.303 Woes.

Tyler

Tyler

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I have no luck with firearms right now, first my M-14's barrel is over-indexed, then my Enfield stock is cracked, now this.

1st:

My No4 Mk1 keeps jamming on the last round in the magazine. Everytime I go to chamber the last round, the nose of the round escapes the feed lips prematurely and is pointing up, so when I go attempt to chamber the round it jams between the barrel and reciever. Talk about a PITA, I've tried bending the right lip of the mag to hold the last round down, but it only works when its bent so far as to cause feeding issues with the rest of the rounds.

What can I do? I've adjusted the follower and lips in every which way, but nothing is working.

2nd:

Has anyone had any issues with Igman .303? My No4 Mk1 will chamber it, but my P-14 just won't accept it. It'll eat Remington, Winchester, Sellier & Bellot, and surplus, but it just won't feed Igman... it even broke my extractor! Upon closer examination, the tips of the brass casings are coming out nicked (and starting to mushroom over), so I imagine my batch of Igman is just too big for my P-14?

I noticed that every other .303 round has a tight crimp, making the case neck just a bit narrower at the top, but the Igman lacks this style of crimping, hence the mushrooming.

*Edit* Upon closer inspection, the rim of the Igman cartridge is simply too wide to fit into my P-14 bolt. It's significantly wider than any of my other .303 ammo, and it won't even fit onto the bolt-face of either of my P-14's. But with the flat bolt face of the No.4, this isn't a problem.
 
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Issue No 1: Check to see if the ammo is consistent in size. If Ok then it's a weak spring or the platform is not prsenting correctly to the bolt face. You may have a No1 platform in a No4 mag housing. Borrow a buddies mag and try it.

Issue No2: Looks like you found the problem with the ammo. The P14 has a tighter toleranced chamber than the Enfield.
 
You should be able to solve the feed problem by bending the mag lip as you've tried, but doing it by tiny increments. It needs to be just right and that can take lots of experimenting. It's not just a case of bending it over - try changing the angle of bend too.

You need ten rounds of dummy/inert ammo to do this, loading it in every time you tweak the lip (you have to load all ten rounds, as tweaking the lip to change the last round feed characteristics will also change the others). The really tedious thing is that you need properly weighted dummy rounds to do this effectively, as the aluminum dummy rounds I was using were too light and sprang up easily, whereas live rounds didn't when I eventually gave up and went out on the range thinking I'd never solve it!
 
Igman 303 is crap. I found they had very thin brass and the primer holes were 75% off center - an issue for me because I reload. The soft tips caused plenty o' jams in my Rosses.
 
The trick may be reloading or buying better ammo. As I remember I had a problem with my old P14, but not my new one, so it's partially dependant on the rifle. Doesn't help much, but I'm starting to reload, so I'm dealing with it that way.
 
When I bought my #4 mk1* I had a problem chanbering the last round. It seemed the the last rounds wasn't going all the way to the top. The mag worked great until the last round. It turns out the guy the I got it from had several different Enfields and he had given me a mag for a #1. They look the same but there is one differnce. On the back of the mag there is a little tab under the latch to hold the mag in place for the #1. Yours may have the same problem only the mag may be high enough to catch the last round by the bolt but not enough to chamber it.

This is a pic of a mag for a #4. The red arrow is pointing to were the tab would be on the #1

enfieldmk4_3031-1.jpg
 
Thanks for the advice guys.

It's definately a No.4 mag. I just bent some tabs to the rear of the follower, and now the last round doesn't protrude as much as it did before, so it feeds reliably everytime.

I also plan on reloading as soon as I get some extra cash and some time. I think I have about 200 rounds of Remington, Winchester, and S&B saved up to start my first batch.
 
If you are loading for ONE rifle, you will get longer case life if you only neck size the brass.

Oh the mag problem is why I always get a laugh when people want "spare mags" for their Enfields. A SLR or an AR15, it is NOT;)
 
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glad to hear u have the problem solved....

reloading for .303 brings the price down to the .40 cent's per round mark... buying box ammo is getting pretty costly these day's
 
Hotwheels81 said:
glad to hear u have the problem solved....

reloading for .303 brings the price down to the .40 cent's per round mark... buying box ammo is getting pretty costly these day's
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. I only bought some Winchester ammo lately because Canadian Tire had a $10 discount for every $40 spent recently, so I bought two boxes for $21 each. $16 per box is bearable, it's just too bad I can't find Sellier & Bellot any more. That was good stuff for $16 ammo.
 
Tyler said:
Tell me about it. I only bought some Winchester ammo lately because Canadian Tire had a $10 discount for every $40 spent recently, so I bought two boxes for $21 each. $16 per box is bearable, it's just too bad I can't find Sellier & Bellot any more. That was good stuff for $16 ammo.
Click to expand...

I hope it's not the silver box from Winchester... Any caliber I have bought for my rifles all pattern like a 12 gauge:eek: The black box is WAY better but more $$$
 
this is copied from a post i made in the reloading section a little while back when i started rollin my own.... (i know i messed up on the math somewhere but you get the idea)

$129.95 Lee Anniversary Kit
$29.99 Lee 3 Die Set
$4.99 Lee Case Length Gauge
$57.00 Digital Caliper (a caliper is a very important thing to remember!!!)
________________________
$221.93 For the equipment

$25.99 1lb H414
$29.99 100 sierra 150gr spitzer's
$3.19 100 CCI LR Primer's
_______________
$59.17 For the component's

The way i worked it out to justify it to myself is as follow's

$23.50 (approx) for winchester 180gr 20rnd box CXP-3 .303 ammo from wal-mart.... That's $1.17 Per Cartridge For Winchester Ammo

$60.92 Get's me 150 Sierra's, 150 LR Primer's, 1LB Powder (that's broken down of course by halfing the primer price and the bullet's to get to the 150rnd's i got from 1LB of powder)..... That's $0.40 Per Cartridge For Handloaded Ammo

In an easily understandable format that is 3 handload's to 1 store bought cartridge....

i shoot about 100rnd's a month (time permitting it's more)

$40 Per Month For Handload's
$115 Per Month For Store Bought
.....that work's out to....
$480 Worth Of Handload's Per Year
$1380 Worth Of Store Bought

That's a Saving's of $900 PER YEAR

The Equipment Cost Of $221.93 Is Recoverd In Just Over 3 Month's.....

And if you shoot at a range and reload a common caliber then you will probably never need to buy new brass.... even if you do.... $900 a year buy's a ton of brass.... this say's nothing of having tailor made load's for your gun and i'm sure other caliber's are more costly but do the math yourself and you might be surprised.
 
Hotwheels81 said:
this is copied from a post i made in the reloading section a little while back when i started rollin my own.... (i know i messed up on the math somewhere but you get the idea)

$129.95 Lee Anniversary Kit
$29.99 Lee 3 Die Set
$4.99 Lee Case Length Gauge
$57.00 Digital Caliper (a caliper is a very important thing to remember!!!)
Click to expand...

If you go out and buy one box of factory reloaded ammo or find one dummy training round at a gun show, then you never need to buy a case length gauge. :D
 
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