*Pix*Shot this old Lee-enfield the other day and My casings are weird.

[30-30remchester]

TIKIROCKER I have had much experence with the 303 round and have never got more than 4 times to a case before it ruptured. The gun author and reloading expert , Mike Venturino has the same experences as I have. He tried just neck sizing for a time without much sucess and finally just replaces his brass often. I have loaded untold thousands of rounds and have never got more than 6 reloads to ANY rear locking lug rifle. And for front locking rifles, 15 times is the maximun I have ever got , usually only @10 times . Got some tips to share?

 

[Tikirocker]

30Rem,

There is no secret to reloading the Enfield ... I am a collector/shooter of Enfield rifles, a member of the Lithgow Small Arms Rifle Club - rifle range home of the Lithgow Small Arms Factory that manufactured all of the Australian Lithgow Enfield rifles and know personally Ian Skennerton who is internationally recognized as the world authority on the Enfield rifle.

I am also moderator of the Enfield forum at Surplusrifles - ask at any of the dedicated Enfield forums out there about reloading, not just mine. Better yet, do a search of those fora, you will find plenty of people getting more reloads out of their Enfield brass than what you are getting. All of the men I know shooting Enfields competitively in Australia, where the Enfield rifle is our national Military rifle, get a high re-use of their brass.

Exactly what they are doing is what I cited above ...

# - Fireform for only one rifle.
# - Use medium power loads.
# - Ensure your headspace is already correct.
# - Don't full length re-size and overwork your brass.
# - Don't use cheap brass.

As a colleague once noted ...

the problems in rimmed milsurps aren't usually traditional headspace related (the thickness of the rim) but chamber length related. Your Enfield could have nice tight headspace but still overstretch cases. The trick to case life is to not move the neck back when you reload. Neck sizing dies will do it or use the RCBS "partial resizing" technique.

This too is excellent advice with which I concur ...

When you fire a new case for the first time, use a moderate powder charge and put a thin film of sizing lube on the case. This inhibits the case walls from gripping the chamber and eliminates or reduces stretch even if head clearance is significant. Another way of accomplishing the same end is to use a bullet seated out far enough to jam into the lands, "headspacing" on the bullet instead of the case.

After you've fire-formed your new cases they will fill the chamber fully, headspacing on the shoulder just like a rimless cartridge. If you neck size, you'll have zero "headspace". If you have to full length size, adjust the die so the cases chamber with just a bit of resistance in the last few degrees of bolt rotation.

Finally, don't try to turn a .303 into a magnum. Keep the pressures below the limit and you reduce the small amount the bolt and receiver compress/stretch on firing in a rear-locking action.

With these techniques you can make your .303 cases last for dozens of loading cycles, even if your "gauge headspace" is well beyond the .074" field spec.

I still counsel getting head space correct however ...


Cheers, Tiki.

 

[SeekHer]

If that is a original sniper rifle butchered then there are twenty just like it at the local gun store as I write this, all with the proper scope mounts and scopes (Weaver or Bushnell) and done up by companies like Parker Hale or Army Navy Stores as sporterized, hunting rifles for the commonwealth trade of surplus military rifles...I have a 2/4, 4/2, 2/5 all done up the same way...

Then again I also have every version made from the Remington Lee, Lee Metford, Lee Enfield 1/1 to the last issued sniper rifles (and all variants before it) when it was being phased out...but only by Canadian and British makers...No Aussie, Kiwi or Indian...I also have the Gibbs versions in .308 Win...Actually I have every model of military musket and rifle that Britian ever issued from the doglock and the 1st Model Brown Bess to the SMLE...

 

[Claddagh]

Diagnostic suggestion: take a paper clip or a piece of stiff wire, make a bend of about 1/8" or so at one end. Put a sharpish point on it. A dental pick makes a good alternative, if you have one.

Run it down into a fired case to the base. Apply slight pressure so that the pointed part bears against the case wall. Slowly pull it outwards keeping that slight pressure with the case wall.

If you feel a 'hitch' approximately where that ring is, it's a sure sign of impending case head separation. Usually, the culprit is excessive headspace or a badly worn or damaged chamber.

IIWY, if the results of this little test are positive, do not fire this rifle again until the exact problem has been identified and corrected. I found this out the hard way with an old Marlin 336 in .30-30 I bought used many years ago. I didn't know what that little bright ring signified at the time. I learned when a case let go and I took it to a gunsmith to have the remainder of the case that had stuck fast in the chamber removed. I remember him commenting that he was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner after he checked the headspace, and told me I was very lucky not to have been injured when it let go.

 

[wogpotter]

The bulge in your brass is due to loose headspace ... what size bolt head have you got on your rifle? You may need to go the next size up. If you don't plan to reload it's not a huge problem as the Enfield has an excellent gas porting system but I would get the rifle correctly spaced anyway.

I'd disput that headspace is the ONLY thing to cause these. It's certainly one cause & should be checked, even if only to eliminate possible problems in that area.
However I've found from experience that some current commercial cases sold in the US (although maybe not in Australia?) have under sized cases.
The case diameter just in front of the rims of these tends to run a small amount under diameter for the SAAMI specs for .303 Brit. & this blows out to fit the chamber if this is the case.

I'm basing this on different brands of cases behaving differently in the same chamber. This rifle has been checked for headspace & is fine.

I'd also like to clarify the use of the term headspace as applied to rimmed cases, like the .303.

