Thread: How short on a 303?

My old 'truck gun' in Ashley Forest 40 odd years ago was 16" shortened MLE and worked very well on pigs and deer out to about 150 yards.

Ready for a trip to the range for this little lead launcher before I refinish the forend.

Shot my first deer back in 1987 with a Jungle Carbine and 20yr old CAC 180vr ammo. My dad has one of the Bush Carbine rifles made in Canterbury. A little like the Jungle Carbine but different shaped top wood.

Originally Posted by S.E.G

Ready for a trip to the range for this little lead launcher before I refinish the forend.

Interesting a .303 assault rifle! look out for Cursading Chris Cahill, did you cut the magazine down for any reason? Surely a bren mag would look more the part.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Interesting a .303 assault rifle! look out for Cursading Chris Cahill, did you cut the magazine down for any reason? Surely a bren mag would look more the part.

Not just an assault rifle but a battle assault rifle

Whats your sight radius? Ive got a shortened ex pig hunters baikal single shot with an 8 inch radius that produced groups of 6 inches at 25 yards but with a red dot on will do 4 inches at 100,so dont blame the barrel if the results dont look so good

Originally Posted by S.E.G

Ready for a trip to the range for this little lead launcher before I refinish the forend.

Phew, for a brief moment I thought you'd put a bump stock on her!

She'd also look cool and "right for the period" with a Stengun metal stock... SMLE sporters just beg to get pimped, what with their two-part stocks.

going that short with resulting low speed anyway you might want to look at how heavy a cast load you can get....... the 220grn .308 pills MIGHT be soft enough to expand and grip bore ok and group reasonably.... even a 180 grn soft cast might be better than std cup n core as it might just mash up better,worth a crack either which way.

Thanks @Micky Duck I have some 212 gr lead round nose, dies and brass. I’ll cut her to 16” and throw the Ase Utra can on

@S.E.G.

Better not use .308 slugs - if bullets have to be upset / obturated a lot in order to fit the barrel they won't be consistently centered, leading to drop in accuracy. I'd go for a subsonic heavy flat nosed hollow slug cast for the .303. After all, no point in powering up for a 400m kill with that minimal sight radius (though the barrel itself would not be expected to have a problem with that just because it is short!).

There is a fellow on TM selling quite reasonably priced cast .308 hunting slugs, which he size at either .309 or .310 ...suggesting they are born a bit fatter out of the mould - maybe you could ask him to sell them to you "native" even though that would need to be unlubed. Less need for lube with sub loads.

See: https://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/hun...1463273144.htm

Speaking of the sights (going back to the sten gun talk) you could remove the rear open sight and instead mount a small fixed piece of L-shape iron with a decent peephole atop the charger bridge? Not much need for elevation adjustment at those ranges and you can readily drift as well as file down the height of the fore sight post.

If you're really comfortable with open sights, you can go super-minimalistic: just file a deep "V"-notch atop the charger bridge! It could save quite a few grams of weight to get rid of that open snaggy rear sight along with the massive steel brick it rides on, and won't interfere with stripper clips.

Hope some of the above is of use to you.

Wasn’t there a rare Enfield pattern that had v notches in the charger bridges? Trench rifle of some description

Originally Posted by 300_BLK

Wasn’t there a rare Enfield pattern that had v notches in the charger bridges? Trench rifle of some description

@300_BLK

No idea, but the charger bridge is far enough from your eyes to use for a V-notch sight. As most WW1 shooting was <200yards it seems having elevation adjustment was superfluous. Maybe the trench SMLE was an unknown No 1 Mk III**

Come to think of it, average WW1 soldier age was about 35yrs, so having a V-notch in the charger bridge maybe not great idea - presbyopia often setting in about age 40...

Originally Posted by S.E.G

Ready for a trip to the range for this little lead launcher before I refinish the forend.

That looks mean, I have a similar gun with a suppressor.
Its pretty heavy - an arm workout whilst walking around
It shoots/groups OK at 100m for a 60+ year old cannon

Heys guys,

Want to follow this up. I have just switched jobs so have time on my hands again to get out hunting and follow up on all my ramblings...

Please let me know if I have anything wrong regarding my rifle as my Enfield Fu is weak.

So big thanks to @gundoc who shortened my PH Deluxe in 303 to 16", threaded and mounted a rail on the gun.

I have put a Sig Sauer W3 3-9x40 on with sun optics alloy rings and have been reloading with some 150 grain Hornady interlocks with 40 gr of WW748, BM2 and AR2208. I used the hornadys as they were in my projectile box and are .312" which is good for the old girl. I used some once fired PPU and S&B some of which was donated...yeah there were dramas.

I tried some 212gr cast lead from @shooternz with 30gr AR2208 but will need to up the charge as the LabRadar was set to Rifle and couldn't aquire (below 1800 fps IIRC). Groups were 4" plus so need to crank them up a bit or try some W748.

So factory S&B 150 gr is shooting one ragged hole at 50m and 1" or less at 100m which I was pleasantly suprised by. Av Vel from the 16" BBL and ASE Utra 2325 fps.

WW748 4" groups and 2010 fps @ 100m
AR2208 3" groups and 2310 fps @ 100m
BM2 1-1.5" groups and 2380 fps @ 100m



Nice and handy



I suffered from the classic case head separation and managed to remove it with some CRC Penetr8 and a 28 ga brass brush on a short rod.

Apparently this issue is widely known and can be avoided by only reloading brass fired in your gun and by running a small wire or paperclip into the fired cases to 'feel' if there is a rim / doughnut developing when the brass flows forward.

I have heard neck sizing should prevent this (to a point) and have on hand a 30 cal neck die and that will work well enough on the once fired brass to try to prevent this problem, I don't think 6 thou will be an issue... The R hand loaded round has been neck sized by the .308 Neck die and you can see the base of the bullet at the neck / shoulder junction. This was a test on a shagged bit of brass with a rim on the inside to see if it works.

Will see how they go...

F