recently acquired No. 5 Mk 1

[crowtalks]

I had an opportunity to grab a jungle carbine at a great price recently and I snatched it up...

My Dad always traded on guns and one of my chores growing up in the 1960s was to clean them. One of the rifles he had that I fell in love with the looks of was an Enfield jungle carbine and I traded for one in the 1980s and kept it for a few years before someone talked me out of it.

Last year I acquired a 2A1 Gibbs special pretty cheap (especially since I had heaps of 308 ammo) and it is a good looking weapon that shoots good...however all it did was make me want the real thing again.

It finally arrived via UPS today and it's a pretty solid 1945 BSA (BFxxxx) with about 50% of the rifling left in a shiniey bore. The rifle has developed character with a bit of the suncorite worn off the exposed part of the barrel (which is fine with me) and the furniture also appears to have a BSA M47 stamp which makes me think its wearing the same outfit it came out of the factory with.

However the bolt carries a different serial number but on a quick inspection it seems to lock up good and the sling is a repo.

[72 usmc]

Headspace and check lug contact on miss matched bolts. Read your brass after firing.

[Brian Dick]

A nice, honest looking old girl. Turn the sling around at the butt end to keep the hooks from buggering up the wood.

[crowtalks]

I finally got around to firing this old girl.

I checked it out and all parameters were nominal, so I started out with low power handloads.

It shot well and the ejected brass matched some older brass from a previous No.5 from three decades ago that I still had, awaiting reload.

It seems I need to replace the extractor spring as it lamely spits the rounds out, but springs are easy to come by...all in all, I'm pleased with this cool shooter!

Jim

[Alan de Enfield]

It seems I need to replace the extractor spring as it lamely spits the rounds out, but springs are easy to come by...all in all, I'm pleased with this cool shooter!

The extractor spring has little to do with the ejection (except in it holds the rim against the side wall)
The ejection is simply because the case rim drags up the left hand wall and the frictions 'flicks' the case to the right and out it goes.

The ejector screw only come into play when trying to eject an un-fired round as the friction is not high enough to 'flick' the weight of the case, bullet and powder.

[crowtalks]

OK, I didn't know that...

What do you think causes a lame ejection? Do I need to open the bolt faster?

[browningautorifle]

Do I need to open the bolt faster?

Try that. I'll bet when you just slowly cycle the case drops straight into the magazine follower. Try opening and pull it back sharply.