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.303 iron sights on Stickledown?


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I’ve taken my trusty No4 MkII back to 600metres so far, at which it performed surprisingly well, despite my elderly eyes. I’m taking my 300WM to Stickledown in a couple of weeks and wondered if anyone had tried an old Lee Enfield there? I’m just a regular shooter , not competitive, but would love to try if it is at all doable. I guess that I would need to shove a bit more powder in the case than usual 😂

Any one tried this?

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Good lord yes. Prior to about the mid 1960's almost all fullbore target shooting was carried out using the trusty Enfield in one form or another - all aperture sights and supported with a sling - not a girly rest of telescopic sight to be seen. My very first visit to Bisley was in 1963, shooting my Dads .303 P14 in an inter-county competition on Stix at 900/1000 yards (I was just 13 at the time and had been shooting prone smallbore for a year or so)

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I would suggest a visit to the zero range to calibrate your sights is in order first.  Those targets look awful small at 1000yds to naked eyes 😁

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57 minutes ago, Popsbengo said:

I would suggest a visit to the zero range to calibrate your sights is in order first.  Those targets look awful small at 1000yds to naked eyes 😁

 

Well, they are of course 😀

IIRC, the old Service Rifle 5-ring was 3.5-MOA in Enfield / P'14 days. No V-Bull either, and the overall size of the 'black' was far larger than today's TR target. There have been several target and ring size reductions since TR was introduced in 1968, and arguably they're still on the large size for 'Imperial' competitors in good conditions.

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6 hours ago, Ralpharama said:

I’ve taken my trusty No4 MkII back to 600metres so far, at which it performed surprisingly well, despite my elderly eyes. I’m taking my 300WM to Stickledown in a couple of weeks and wondered if anyone had tried an old Lee Enfield there? I’m just a regular shooter , not competitive, but would love to try if it is at all doable. I guess that I would need to shove a bit more powder in the case than usual 😂

Any one tried this?

Let us know how you go on Ralph especially what your sight settings end up as with what bullet/velocity.  We have a No4 Mk11  as well, will be good to have a feel for what may be required.  Best of British 😁

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4 minutes ago, Laurie said:

 

Well, they are of course 😀

IIRC, the old Service Rifle 5-ring was 3.5-MOA in Enfield / P'14 days. No V-Bull either, and the overall size of the 'black' was far larger than today's TR target. There have been several target and ring size reductions since TR was introduced in 1968, and arguably they're still on the large size for 'Imperial' competitors in good conditions.

I seem to think it was about that time that we changed to 7.62mm - Until that time the .303 ammunition was heavily subsidised, I seem to think it was around a penny a round and included in your competition entry. You just walked into one of the long huts or the pavilion, looked for your club/county table and picked up your score cards and a box of ammo - a 50 round box with two missing for four ranges at 2 sighters and ten to count.
There was an awful lot of muttering about the expense of new barrels and needing to get the receivers beefed up. I also think, at about that time, many of the old local home-guard fullbore ranges closed down - did the change to 7.62 necessitate a greater safety area?

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3 hours ago, 1066 said:

Agree - A quick visit to the zero range can save a lot of heart ache. Just bear in mind that the .303 zero targets are calibrated for the 174gn 2,500fps military round.
you might find some useful information here:

04(b). Using The Zero Range At the NRA Bisley. - Lee Enfield Rifle Association (lee-enfield.org)

I will have to go on the zero range to do the HME test anyway, so loosing a few extra for the LE is no biggy. I do deeply resent paying £5 from my ever dwindling funds for a target, particularly when I do have an A3 printer 😃 Does anyone know where I can download a copy ?

I have found the graduations on the singer sight, to date, to be remarkably accurate up to 600metres. I’ll be using the electronic targets, so if I can register a hit on those I’ll be well happy 😃

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37 minutes ago, Ralpharama said:

I will have to go on the zero range to do the HME test anyway, so loosing a few extra for the LE is no biggy. I do deeply resent paying £5 from my ever dwindling funds for a target, particularly when I do have an A3 printer 😃 Does anyone know where I can download a copy ?

I have found the graduations on the singer sight, to date, to be remarkably accurate up to 600metres. I’ll be using the electronic targets, so if I can register a hit on those I’ll be well happy 😃

The £5 is the cost of using the zero range, not for the target. 

They won't let you rock up with your own target and zero for free.

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7 hours ago, 1066 said:

I seem to think it was about that time that we changed to 7.62mm - Until that time the .303 ammunition was heavily subsidised, I seem to think it was around a penny a round and included in your competition entry. You just walked into one of the long huts or the pavilion, looked for your club/county table and picked up your score cards and a box of ammo - a 50 round box with two missing for four ranges at 2 sighters and ten to count.
There was an awful lot of muttering about the expense of new barrels and needing to get the receivers beefed up. I also think, at about that time, many of the old local home-guard fullbore ranges closed down - did the change to 7.62 necessitate a greater safety area?

 

I did some research on this for a Target Sports magazine feature on the last of the No.4 target rifles many, many years ago. IIRC, the 303 / SR to 7.62 / TR changeover was phased over 1967 and 68 with the latter year seeing all major comps transferred to the new discipline.

