picked up an Enfield 2A "Carbine"

C

crowtalks

New member
I found a good deal on an Indian Enfield that had been converted to a jungle carbine. The gun was made in 1966 and the guy that sold it to me thought it was an arsenal conversion, though I thought that the importers were primarily the source of the conversions

I have had an Eddystone, as well as a couple of No 5 carbines in the past and always loved the looks of them but I wasn't a huge fan of the 303 cartridge.

I decided to grab this one because it was chambered in 7.62 Nato, since I have heaps of the ammo, factory and reloads, and plan on running some mild to mid pressure loads through it.

Some purists pan these weapons as fakes (which I guess they technically are) but I like the looks of them, and it makes a fun plinker.

Jim
 
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It's not exactly a fake, there was no original for it to copy.
Have fun and bear in mind that it is still a No 1 SMLE supposedly rendered suitable for 7.62 by use of superior steel.
 
carbine

Somewhere in my archives I have a vintage copy of a "Gun Digest" that carried an article written by a guy about his collection of "practical" working guns. The author was a wildlife biologist or warden with a western state and wrote quite well. Sherwood?????

One of the rifles he highly praised was a .303 Jungle Carbine. Powerful, durable, light and handy he shot all manner of game with it and covered a lot of territory. Because of it's design/construction was intended to last forever, and endure military hardship, his carbine survived all sorts of abuse....tossed off a horse, rolled on by horse, snowmobile and ATV use and mishaps, and of course it never missed a beat. His closing comment was something to the effect that "someone should make something like it today".

His carbine supposedly did not display the wandering zero that the breed for which the breed was known.
 
Back in the day, Jeff Cooper was pushing a Scout Rifle. A lightweight, long rifle cut down to a carbine.

steyr_r809-steyr-flr.jpg
 
Depending on what at and how well you shot the carbine , the wandering zero may not be a factor or noticed .
 
short and light

Watch out, bring up Cooper and the scout rifle and a firestorm results.

Concept is similar though, short, light, rugged and powerful. I should have bought one of the Mosin-Nagant carbines when they were affordable. The difference between Sherwoods jungle carbine and the Cooper/Styer scout is only about $1400 ;)
 
Back in the day, Jeff Cooper was pushing a Scout Rifle. A lightweight, long rifle cut down to a carbine.
Click to expand...

I've read a lot of what Cooper wrote, including about his Scout Rifle concept.

The basic concept was for a short (1 meter) light (3kgs, less if possible) rifle in a caliber powerful enough to give several hundred yards of usable range and capable of taking game weighing up to several hundred pounds.

Where things start going off "into the weeds" was the result of people focusing more on some of the features Cooper thought would be useful, than the basic concept, and his entire idea of it being useful for military scouts, at a time which was several decades past the time the military ended the use of scouts and that class of rifle, the way Cooper envisioned it.

Also because of what some other people did creating their own "scout rifle" (such as Steyr) which were close, but not entirely in line with Cooper's vision.

Until Steyr began building their scout, everything done in the scout fashion was an adaptation of some previously existing rifle, and the easiest starting point was to take a longer rifle and shorten it.

Cooper had at least one of his "scout class" rifles built on a Remington 600 carbine in .350 Rem and seemed quite happy with it, for what it was, not his ideal scout but a close and very usable gun which he often referred to as "Baby"....

A short, reasonably light, powerful and handy rifle of carbine size is a great tool and can be built off a number of existing rifles, the Enfield being just one of them.

I have heard the tales of the "wandering Zero" in Jungle carbines, supposedly due to the relief cuts made in the receiver to lighten it, resulting in a "less stiff" action. I've never heard or seen any definitive proof, only hearsay. its not impossible some rifles did that. Its also not fair to say ALL of them do that, without any actual proof.

And, even if true, it wouldn't necessarily apply to the 2A rifles built as .308s to begin with.
 
All Enfields have a wandering zero due to the way they are made. Not enough to matter for practical battel use , but it does show up when going for pure accuracy . That is why the Pre-WWI British pro soldiers did not like the gun for match shooting , and wanted the P-13 Mauser . Our shooting club did weekly military rifle matches for about 15 years and the Enfield just was not competitive for pure accuracy . The only way we could get people to shoot theirs was in Enfield only matches . I feel the Carbine " problem " showed up more because the army wanted a new auto rifle , not a bolt carbine .
 
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