Lee Enfield for a hunting rifle.

[psycho nut]

I bought a scope base for my sporterized enfield rifle (No.4 Mk.1). It should be here either today or Friday.

I plan to locktite the screws as I haven't had good experience with screw on bases in the past and get some sort of cheek riser.

I'm wondering what kind of longer range (300 yardish) accuracy I can expect and what a good general purpose zero range would be. I've seen a couple of the hunting zero tables for .30-30, .30-06, etc. but never for a .303 round.

 

[Bezoar]

lee enfields are the reason we have jacketed softpoints in rifle rounds.

accuracy depends on barrel and ammunition. just read the ammunition makers website ballistics table for a rough idea

 

[Pilot]

The .303 British is an excellent hunting round and one of the widest used in the world due to the British Empire, and plethora of rifles made for WWI and WWII. The ballistics are much closer to the .30-06, than .30-.30. The rifle will determine how accurate the round is, but it has potential for great accuracy.

You can use powder makers reloading data to get an ideas of velocities, bullet weights, and bullet drop data.

 

[wogpotter]

I regularly get 5" 200yd groups off the bench with my "as issued" one.

Sporterised can vary from excellent through awfull depending on how well the stocking up was done when sporterising. The Lee-Enfield was designed for full bedding at the breech end & a slight upward pressure at the end of the full length forestock. When most are sporterised they have the front wood removed together with the important muzzle up pressure point.

You dont say what bullet weight or velocity you're shooting (sorry no pun intended) for so its impossible to give you a trajectory or zero suggestion. My best guess FWIW is set it up about 2 1/2" high @ 100 yds for any reasonable, sane hunting distance.

 

[psycho nut]

This is the rifle.

the bore is super shiny and has no discernible pitting or corrosion. My grandpa bought it to hunt with way back when and he gave it and this box of ammo

to me before he died. I've shot the rifle fairly extensively, but nothing more than 50 yards. It seemed accurate enough. Then the front sight was knocked off. I had it put back on but it shoots to the left pretty bad now. So, I decided to get a scope and use it as a deer rifle as I don't have one yet. So there's a little back story.

But yeah, the rifle seems sound to me. Stock and fore arm are secure there's a barrel band/front swivel (not sure how sporterized enfield forearms are done, this might just be normal) and the ammo as the picture shows is Remington 180gr soft point core-lokt. The sticker on it says it's from 9/28/95. Not that I'm worried about it. I just figure someone will get a kick out of a twenty year old box of ammo. I have a box of Winchester 180 gr. that I planned to do my initial sight in with, as the Remington has sentimental value and I don't want to use more than I have to.

I figured it would be fine but wasn't super convinced about longer shots as the militaries of the world seem to go for minute-of-man instead of MOA.

Edit: sorry about the huge pictures, I'm on my phone and had to host them and I didn't really know what I was doing.

 

[Dirty Dan]

Lee Enfield for hunting?

The British fielded a Mk IV sniper rifle during WWII, that was the standard for many years. I would not be surprised that the Brits might have a few floating around in the military today..Simple, dependable, strong and accurate. What more could you want from a hunting rifle!

 

[tahunua001]

it'll depend what condition your rifling is in and the quality of ammo you're using. good handloads would push it to minute of elk at 300 easily. minute of deer is not impossible either.

 

[PetahW]

.

IIRC, the .303 is widely used in Canada for hunting - A sporterized SMLE was my best friend's first ( and only, for 6 years) CF deer hunting rifle.

If the bore's good on one (they're often found corroded), a SMLE will shot just as good as most "off the shelf" commercial CF rifles.



.

 

[wogpotter]

Here is some 174 Gr data. It ought to be very close to a 180 Gr table.

(hopefully it'll past in a coherent form, it's from an Excel spreadsheet generated by a ballistics program.)

