308 and 223 are always in stock...not necessarily cheap any more....but easy to find.
Knowledge on buying a Lee enfield
- Thread starter rockymountain8
- Start date
I think this calibre availability issue is overblown. Cheap surplus is not around to in any calibre except 7.62x39 right now.
I just searched 303 in Canada on Google and a dozen online dealers show stock, including marstar, foc, bss, northern elite, and even Canadian tire.
It’s not cheap but it’s readily available.
How often do you have to buy a box of bullets urgently without notice? It’s never happened to me and I fire thousands of rounds a year.
Planning ahead is a good idea no matter what you get.
I just searched 303 in Canada on Google and a dozen online dealers show stock, including marstar, foc, bss, northern elite, and even Canadian tire.
It’s not cheap but it’s readily available.
How often do you have to buy a box of bullets urgently without notice? It’s never happened to me and I fire thousands of rounds a year.
Planning ahead is a good idea no matter what you get.
Eaglelord17
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Sault Ste. Marie
Exactly, I have never had a issue finding .303 British, usually gun stores will carry a few boxes at a minimum and thats even in my more rural neck of the woods.
It really is about the most common milsurp caliber available other than .30-06 or 7.62 NATO/.308.
The reality is if you want to shoot milsurps you need to accept that ordering ammo is the standard process for those that don’t reload, or you reload your own ammo (often a requirement for many of the odd calibers). The days of crates of cheap readily available surplus is over. Even if more appeared thanks to the new ammo rules requiring the original factory to sign off on the ammo it is unlike to end up here, rather it would just go to America where they don’t have such restrictions.
The problem with finding 303 British ammo is finding the brand and weight your particular rifle will shoot well.
Commercial ammo is so "inconsistent" in most rifles that it limits the shots to 100yds or less IMHO. Change anything in a Lee Enfield and accuracy goes awry immediately, unless you're lucky enough to have one which is set up properly or one of those jewels which just seems to shoot anything well (very few and far between.)
I remember one trip to Northern BC, where the fellow with me forgot his handloads at home. He knew Winchester "gray box" 174 grain shot well in his rifle but we couldn't find a box or two of it anywhere from Prince George to Ft St John. He finally bought a couple of boxes of Federal, because that's all there was in that shop, and the best they would shoot at 100 yds was into 6 inches. We didn't do our usual type of hunt because he didn't trust his rifle's accuracy with that ammo. He stuck close with me, to help with a follow up shot if needed. That definitely limited the area we could cover.
So when I do buy a rifle I should try different rounds until I find one that shoots well in it? Or are there specific brands that are good?
IMHO the Lee Enfield is a great rifle. Many of them were purpose built as sporting rifles, on new receivers, both by the manufacturers of those receivers and by many cottage gunsmiths of varying ability.
Later, after many wars and hasty manufacture, many militaries dumped their Lee Enfields onto the surplus markets, where they were either picked up by other nations for their military or sold off to civilians.
Most of those sold to civilians were "customized" in various and imaginative ways, which mostly buggered the ways (bedding) if it wasn't already bad.
One thing that many nimrods did back in the day was to toss the King Screw pillar, or just lost it. When the stocks weren't properly coated with Linseed Oil, they shrunk and hard use often made them sloppy.
So the first thing a novice would do is get out his trusty/rusty "screwdriver" and crank as hard as he could on the King Screw, crush the bedding, sometimes to the point the magazine couldn't be inserted to lock in place or couldn't be pulled out. The accuracy was usually buggered.
Before you purchase a rifle, get someone with some "real knowledge" on what to look for to come with you, and look the rifle over.
When they're set up properly, either sporterised or full wood, they will shoot most commercial offerings acceptably, but don't expect miracles.
If you aren't going to hand load, then you're going to have to purchase different makes of ammunition, as well as bullet weights, to find which shoots best in "your rifle"
Now, here's where it gets even trickier, the brand of ammo you find that shoots best will likely not shoot best or even well the next box you purchase.
