Enfield chambered in .307 win?

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Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this but I know there is a lot of wisdom in the milsurp forum.

I was at a friends farm shooting the other week and his dad was talking to me about an old rifle he said he's had a long time but never actually shot. (He uses .22's and stuff at the farm but never hunted or shot anything large). I asked if I could have a look but all he could find was a few boxes of ammo for it.

The ammo was .307 Winchester- which I had never heard of before. He seemed pretty sure that his disappearing rifle was a world war 1 lee Enfield, and he was positive the .307 shells were what it shoots.

I just though I'd ask if anyone knows about these? I know old milsurp was often re-chambered, but this seemed strange as I couldn't find anything about this being a common modification. Also the fact that .307 seemed to be more of a lever gun round then bolt.
 
You should not be able to chamber and fire 307 Win in a 303 Brit chamber.

Lots of might have been, could have beens in this story.
 
The guy who owns it is a little older, and not really a gun guy at all, so there is a chance that he was wrong about the Enfield. It just seemed a specific thing for him to know.
 
Happens all the time with folks who don't know guns. The Lee Enfield (if that's what it was) had no connection with that ammo
 
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Many Enfields were Re barreled and Re chambered to 307 in Europe, specifically France and Italy due to the "military cartridge" prohibition.

If you had a 308 DCRA and wanted to use 303 magazines and extractor, 307 cases might work.

After all, 307 is a 308 cartridge with the addition of a rim.
 
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Even if properly re-barreled as LE mentions, would this be safe?
The .308 runs at higher pressures than the 303, so naturally the .307 would be the same.
 
tootall said:
Even if properly re-barreled as LE mentions, would this be safe?
The .308 runs at higher pressures than the 303, so naturally the .307 would be the same.
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Depends on the action. The No. 1 Mk. 3 action is generally considered too weak for a conversion to .308 (excluding the Ishapore 2As and 2A1s), however the No. 4 Mk. 1(*)s have been used for .308 target rifles for such organizations such as the DCRA for years and I have never heard of any ill effects due to the pressures in that action.
 
The 307 was introduced in the 80's in the Big Bore 94 series of rifles. There were 3 calibres specific to that series of rifle. The 307 Win, 356 Win and 375 Win. I purchased a Big Bore '94 in 1986 or '87 shortly after their introduction in the 356 Win topped off with a 1.5-4.5 Bushnell. I sold it after my Grandfather gave me his Model 71 .348.
 
Papaclaude said:
That's what I thought. I don't think you would be able to close the bolt without altering it or the chamber.
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I stated that poorly, in a number 4 chambered for .308, the only change which you should need to do is install a .303 extractor.

You probably would need to fit the extractor to the .307 case rim.

307/308 Head space should be the same, full length dies are the same, just using a different rim holder.

Technically rimmed cartridges head space on the rim, while rimless cartridges head space on the cartridge "bottleneck" shoulder.

But on 307/308 the length from the rear face to the case mouth is the same.
 
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Lee Enfield said:
I stated that poorly, in a number 4 chambered for .308, the only change which you should need to do is install a .303 extractor.

You probably would need to fit the extractor to the .307 case rim.

307/308 Head space should be the same, full length dies are the same, just using a different rim holder.

Technically rimmed cartridges head space on the rim, while rimless cartridges head space on the cartridge "bottleneck" shoulder.

But on 307/308 the length from the rear face to the case mouth is the same.
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Thanx for clearing that up.
 
Seems more likely that he accidentally bought the wrong ammo at some point. Lost track of the number of times I had customers buy 7mm Mauser for their 7mm Magnum when I worked at a gunshop.
 
People do stupid stuff when they don't know much about milsurp firearms.

I inherited a S&W Victory chambered in 38 S&W and some ammo for it, that turned out to be a partial box of 380 ACP. I suspect that since it was a partial box that someone in the past had successfully fired the gun with that ammo.

I can imagine an old codger bringing his gun down to a local gun shop and then spending 30 minutes behind the counter stuffing various ammunition down the chamber until he found something that fit.

Scary, but I bet that stuff happened a lot back in the day.
 
Tudenom said:
People do stupid stuff when they don't know much about milsurp firearms.

I inherited a S&W Victory chambered in 38 S&W and some ammo for it, that turned out to be a partial box of 380 ACP. I suspect that since it was a partial box that someone in the past had successfully fired the gun with that ammo.

I can imagine an old codger bringing his gun down to a local gun shop and then spending 30 minutes behind the counter stuffing various ammunition down the chamber until he found something that fit.

Scary, but I bet that stuff happened a lot back in the day.
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Seen plenty of old black powder 32S&W's fired with 32acp.

Seen 303brit 1895 Winchesters fired with 30-40krag...and vice versa... on purpose.

"It shoots better this way..."
 
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