Okay, I have been himming and hawing about this rifle for years now and finally took the plunge. I have decided to do a little writeup on the rifle since information seems to be scarce on them and there are some things that I have never noticed mentioned anywhere else. I hope that this will be of help to anyone thinking of picking one up.
I ordered the rifle from Marstar and it arrived within 2 weeks of ordering. The packing was excellent, and there are a lot of goodies with the rifle. The rifle is currently offered with a soft case, steel scope rail designed for the rifle, sight adjustment tool, 2 matched/numbered 10Rnd mags, NcStar Scope, and not mentioned on the site,it came in a hard shell case to boot.
The fit and finish are great on every part of the rifle. It came coated in a very light preservative oil, easily wiped off with papertowel. The bolt, bolthead, magazines and receiver are all numbered to eachother. I did have to tighten a couple of screws here and there, so it's a good idea to check this before shooting, especially the main(king) screw where the target sling swivel is located.
The magazines are a bit tight to get in and out, and the bolt is very close fitting, with some friction due to the parkerizing, but that will be resolved with use as the finish wears off of the working surfaces.
The layout of the rifle is very similar to a No.4, the sight arrangement accepts standard No4 rear sights but come with a 2 position flip sight with smaller apertures than any No4 sight I have. I would say about .020 inch diameter, so they should be very helpful in shooting. An improvement over the original sight is that it does not have to be flipped a particular way to facilitate bolt removal. There is also a trapdoor in the butt with the proper cuts for a pullthrough and oil bottle to be placed there if you so choose.
Feeding and ejection are very smooth even though the action is not quite a pure enfield type. Why is it not a pure Enfield? The boltface is counterbored like a remington 700 but with a large external extractor that snaps over the case rim rather than the cartridge slipping under it from the magazine. I would have preferred the controlled round feed, but there is a big advantage to the new boltface, and that is the very positive ejection offered by using the plunger extractor. Regardless of the speed of bolt operation the brass is smartly ejected and there is no need to give the bolt a sharp snap back to engage an ejector screw as in the original enfield design.
There were two major differences that I noticed between the M10 and the original No4:
1) When the magazine is empty on the M10, the bolt cannot be pushed forward because the design of the magazine(m14 type) is such that the follower gets in the way. This can be helpful to let you know you are empty when shooting fast, but is a nuisance when dry cycling the action(minor point really... just remove the mag).
2) Bolt slop on an empty chamber. When the bolt is closed on an empty chamber the bolt can be slid forward and aft a good .050, but this play goes away completely when a round is chambered. I am guessing the is due to how the cartridge is headspaced. My No4 and No1 do not have this kind of play, and I chalk it up to a difference of designs. It did not impede accuracy or function at all.
UPDATE: There is the same movement in my other enfield's as well but the slack is taken up by the extractor bearing against the cutout on the barrel. Since the extractor is further back on the AIA M10 and not extending forward from the bolthead to contact the barrel in any way, it allows the bolt to move freely.
So.... How's it Shoot?!
Using the NcStar scope, surprisingly well! These were shot at 100 yards using some old loads assembled with speer 168 gr HPBT match and H4895. The scope was not the clearest, but it held plenty steady. Here are the last 10 of the first 20 shots I ever put through the rifle.
I hope this has been informative for everyone, If you have any questions please ask and I will try to answer them.
In my opinion, this rifle is a great range rifle in the same price range as the low to mid level Savages and Remingtons, most of which are synthetic stocked. You get the added benefit of the spare(and larger cap) mags, rail, scope and 2 cases added in for free, saving you more cash for ammo. Ifyou are looking for a nice rifle to just play around with, definately consider the M10, you will not be dissapointed.
Cheers,
Aric
I ordered the rifle from Marstar and it arrived within 2 weeks of ordering. The packing was excellent, and there are a lot of goodies with the rifle. The rifle is currently offered with a soft case, steel scope rail designed for the rifle, sight adjustment tool, 2 matched/numbered 10Rnd mags, NcStar Scope, and not mentioned on the site,it came in a hard shell case to boot.
The fit and finish are great on every part of the rifle. It came coated in a very light preservative oil, easily wiped off with papertowel. The bolt, bolthead, magazines and receiver are all numbered to eachother. I did have to tighten a couple of screws here and there, so it's a good idea to check this before shooting, especially the main(king) screw where the target sling swivel is located.
The magazines are a bit tight to get in and out, and the bolt is very close fitting, with some friction due to the parkerizing, but that will be resolved with use as the finish wears off of the working surfaces.
The layout of the rifle is very similar to a No.4, the sight arrangement accepts standard No4 rear sights but come with a 2 position flip sight with smaller apertures than any No4 sight I have. I would say about .020 inch diameter, so they should be very helpful in shooting. An improvement over the original sight is that it does not have to be flipped a particular way to facilitate bolt removal. There is also a trapdoor in the butt with the proper cuts for a pullthrough and oil bottle to be placed there if you so choose.
Feeding and ejection are very smooth even though the action is not quite a pure enfield type. Why is it not a pure Enfield? The boltface is counterbored like a remington 700 but with a large external extractor that snaps over the case rim rather than the cartridge slipping under it from the magazine. I would have preferred the controlled round feed, but there is a big advantage to the new boltface, and that is the very positive ejection offered by using the plunger extractor. Regardless of the speed of bolt operation the brass is smartly ejected and there is no need to give the bolt a sharp snap back to engage an ejector screw as in the original enfield design.
There were two major differences that I noticed between the M10 and the original No4:
1) When the magazine is empty on the M10, the bolt cannot be pushed forward because the design of the magazine(m14 type) is such that the follower gets in the way. This can be helpful to let you know you are empty when shooting fast, but is a nuisance when dry cycling the action(minor point really... just remove the mag).
2) Bolt slop on an empty chamber. When the bolt is closed on an empty chamber the bolt can be slid forward and aft a good .050, but this play goes away completely when a round is chambered. I am guessing the is due to how the cartridge is headspaced. My No4 and No1 do not have this kind of play, and I chalk it up to a difference of designs. It did not impede accuracy or function at all.
UPDATE: There is the same movement in my other enfield's as well but the slack is taken up by the extractor bearing against the cutout on the barrel. Since the extractor is further back on the AIA M10 and not extending forward from the bolthead to contact the barrel in any way, it allows the bolt to move freely.
So.... How's it Shoot?!
Using the NcStar scope, surprisingly well! These were shot at 100 yards using some old loads assembled with speer 168 gr HPBT match and H4895. The scope was not the clearest, but it held plenty steady. Here are the last 10 of the first 20 shots I ever put through the rifle.
I hope this has been informative for everyone, If you have any questions please ask and I will try to answer them.
In my opinion, this rifle is a great range rifle in the same price range as the low to mid level Savages and Remingtons, most of which are synthetic stocked. You get the added benefit of the spare(and larger cap) mags, rail, scope and 2 cases added in for free, saving you more cash for ammo. Ifyou are looking for a nice rifle to just play around with, definately consider the M10, you will not be dissapointed.
Cheers,
Aric
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