There's a big misconception here that you can "fix headspace" by setting up the reloading process to have the shoulder contact the front of the chamber to "fix headsapace". This is NOT fixing headspace, it is fitting the case to the chamber & adding support to reduce brass stretching, but .303 headspace is measured at the RIM of the case, not from the base to the taper before the neck. Neck sizing does a similar thing, but still doesn't fix headspace.

This in itself is not a bad thing as it extends case life by reducing stretching & helps with accuracy by having a round better fitted to the rifle's chamber. But if it becomes a crutch to "fix headspace" there are risks involved as the excess headspace (if any) at the rim is NOT FIXED. Excess headspace can be hidden by this & excess headspace is never a good thing.

What this process does is to compensate for overly generous chamber shape, not headspace. Unfortunately it can't deal with out of spec brass dimensions.

My suggestion would be to check the headspace anyway (just because it's a good idea), & get it fixed of it is off, then check the unfired & fired brass dimensions as well & then fit good brass to the chamber to compensate for sloppy dimensions.

FWIW the Prvi Partizan seems to be one of the better brands of brass currently as I've never had this issue with it.

 

[Tikirocker]

Wogpotter,

I agree ... your point is well taken and I have tried to cover those few different angles in my comments above. Indeed, you don't fix headspace by adjusting for it - ( this is mere compensation ) - which is why I stipulated for my own preference, "Make sure you get headspace corrected anyway" - regardless of reloading technique first.

Different Enfield shooters often come at the same problem from slightly different angles. I have not heard of any running into problems if the basics of the above information are adopted and adhered to - not even Ian would disagree with the merits of that well trod path. I am not as familiar with this issue of undersized brass in the U.S though, my fellow shooters in the U.S at surplusrifles have not reported this to me but I'll follow up on that and ask.

Tiki.

 

[wogpotter]

There was a long, & acrimonius discussion on the topic on yet another board. Once you got past the usual infighting & handbag flinging there was some evidence to support the original idea that there was an issue with tolerances.
At least enought to prompt me to check a couple of different brands of case I had lying around.
The main point of the discussion drifted into a Winchester ammo bashing thread. But stripped of all the ranting heres the basics.

"spec" for the .303 is 0.455 just in front of the rim.
Several cases from several brands, some US made, some not, measured 0.452, but the Prvi measured 0.454. Not a lot, but enough to allow a little "extra" expansion directly in front of the web.
Sectioning a few cases showed more brass thickness with Prvi as well. They also had less noticable thinning of the brass internally when I did the paperclip test.

This got me thinking, so I picked a few cases that I'd fired & checked diameters at a few points along the length of the case, starting directly in front of the rim, & going past the annular ring created when firing.

The "other brand" expanded to 0.455, right at the ring, but were 0.450 behind it. The Prvi started out with a bigger diameter & so had less pronounced ringing, but the diameter at the "ring" was the same as the "other brand".

This, together with the reputation for "generous" chamber dimensions, & misunderstanding of rimmed headspace on Enfields makes me wonder if the reputation has overtaken the real issue slightly.

I've fired in both a Savage made #4Mk1* (which absolutely has generous chamber dimensions) and a '55 Faz #4MkII which is much tighter, to the point that case fired in the Savage are hard to chamber in the other rifle. In both cases there was the ringing, but ONLY with the "other brand". This isn't a scientific test, I know, but the results are interesting as they indicate that chamber dimensions aren't the only part to the puzzle.

Both rifles are headspaced correctly, and I do use a F/L sizing die, but I tailor the amount of die adjustment to the chamber, setting it up so that the fireformed shoulder does have contact with the chamber walls. This plus the ringing on some brands only leads me to suspect that what is actually being seen in some cases is not a "correct" case expanding to fit a sloppy chamber, but an undersized case expanding to fit a correctly sized chamber.
Visually the effects will look very similar, but measurements will tell which possibility is the correct one.
Just to confuse the issue in some cases both things may be happening at the same time, undersized brass expanding to fit an oversized chamber.

 

[Tikirocker]

Excellent analysis and observations ... there are clearly several factors at work as you so eloquently suggested; I think that every rifle, barrel and chamber combination require their own set of criteria as regards tuning for optimum performance; every rifle will be need to be treated on it merits.

Of course back in the days when reloading was superfluous to Military SOP these things mattered not ... military ammunition was fire once and forget. It has only been since the advent of commercial reloading that many of these particular issues have become the focus of such intense scrutiny and discussion. Ironically it has largely been the post military Enfield owner that has been the vanguard for this inquiry.

Best, Tiki.

 

[Lavid2002]

For those interested here are the only markings I can find on the gun


England
No 4 mk1
M4 1943
Tr

 

[Tikirocker]

Lavid,

The M4 marking should read M47 or M47C usually ... this indicates a rifle manufactured by BSA Shirley, Birmingham Small Arms Factory. You have a English No4 Mk1 therefore.

Best, Tiki.

 

[Gewehr98]

In reloading for my bevy of Lee-Enfields...

I've discovered that collet sizing is the way to go for extending case life beyond one or two loadings, and I use either Prvi Partizan brass, or Sellier & Bellot. Both are thicker in case wall dimensions than your garden-variety Remchester fodder.

Of course, my brass stays matched to a given rifle, too. Brass fired in my No5Mk1 Jungle Carbine will not find its way into my NoIMkIII* SMLE, and vice-versa.