As to when the MoD stopped the ammo subsidy, that I don't know. It might have lasted a little while into the TR / 7.62 era. Irrespective, costs rose across the board as the changeover started an equipment and technology race. Whilst large numbers of No.4s were initially converted with heavy barrels and cut-back furniture by A J Parker, Parker-Hale Ltd and Bisley's G E Fulton & Son for both individual and collective club owners, many shooters saw them as stop-gaps and immediately sought out alternatives. At local club level, there was an initially small movement from everybody using a club rifle to private purchase and individual ownership / use. My first decent 7.62 TR rifle was one such Schulz & Larsen built on a Mauser '98 action. The sole previous owner who'd shot it for over 20 seasons at that point told me it was the first privately owned rifle in the club when he'd bought it in 1968 or 69, and had provoked considerable resentment and personal hostility. However, within a couple of years, every other 'serious' competitor in the club had found the dosh to buy a similar grade rifle. 

At Bisley club and national level it soon ignited two, or even more rifles per individual competitor in private ownership for a couple of reasons. One was the Mauser action's superiority at up to 600 yards in heavy barrel rifles whilst the No.4's 'action compensation' feature provided better results with the barely ballistically capable and sh*tty-quality issue 7.62 ball at 800-1,000 yards. There was also so much variation between bullet diameters on different makes and even lots of military spec 7.62 in its early years that optimal internal barrel dimensions and chambers were equally varied, and it was said that wealthier shooters therefore had several chambered barrels or even rifles and chose the best match to the ammo being used that year. How widespread that practice was, or even if it happened at all, I wouldn't know, but suspect that many such rumours were apocryphal, even put about by the also-rans. 😀

Many shooters had hoped that when the NRA was forced to make the ammo change that things and SR would continue unchanged bar a simple rebarreling, extractor claw and ammo change. But the NRA concluded that the fully stocked No.4 wouldn't perform consistently with the higher pressure cartridge with a same weight/profile barrel and full length woodwork / nosecap set-up. (The Army was similarly disappointed it seems as there were attempts to refurbish 303 No.4s as light-barrel 7.62mm reserve rifles with appropriate magazine and feed / ejection changes when the L1A1 SLR came into service from 1957, but this wasn't carried out in major numbers. I'm sure that this offspring was given an L-something new format rifle designation, but Googling doesn't come up with any information I can find. I think India though did a relatively simple 303 to 7.62 conversion on far larger numbers for police, paramiltary, and reserve forces at a later date, many still in service today.) The GB NRA's investigation included attempts to stiffen 303 receivers with welded-on bars and strips, but that wasn't a success as well as the new-build SMLE action 2A1 model from Ishapore arsenal. (Contrarily, Canada's equivalent DCRA governing body commissioned Canadian Armaments Ltd to rebarrel a few thousand FTR'd No4 Mk1/2s for match use and these reportedly shoot well. Pics I've seen show them as per 303s with original military issue sights, not double-zero type match rearsights and front tunnels as used on HBar TR conversions.

I wouldn't have thought that the ammo change made a great difference (if any) to range danger area specifications leading to smaller militia range closures. I think that it was a steadily hardening of attitudes over health & safety standards in which many such venues were singularly lacking. Certainly, I've been told by several sources that the many closures of former militia / WW2 Home Guard ranges that took place across North Yorkshire resulted from public and local authority pressure usually as a result of footpaths intersecting ranges and/or danger areas, poor or non-existent sightlines and the resulting near misses. Certainly, many things one reads, or were recounted verbally by the WW2 generation suggest that basic safety standards were simply ditched during the WW2 emergency. (Remember, the UK saw more deaths and serious injuries between the September 1939 outbreak of war and D-Day on 06.06.1944 from road traffic accidents caused by letting barely trained individuals drive military and other official vehicles and the effects of the black-out, than from action with the enemy across all three forces in all theatres!)       

 

   

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I

10 hours ago, Roy W said:

The £5 is the cost of using the zero range, not for the target. 

They won't let you rock up with your own target and zero for free.

If you're just using the HME target use of the Zero range is free. 🙂

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11 hours ago, Laurie said:

 

I did some research on this for a Target Sports magazine feature on the last of the No.4 target rifles many, many years ago. IIRC, the 303 / SR to 7.62 / TR changeover was phased over 1967 and 68 with the latter year seeing all major comps transferred to the new discipline.

 

Thanks for that walk down memory lane Laurie - much as I remembered it. I also recall, when I first started as a young lad, someone suggesting that I tried using his Enfield No 5 Jungle carbine instead of my Dads rifle as the P14 was nearly long as I was. - Big mistake. :) Never really wanted to shoot the No 5 again.

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Laurie a very interesting post, thank you!

The No.4 actions which were "stiffened" by the introduction of a brazed bar were done for Robin Fulton by Walter Magnay who was the 1976 Queens Prize winner. I think Walter died about three years; and yes they made no difference to accuracy according to those that have tried them.

Regarding No.4's at 900 & 1000; I still have the occasional foray with mine but as others have stated the targets appear very small to my eyes these days when 20 years ago they didn't present a problem. I will admit to a slight cheat these days and that is shooting at those distances prone "supported" using a Hoppes front support. 

 

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