Am I wrong for loving my Jungle Carbine and the 303 Brit round it shoots?

R

Roamin_Wade

Moderator
I really dig my Jungle Carbine Lee Enfield. The stock had been butchered by the person who had it before me so I found a synthetic stock from ATI stocks. It is actually made to go on the No. 4 but they said with some inletting it would fit and they were correct, after a bit of inletting it fits great!

DISCLAIMER: For the purist reading this, let me reiterate, the old stock had been butchered before I got it.

Anyway, the 303 Brit round it shoots seem to be kind of lacking in power by most things I read about it. It seems to be relegated to the equivalent of the 7.62x54R, which by other reports say it doesn’t come close to the 308 Win and definitely less than the 30-06.

My curiosity is what round is ballistically close to the 303 Brit besides the 7.62x54R? Also, do some feel as though it is indeed right up there with the two aforementioned American 30’s?

The shortness of this Carbine, and the 10 round Mag, would this setup be a good scout rifle? And if so, would it be effective against North American dangerous game?
 
It does reach the low end of the .308 spectrum as far as velocity and energy goes when you compare bullet weights. The Brits max speed is about 200+ fps slower than the .308 Win max speeds. That puts it right around the .30-40 US cartridge, and that does pretty well.

As far as it being effective against dangerous game, yes it has been used all over the world as a hunting cartridge on every type of game imaginable. However, like all cartridges they are only as effective as the hunter using them. I'm sure plenty of polar, grizzly, and even brown bear have fallen to the .303, just like elephant, hippo, buffalo, lion, tigers, leapord, and crocodiles all over the British colonies did as well.
 
Not wrong at all.
My first "deer" rifle. New, still covered in cosmoline No. 5 from a "Army/Navy" store circa 1966. $35.00. Foolishly traded (pre rule#1) for a Hakim. OK, the Egyption Ljungman copy is pretty cool, but I really missed my JC. I did find another on in really good, original condition last year. Violated good ole rule #1 again by trading a couple duplicate Mausers. I really don miss them.
 
303

It is what it is.

If you shoot well with it, it's a great rifle.

My former Marine son-in law consistently places rounds inside a US quarter at 100 yards with his 303 using open sights.
 
"...be a good scout rifle?..." It's one of those just the way it came out of the factory.
The .303 Brit round has been filling freezers up here with great big moose for nearly 100 years. The only issue with a No. 5 Rifle is the felt recoil.
"...some 9,500 will be turned over to cadets for use in target practice..." Not at Corps level they won't. Army Cadets lost their FN C1A1's and No. 4 and 7 rifles years ago due to severe budget cuts.
 
The .303 Jungle Carbines were noted for their rather fierce muzzle blast and heavy recoil. Also, back in the day when the supply of Jungle Carbines became scarce due to popularity, there were "fakes" entering the market made from the more common and much cheaper standard SMLE .303's inasmuch as real Jungle Carbines were going for a premium.
 
Am I wrong for loving my Jungle Carbine and the 303 Brit round it shoots?
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Absolutely. Just put the rifle down and back away. Slowly.

I'm sure the LE fanboys will flame me, but the #5 is just not a great thing.
Actually, there's not a lot to say about a LE #5 Jungle Carbine that's good. Sure, compared to the #4 rifle they can be called light weight, but compared to many other rifles, not so much. Recoil and muzzle climb is stout because the weight is to the rear, the hard rubber pad is small so it hurts even more than a full-sized buttplate, muzzle blast is severe, and accuracy is typically mediocre. On top of that, the velocity out of the short barrel put you more into 30-30 ballistics. Even though the #5 Jungle Carbine is a cool piece of militaria, it is best left in the collectors' case IMO.
 
As this is completely subjective, you are more than right, its your gun and your shooting and if you like it, that is far more than good enough, its perfect.

Any liked gun is better than any whiz bang tech gun that does not appeal.

LE will be here long after all the tacti cool things are dust.