Why? Because it's from a "different manufacture lot" and the case, primers, powder, bullet manufacturer may all be different, and there will be nothing on the box to indicate this.
Remember, these rifles are most well used and the newest models were made 50+ years ago in Pakistan, on used Maltby tooling.
All commercial ammunition, that I've seen over the last 20 years, for the 303Brit is loaded with .310-311 diameter bullets.
If you have a rifle with a larger nominal bore diameter, you will be lucky if anything shoots better than a 4 inch (10cm) group at 100 yds/meters.
Think long and hard before purchasing a Lee Enfield as your first rifle.
Personally, I've had a love affair with Lee Enfields and the 303 British cartridge for over 60 years. It's the reason I started hand loading, back in the day when hand loading was still considered by many to be alchemy or sorcery, and only for those who wanted to blow up a rifle in their face.
For the most part, these rifles were made for military purposes, accuracy needs were for a different purpose than those you require to hunt.
The militaries of the world are much happier wounding the combatants of their enemies of the day, than they are in killing them quickly.
A dead combatant can be left for later retrieval, or as a field flower. A wounded combatant needs to be taken care of, and depending on the circumstances, can play hell with the psyches of the other combatants at the most critical moment.
A hunter's ultimate goal is a "one shot, drop in their tracks kill"
Chasing down a wounded animal is not "fun" and often puts many hunters completely off hunting forever.
Answering your question with a quick yes or no, just isn't possible, because of how many variables there are with this particular platform, we call the Lee Enfield.
There's a very good reason people LOVE TO HATE LEE ENFIELDS. Some of it is the fault of the platform, and some of it is the fault of the shooter.
A Lee Enfield is the least desirable platform to start a newbie on IMHO.
Avery rifle, even from the same manufacturer, make and model, will shoot differently with certain loads.
To ring the most out in terms of accuracy, you will need to experiment and try different rounds.
For any enfield that is chambered for the mark VII service cartridge, which is most of them, the guns will shoot 174gn or 180gn bullets better than other weights in terms of aligning to the factory sights.
Different brands of ammo will have differences in bullet diameter, shape, jacket thickness, propellant pressure curves, etc and you will likely find a brand that you like above other options.
This is true of all rifle models, not just Enfields.
I think that is a bit harsh. An un-molested gun in military trim that has not been dinked with, de-sporterized, etc. will usually shoot acceptably after a good cleaning with decent ammo.
Most of my collectible enfields shot 2-3 moa with the first random box of 180gn hunting ammo I grabbed off the shelf.
Last edited:
Like me, you're biased because you like Lee Enfields and know how to get them to the point they shoot acceptably well, and you're lucky enough to have several in VG or better condition, which haven't been buggered with or maybe they've been through an FTR.
However, it's a huge learning curve for "newbies" and especially folks who've shot other types of rifles, which are far easier to learn on.
There was a time when I would give newbies Lee Enfields I had worked on to be acceptable shooters. After several rifles going into inexperienced "with Lee Enfield" hands. I no longer even consider it as an option.
I speak with a lot of people about firearms and the Lee Enfield often pops up in the conversation. The usual, descriptions of "only useful for a jack handle, shoot around corners" etc always crop up.
Most newbies aren't interested in, or financially stable enough to afford to purchase enough different ammo to find out which shoots best in their rifle and then stock up on that lot# for future use. Then of course comes the time and care that goes into keeping them accurate. It's just to much for most newbies and even those experienced with other types of rifles to take on.
I learned to shoot centerfire rifles on a Lee Enfield. 65 years ago it was difficult to find literature on the rifles where I lived and the local library didn't have anything.
That's all changed today, other than the cost, which has skyrocketed.
About 20 years ago, I came across a ledger from an English cottage gunsmith's shop. In that ledger he listed customer's rifles by their serial numbers on the barrel and their bore diameters, as well as the proprietary loads he made up for the rifle and the amount he loaded for the customer.
Many of the customers had several entries for each rifle. Everything from maintenance to several orders for more proprietary ammunition.
