New (to me) Pattern 14

P

Pcahill

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I'm so excited, I just bought a Pat 14 enfield, Winchester manufactured in 1917. I consider it my first true milsurp. I have been cleaning it since I bought in on Friday, after 5 8 hour soakings in birchwood caseys bore scrubber the blue stuff finally stopped coming out. The bluing is mostly worn in the receiver area and the front upper handguard has a repaired crack. The bore on the rifle is frosted but the rifling is strong and sharp and the muzzle is square. Unfortunately the bolt is mismatched but the remainder of the rifle matches.

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Can't wait to get it out and put some rounds downrange. I bought an assortment of ammo, pretty much every brand I could find locally. Wow, I cant believe how much some stores want for 303. $29.99 at the store closest to me! I'm definitely going to have to reload for this.
 
Very nice P14, I bought a restored sporter from a fellow CGN member a few years ago, a real pleasure to shoot, and quite accurate too! Reloading the .303 is really your best option as well.
Congrats on your purchase!:D
 
Very pleasurable rifle to shoot. A bit on the heavy side, but that would be the only downside in my opinion.

Now, you realize that you need to find its non-identical twin, the Model of 1917, to go with your P14... :)
 
louthepou said:
Very pleasurable rifle to shoot. A bit on the heavy side, but that would be the only downside in my opinion.

Now, you realize that you need to find its non-identical twin, the Model of 1917, to go with your P14... :)
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Hi lou, ( I was just talking about you, lol) she still is one of my favorites, a real eye catcher at the range, too!
 
So I just got back from my first range trip with it and I was extremely pleasantly surprised. I started at 50 yds ladder rear sight set to the lowest setting - 5 shots all in the black, just under an inch apart. Moved out to 100 yds, first 5 round group dead centre and and just under 2 inches in size. After that the groups did open up abit but I`m guessing that it was due to the barrel getting progressively hotter - now that was with Remington UMC, Federal blue box shot about a 5 inch group, Winchester super x was the best soft point at about 3 inches, Remington express core-lokt was an unimpressive 6 inches. Now everything after the first 2 groups was shot with a hot barrel, and near the end a screaming hot barrel so that probably contributed to the less than stellar performance of the soft points and I used up the rest of my UMC smashing the gong at 300. That was pretty entertaining in itself as for the first 5 rounds I had set the sight for 500yds and was wondering why I couldnt hit the dang thing. Everything was shot off a rest.
 
Oh yeah, I found the recoil to be very pleasant, kind of a shove. And after getting the barrel hot oil started to weep out of the stock.
 
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Quick and easy fix for the "ejector spring thingy" is just to remove the whole ejector box, clean things up and substitute a short coil spring for the thin shaving that the rifles used for an ejector spring. If the parts are clean enough, a little dab of Acra-Glas or JB Weld will hold it in place forever; ballpoint pen springs work very well if snipped in half and are readily obtained at your local bank (just don't tell them!). I have a couple of rifles here that I replaced the sliver-spring on about 34 years ago..... and they are still chugging along. The ejector spring was the ONLY weak part on the P-14 rifle or on the M-1917 rifle and it was the favourite bugaboo of Armourers. The Americans even had to make up a special run of just Ejectors in War Two to keep up with the demand. Ejectors for the P-'14 have been out of production since 1917.

As far as the oil coming out of the woodwork, you have oil-soaked wood: not rare on these, believe me, but it IS deleterious to the appearance and harmful to the wood itself. If this happens on one of mine, I clean it down with brake-drum cleaner and wipe dry. A few treatments like this and the problem is cured. Then you can treat it with proper linseed oil, put some NATURAL moisture back into the wood: she'll last ANOTHER hundred years.

For handloading, might I offer my test load: a HORNADY 150, seated so that the entire bullet cannelure shows. With 40 grains of 4064 it's a warm load but nowhere near max. It also is a 150-yard one-holer in my scoped P-'14.

For a 180-grain load, I use the SIERRA 180 Pro-Hunter with 37 to 38 grains of 4895 and seat to the OAL of a standard Mark VII BALL round. This crowds the rifling just a tad but it seems to be extremely accurate, generating half-inch short groups at 100 yards in a couple of SMLEs I have lying around and much less than that in a 1910 Ross. It runs about 2250 ft/sec or 200 ft/sec under Ball round velocity thus conforming to the original 1909/10 test results in the search for the most accurate velocity for a 303 rifle with a 174-grain bullet. BTW, runs 100 ft/sec faster in a Ros; those extra 5 inches of tube DO make a difference. This load also seems to shoot very well in Moisin-Nagant rifles.

Hope this helps.
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Thanks for the info. After the range I noticed that the front upper handguard repair/reinforcement pieces (small pieces of wood running across the h/g) appear to be loose. Another question I have is if boat tail projectiles are harmful in enfield bores. As far as I can tell from the ammo I have tried they do seem to be the most accurate. Thank you in advance
 
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