John Duxbury
Member
The accuracy standard for the Army was a certain number of shots (5 I think?) inside a box at 100 yards, and equates with a three inch group at 100 yards. This may sound like loose standards today, but most expensive sporting rifles would not do better than that with commercial ammo in those days. A rifles that did two inch groups was a real shooter, and one that consistently achieved 1.5 inch group was a jewel of a rifle.
I have had a lot of them and unless their bore was wrecked with old corrosion and cordite they would all do a three inch group at 100 with no real trouble. A recrown can do wonders, or counter- boring a cm or so to clean up some pitting. Used to mess with shimming between the forestock and wrist, or with pressure at the foreend, but it never seemed to make much positive difference.
In NZ target shooting with service rifles was very popular from the thirties through to the sixties and many many rifles were shot competitively, and had a lot of rounds put through them. But you used to be able to buy new army barrels up through the sixties too.
What I like about old .303's is not the military history - most of these rifles spent a couple of years over seas, shot their hearts out at El Alamein and got dropped on the parade ground, then were put in storage for a few years - before being sold out of service to hunters.
They then spent several decades as hunting rifles, being carried and shot through the mountains of New Zealand at the biggest trophies in red deer history, or culling deer by their thousands in the most rugged wilderness, or after elk and moose in Canada, kudu, lions and commercial ivory hunting in Africa, and croc and buffalo hunting in Australia...
It's the hunting lives of these rifles that interests me. An old cut down Lee Enfield may be the greatest adventuring firearm in history....
I have had a lot of them and unless their bore was wrecked with old corrosion and cordite they would all do a three inch group at 100 with no real trouble. A recrown can do wonders, or counter- boring a cm or so to clean up some pitting. Used to mess with shimming between the forestock and wrist, or with pressure at the foreend, but it never seemed to make much positive difference.
In NZ target shooting with service rifles was very popular from the thirties through to the sixties and many many rifles were shot competitively, and had a lot of rounds put through them. But you used to be able to buy new army barrels up through the sixties too.
What I like about old .303's is not the military history - most of these rifles spent a couple of years over seas, shot their hearts out at El Alamein and got dropped on the parade ground, then were put in storage for a few years - before being sold out of service to hunters.
They then spent several decades as hunting rifles, being carried and shot through the mountains of New Zealand at the biggest trophies in red deer history, or culling deer by their thousands in the most rugged wilderness, or after elk and moose in Canada, kudu, lions and commercial ivory hunting in Africa, and croc and buffalo hunting in Australia...
It's the hunting lives of these rifles that interests me. An old cut down Lee Enfield may be the greatest adventuring firearm in history....