Proprietary ammunition today, would be relatively easy for a hand loader, with a rifle that shoots bullets .310-.312 well. Not for a newbie or a person who relies on commercial ammo.
The entries in this ledger started in 1905 and were kept up to 1936, when the shop closed.
I found the ledger in the estate of the gunsmith's son. I gave it to his grandson. It's nice to have that sort of family history to look at.
There was a wealth of information in that ledger, on what was done to keep those Lee Enfield sporters shooting well. I should have photocopied it all before giving it back, but it was a heavy tome of a few hundred pages and ????????
Well said. However...
A No4 Mk1 was the first centrefire rifle I ever bought at 23. Got into reloading not long after and searched for ways to secure the bedding properly, slug the bore, and reload better.
If you've got a room temperature IQ or above, and some basic hand tools, it can be done without much fuss. For me that's half the fun in shooting old guns.
Not necessarily. Some very intelligent people are not able to grasp even the basics of hand loading cartridges. They still like to hunt and shoot though.
You went into handloading very soon "after" acquiring your 303 Brit and were likely lucky enough to have one with a nominal bore diameter.
Did you have to play around with different bullet diameters???? What would you have done or surmised if your rifle hadn't shoot well with bullets suggested for it in most manuals?
You can't make such an assessment based on your "individual" experience.
When I first started having accuracy issues with the many 303 Brit rifles available to me, I was lucky enough to have some first person guidance from a retired REME, who had worked on No4 MkI T rifles, and US built Pattern 14 rifles, which were fitted with Warner Swasey scopes.
He quickly pointed out the differences between the bedding characteristics of the Lee Enfield and the Enfield. Hand loading only works with these rifles if the bedding isn't buggered.
Newbies to Lee Enfields have no idea what they're up against. Handloading is not by any means the be all/end all accuracy route with any platform and even less so when it comes to accurate Lee Enfields.
I am not knocking the Lee Enfield platform at all, I really like it, but, if I were just starting out and someone handed me a Lee Enfield of any model, with poor bedding and ammunition not suited to the rifle, I would have quickly become dismayed with the platform.
I stand by my state that a Lee Enfield is a poor platform to start a newbie shooting on, unless you intend to take the time and effort to walk them through all of the issues and how to fix them to keep them shooting well.
For most newbies, Lee Enfields poorly set up will put them off the sport very quickly. I've seen it many times.
Butcherbill
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Blaster land, Okanagan BC
I kind of agree on that, I’ve had Lee Enfield’s since I got my licence. In fact a sporterized no.1 was my first rifle, I inherited it from my dad when he passed away. I desporterized it out of sentimental value and it was a big learning experience. The next one that fell into my lap was sporterized but otherwise set up pretty well, it was my first hunting rifle and I’ve shot a fair amount of deer with it. If I do my part it will shoot 180gr Fed blue box into a 1-1.25” group at 100m, it does have a scope mounted which helps with groups.
The last one I ended up with was a mess in a few areas with bedding and forend fit, it initially shot what looked like a buckshot pattern at 100m. The bore isn’t the nicest looking but it cleaned up well and I’ve honestly seen worse that shot fine. After epoxy bedding and fitting the forend it shoots 2” groups with handloads, if I hadn’t already been familiar with the rifle and done some reading on bedding it would’ve been a big frustration point for me. I like to tinker and polishing turds is a specialty of mine, but I can see how tough it would be for someone who isn’t as experienced or hands on with things.
The last one I ended up with was a mess in a few areas with bedding and forend fit, it initially shot what looked like a buckshot pattern at 100m. The bore isn’t the nicest looking but it cleaned up well and I’ve honestly seen worse that shot fine. After epoxy bedding and fitting the forend it shoots 2” groups with handloads, if I hadn’t already been familiar with the rifle and done some reading on bedding it would’ve been a big frustration point for me. I like to tinker and polishing turds is a specialty of mine, but I can see how tough it would be for someone who isn’t as experienced or hands on with things.