Range	Elevation	AngledElevation	Velocity	Energy	Time Of Flight	Drop	Deflect
25	-0.54	-0.54	2228.55	1919	0.034	-0.22	0.08
50	0.97	0.97	2189.48	1852	0.068	-0.87	0.26
75	2.03	2.03	2150.78	1787	0.102	-1.99	0.55
100	2.62	2.62	2112.43	1724	0.138	-3.57	0.93
125	2.73	2.73	2074.44	1662	0.173	-5.63	1.4
150	2.35	2.35	2036.78	1603	0.21	-8.18	1.97
175	1.36	1.36	2000.08	1545	0.247	-11.34	2.81
200	0	0	1962.67	1488	0.284	-14.87	3.47
225	-1.95	-1.95	1925.95	1433	0.322	-18.99	4.33
250	-4.51	-4.51	1889.86	1380	0.361	-23.73	5.38
275	-7.72	-7.72	1854.37	1328	0.401	-29.1	6.61
300	-11.58	-11.58	1819.47	1279	0.442	-35.14	8.01
325	-16.13	-16.13	1785.12	1231	0.484	-41.86	9.58
350	-21.39	-21.39	1751.29	1185	0.527	-49.29	11.29
375	-27.37	-27.37	1717.97	1140	0.571	-57.44	13.16
400	-34.09	-34.09	1685.12	1097	0.615	-66.34	15.16
425	-41.56	-41.56	1652.74	1055	0.66	-75.98	17.31
450	-49.81	-49.81	1620.79	1015	0.706	-86.4	19.58
475	-58.83	-58.83	1589.27	976	0.753	-97.59	21.98
500	-68.64	-68.64	1558.16	938	0.801	-109.57	24.49
525	-79.25	-79.25	1527.44	901	0.849	-122.36	27.12
550	-91.04	-91.04	1497.92	867	0.898	-136.31	30.07
575	-103.51	-103.51	1468.27	833	0.948	-150.96	33.03
600	-117.14	-117.14	1439.67	801	1	-166.75	36.26
625	-131.92	-131.92	1412	770	1.052	-183.71	39.71
650	-147.88	-147.88	1385.2	741	1.106	-201.84	43.37
675	-165.01	-165.01	1359.17	714	1.161	-221.14	47.23
700	-183.31	-183.31	1333.85	687	1.217	-241.62	51.25
725	-202.8	-202.8	1309.2	662	1.274	-263.28	55.45
750	-223.48	-223.48	1285.16	638	1.332	-286.13	59.79
775	-245.34	-245.34	1261.68	615	1.39	-310.16	64.27
800	-268.76	-268.76	1239.34	593	1.45	-335.75	69
825	-293.61	-293.61	1217.95	573	1.511	-362.78	73.91
850	-320.04	-320.04	1197.63	554	1.573	-391.38	79.04
875	-348.01	-348.01	1178.22	536	1.637	-421.51	84.35
900	-377.48	-377.48	1159.62	519	1.701	-453.16	89.81
925	-408.6	-408.6	1141.94	504	1.766	-486.45	95.46
950	-441.43	-441.43	1125.25	489	1.832	-521.45	101.28
975	-476.01	-476.01	1109.44	476	1.899	-558.21	107.28
1000	-512.28	-512.28	1093.99	462	1.967	-596.64	113.43

Oops it sort of squished a couple of columns together. You can probably copy/paste to excel & do it column by column to sort it out.

 

[psycho nut]

It came in today.

Put it on. Seems super solid. I was having some trouble with one of the screws and thought I was cross threading it, but I think it's just a set screw for one of the other screws.

It's just a cheap 3x9 BSA scope. I'll use it until it breaks if/when that happens or I decide to get something better. I hope to shoot it this weekend, weather permitting.

Thanks for the table! 2.5" at 100 yards looks pretty dead on. Great suggestion wog!

ETA: definitely not a set screw, awkward angle + aluminum = cross thread. Luckily, the hole goes all the way through and I was able to screw it in backwards and just back it out far enough that it would clear everything. Everything is right now.