. Very interesting information! I'm realy not proposing anything however. I'm just trying to figure out the date of manufacture of a particular rifle that doesn't have a date on it.

[jbrid]

Thanks Patrick, Rowdy, and Fred. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. The information and insight you've provided on this question has been most helpful and is very much appreciated.

Sincerely,
Jim