Lee Enfield

Does anyone have a Lee Enfield rifle? How are they to shoot? How much is a reasonable price for one (I have seen them for a bit over $200)? How hard is it to find the British .303 round?

A friend has one and I've shot it a few times. It's as accurate as any of the milsurp stuff (on par with my VZ24). I've heard that the actions are damned near bullet proof. I like the aperture sights on the Enfields.

Which model are you talking about, the SMLE? $200 is about the going rate, sometimes more or less depending on the condition.

303 British ammo is on par with the other calibers too. Midway has Privi for $14 for 20 rounds. I searched around and didn't see anyone who had any milsurp ammo for sale and in stock.

EDIT: I couldn't find anyone selling sealed spam cans o ammo

Yup I was talking about the SMLE. Other then the Lee Enfield and the Moison Nagent, any other Milsurp rifles people like that are not much cash. I am a college student after all (and no I don't live in the dorms) and I need to be able to afford ammo as well.

I picked up my Mauser (VZ24) for 220, you can get Yugo M24's for about 200 and K98's when the pop up tend to be in the same range unless they're numbers matching. Swiss K31's are about $300 in my neck of the woods.

8mm Mauser surplus ammo can be had for ~$.30 per round. I got a span can a few weeks ago of 150gr Romanian ammo and it's been pretty fun at the range.

I want an SMLE too, but the lack of ammo options was discouraging. There is a Remington Enfield, P17 I believe, that's 30'06, but those tend to fetch $400-500. I think my next acquisition will be a Mosin 91/30 Sniper clone.

I have shot an Indian made Enfield jungle carbine quite a bit. It was made in the sixties in 7.62x51 NATO caliber. It has a small stock and kicks me like a mule, the owner of the rifle is a small guy and he has no problem with the recoil as it fits him. It never has failures and is very accurate. I would recommend the Enfield.

I've always heard that SMLEs are not terribly accurate, something about the magazine and chamber being designed to fire rounds that had been dropped in muddy trenches (this is fairly common of all military bolt guns). This also causes .303 British to be tough to reload for, and like all obsolete military rounds, the supply will eventually dry up. (I'm starting to plan for when GP11 ammo for my Swiss K31 runs out). I think I've heard of people having success doing full length resizing on different casings to get an acceptable .303 case.

Also depends what you want to use it for. I have several old milsurp weapons (pretty much what's listed here) and yet I likely use my SKS 3x all the others combined... of the old stuff I like the MN next best, but the size and weight make it impractical for a lot of uses.

I would just be using it for E36 M3s and giggles shooting (targets, cans, maybe a squirrel or two).

Not much usable meat on a squirrel after a .303 touches it.

I was pretty impressed with the SKS my dad bought. Mostly since it has a rocket launcher sight and a bayonet. The Tapco synthetic stock and removable clips work pretty well, and looks cool too. The cheap, plentiful ammo helps the cool factor.

Enfields are great. The actions polish up nicely and the cartridge is recoil-friendly yet still powerful enough for just about anything in North America. The only problem with them is the funky bullet diameter has a smaller bullet selection for reloading.

The SMLE has always been on my bucket list of weapons to won. I would like to find one in the 7.62 NATO caliber though.

I've never heard they were not accurate, but I've never shot one.

Others on my list are the Swiss K-31, 6.5mm Swedish Mauser, Springfield 1903 and 30/40 Krag. Do you see a trend here?

I want one, but "good" ones are money now.

Sometimes you can get '03 springfields through the CMP. Now that would be interesting.

Brotus7 wrote: I want an SMLE too, but the lack of ammo options was discouraging. There is a Remington Enfield, P17 I believe, that's 30'06, but those tend to fetch $400-500. I think my next acquisition will be a Mosin 91/30 Sniper clone.

Nice gun the P17 Enfield, the reason they are so expensive though is because they'll take the pressure of any round you care to rechamber it for, provided it's shorter then the 30.06 round. So 300 rem mag, nitro express goodness, or any wildcat that you desire.

The SMLE enfield are based on a older design, the .303 round is good, can be found for cheap, but most of the primers are corrosive and are berdan primed as well, meaning that the ammo is rather difficult to reload. There are .308 models, but only get the ones that are that way from the factory, as the rebarreled actions cannot stand up to the added stress and psi required of the jump from a .303 to .308 round.

CDNN just had .303 round on sale 2 emails ago, so last week sometime, check with them on the current prices, I do believe that they are the cheapest on the net or shotgun news.

CMP will have some P17's shortly

http://www.thecmp.org/m1917.htm

When I was in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, we shot .22 Lee Enfields on the range they are heavy buggers.

Just shot a 434 at tody's CMP match at my club with the K31. A little below average for me, I haven't shot much this summer. Anyway, another vote for K31 Swiss.

I have two MK 4's. That's the one to get with the good, aperture sight. It's a little stronger than the older models, which have the open rear sight up on the barrel.

Accuracy is adequate, recoil is not bad, and they're a ball to shoot. Fastest operating bolt gun ever made, if that matters. Cheap, surplus .303 ammo has been gone for years. The best is the Greek stuff, boxer non-corrosive, but it's pricey and may not be around anymore.

This is not the strongest action around, a somewhat springy, rear-locker. It's safe enough, although some people warn you away from the Indian-made .308 versions. It's just not an action to be handloaded hot.

Rifle is very historic, neat-looking in my opinion and, again, a lot of fun to shoot. "Going hunting? Take a Mauser. To the target range? A Sprignfield. Going to war? Take the Enfield."