I have a dozen or more .303s ready to go to the range at just about any time and not ONE of them will "throw the cases out" if I cycle the bolt slowly.
Get a dummy round and put it in, cycle the action VERY slowly and LOOK and see what actually happens. After you have THAT down pat, do it again FAST and see the difference.
The Lee-Enfield Rifle is not like anything else ever made. The man who designed it was an absolute GENIUS at the rare art of throwing away parts that you don't need: simplification, pure and simple. The result is a rifle which will handle a century of military service with an absolute minimum amount of maintenance and spare parts.
As to the extractor, its function is to grab the rim of the cartridge and pull it out of the chamber. As the extractor brings the fired round OUT, it pushes the casing to the LEFT so that, as the casing is drawn backward with the bolt, the fired casing RUBS against the inside of the left-hand Body (receiver) rail. The FRICTION thus generated causes the casing to be tipped to the RIGHT..... and, as soon as the fired case gets all the way out of the chamber, angular momentum causes it to throw ITSELF out of the rifle.
MOMENTUM is a function of VELOCITY multiplied by MASS. The MASS remains CONSTANT, so the Angular Momentum you need is governed by the VELOCITY of the withdrawal. Too slow means not enough Angular Momentum to throw the case out.
The EJECTOR is just a screw in the rail of the Body, designed to tip the empty out if something ELSE goes wrong. Ejectors don't wear out because, in normal sevice, they are NOT USED in a Lee-Enfield Rifle.
But you have a problem, so let's trouble-shoot it.
Something my Dad taught me, many, many years ago, back when I was just starting to mess around with old guns and old motorcycles, made (and still makes) a lot of sense.
"Analyse the problem," he said, "and then start checking the parts which are involved, starting with the CHEAPEST PART."
So let's look at your rifle.
The Bolt is worth $40 (fourth-hand and 70 years old)
The Body is worth at least another $40 (new cost, today, about $350)
Extractor is worth $10 (if you can find one)
Extractor Spring is worth $4.50 (if you can find one)
Ejector Screw is worth $5 (if you can find one)
FIRED CASING sells for 60 cents new and goes downhill fast from there: 30 cents when you bring it out after the first firing.
What kind of ammunition are you using?
Are the casings made to MILITARY SPECS or are they something that SAAMI cooked up because those stupid Brits can't be trusted to read a micrometer? Remember here that the Micrometer was INVENTED in Britain, along with most of the Industrial Age!
If the Rim of the casing is not wide enough, the Extractor CAN'T PUSH IT OVER FAR ENOUGH to solidly contact the left-hand receiver rail against which it works to DEVELOP that Angular Momentum which is supposed to toss the casing free.
The same thing can happen if the base of the casing is UNDERSIZED. This is more likely to occur than a problem from the Rim because the Extractor is actually designed to CLEAR the Rim. The Extractor only bears against the Rim when the BASE of the casing is too narrow for it to grab and push against.
You can get exactly the same situation with some brands of ammunition which have a GROOVE at the base of the casing, right where the Extractor grabs the brass. What happens is that the Extractor drops into this groove, does not push the case far enough or hard enough.... and the fired case doesn't pop out the way it should.
Original British (and Canadian) .303" Service ammunition DOES NOT HAVE a base groove, for exactly this reason!
If an Extractor does not grab the casing properly and the Spring is working (you can feel it work, believe me) properly, it IS possible to grind or polish-out the INSIDE of the curved arm of the Extractor to permit the CLAW to work from a position farther inward. Be very careful here because, should the Extractor be polished or ground TOO FAR, it will actually IMPEDE the loading of the next round, should it not just pop straight up into position to feed, the way it ought to.
Anyway, friend, chances are about 90% that any problems with Extraction and Ejection will be caused by:
1. working the action too slowly
2. out-of-spec ammunition.
Hope this helps.
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As to your apparent keyholing problem, I ask again: what type of ammunition are you shooting??????? Lee-Enfield rifles do NOT like boat-tailed bullets: they ALWAYS shoot their best with a FLATBASE bullet of .312" diameter or larger, depending upon the rifle.
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