Thread: Casting for an SMLE

Hey Folks,

I have a couple of 1943 (or 1946, hard to tell) Lithgow No1Mk3*s, one of which had a full wood and hardware set, but a completely corroded bore, and the other that has a badly sportered stock but a perfect action and excellent bore. I am in the process of merging them into one good shooting condition rifle and will decide what to do with the leftovers another day.

I slugged the bore yesterday and then had the joy or figuring out how to measure a 5 groove slug. After some faffing around I had a groove diameter of 0.3183 from about 30mm past the throat and 0.3179 near the muzzle. I repeated the slugging and measuring a couple of times to make sure I wasn't screwing something up and got the same result each time. From the reading I have done, this is an extremely large bore for even an Enfield.

I have not shot this rifle yet and im assuming that factory ammo will likely shoot like crap from a large bore like this, so my plan is to make my own cutter to modify a single cavity lyman .284 mold I got for cheap from somewhere to something for this rifle.

I like the idea of something in the 180-200gr+ range doing 2000fps or more. I will powdercoat and gas check.
I plan to put holes in paper and 4 legged critters with this rifle.

Has anyone here done something similar? Any suggestions for a bullet design to copy to get me started?