303 saw the Brits through 2 wars and then some. Granted you had to put 8 of them in the wings of a fighter to get what you needed.

For a so called obsolete cartridge 100 years ago, its pretty amazing.
 
About 20 years ago I bought a No.4 Mk1* Enfield, just for the fun of it. As received, the bore was dark, very dark. So I bought six .30 bronze brushes and a large bottle of Hoppe's. Wet bore, scrub with brush, wet bore, let sit. I did this every day for two weeks. Cooked up a load with BLC2 powder and Sierra bullets. That old rifle shot <2 inch groups at 100 yards with iron sights. It was fun.
 
Jungle Carbine variant aside,there are many who declared the 303 SMLE as the best bolt battle rifle of WW1/WW2.
And,of course,some will argue.

Ballistics? Just my opinion,it has something to do with iron sights vs scopes.

Scopes extend the range your average hunter can place a shot.Some folks can shoot game very well at longer ranges with iron sights,but for many,150 to 200 yds might be a limit.
the approx. 2400 fps of a 303 is quite adequate for those ranges,

With a peak velocity of 2400 fps,its not a great challenge to make a cup and core bullet that will perform well on game within the approx. 200 yd iron sight range.

I've noticed many of the respected classic African hunting cartridges,along with many American classics have MVs in the 2200 to 2400 fps range.

IMO,there is a great value in the intangibles of how the rifle "feels" to you.

If YOU like it,are confident with it,if YOU can smack down the hog with it,why would you even want to give me or anyone else the power to give you doubts?


A Texan with an SMLE sounds dangerous to me.
 
A lot of empathy for battle field weaponry.
Other than the two American cartridges a-for-mentioned. I'm thinking maybe the 300 Savage qualify's.
 
The shortness of this Carbine, and the 10 round Mag, would this setup be a good scout rifle? And if so, would it be effective against North American dangerous game?
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No. 5 would make a great scout type rifle. .303 is more than enough for North American game.

Personally I wanted something similar to the No.5 and settled upon an FR-8.
 
A lee enfield is a heck of a nice rifle. I own two No4 MK1s and they are simply wonderful to shoot. A good friend has an Ishapore and a No 5.

The 303 brit round is more than adequate for just about anything in North America. Its power is in the same range as a the above mentioned 7.7 Jap, 30-40 krag, 7.62 x 54R, low end 308 Winchester, the 300 savage, and just above normal loads for the 30-30 Winchester. its a dandy of a cartridge.
 
The 303 carbine I shot would kick pretty good and at dusk would blind you from the flash. Learned to hate that rifle quick.
 
vintage article

Somewhere, in an old Shooters Bible maybe, there is an article or column entitled "One Good Gun". The author may have been a guy last name Sherwood and he was some type of wildlife biologist.

Anyhow, one of the firearms featured in his annual column was a Jungle Carbine. Rugged, reliable, and handy, ....accurate enough for his purposes.
He had lots of good things to say about his #5, and concluded that he wished somebody still made something like it ....that was about 1985 or so.

There is still lots of merit to a rugged, handy bolt rifle in a serious caliber. The
Ruger Scout comes to mind, (lets not turn this into a Scout bashing session, OK?) so to the Ruger American Predator with the 18" barrel in .308. The old Rem 600 series is another, and the Rem Model 7 as well.

The .303 cartridge covers a vast scope of history, from the Boer War and Africa homesteading, to the trenches of WWI, desert Africa, Italy, Europe and the Pacific in WII, in the wings of the Hurricanes and Spits, and the turrets of Lancasters, Korea, and Northern Ireland. That is huge span of time. Hunting with a cartridge having a pedigree like that should be inspiring.
 
"Rugged, reliable, and handy, ....accurate enough for his purposes."

I have a Rem 700 youth carbine re-stocked with a full size synthetic stock. It fits that bill BUT is obnoxiously loud, has a blinding muzzle flash, and kicks well above it's performance class.
 
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