And right now I'm showing 75% chance at head shots.
Posted on 10/19/2014 7:55:46 AM PDT by fso301
No. These parts are METAL, and metal is notoriously hard to work with.
In another 10 years we will be about 100,000 people in number, grunting at one another and scavenging burnt-out buildings looking for a rusty can of beans.
“Parts can not be fabricated?”
I agree. What is so hard about that. By the way I have 4 varients of the Lee-Enfields.
The Garand is way too heavy. In both cases, I believe they used more wood (weight) than necessary.
“Because it is a .303, it has the stopping power,” Rittwage says.
The only rifle I've ever owned was a .30-06. My understanding was that it wasn't a first choice for hunting something the size of polar bears or bull moose. And its energy is in the vicinity of 2900 ft·lbf, whereas the .303 is around 2500.
Am I missing something?
Yes the writer had no idea of what a heavy caliber really is.
The .303 British has probably taken all game there is as has the 30-06. I agree with you that they are not first choice tho.
That’s peobably in comparison to the “common” .223.
As others have noted, it's not so much that parts do not exist, but that they are not available from "approved" suppliers, and for the machine shops which could fabricate the parts, the cost of dealing with the government procurement system makes it uneconomical.
They should just sell them to the private market, which could get parts without government overhead.
The original manufacturer, Longbranch Arsenal (later Canadian Arsenals Ltd) was shut down in 1976 by the Trudeau government. Supposedly parts for the No.4 rifles could still be bought from Pakistan (which acquired all the No. 4 machinery from ROF Fazakerley in Britain in the early 1960s)...but apparently Ottawa doesn’t want to do that.
I talk once in a while with a couple of Canadian Forces veterans (who date back to the C1A1 era); their perspective is that this is nothing more than politicians seeing another opportunity to profit from a new contract. A problem they’re facing, though, is that the replacement weapon has to be made in Canada...and Diemaco/Colt Canada doesn’t make bolt-action arms.
I know many hardware stores sold firearms. A local grocery chain here in Harford County, Kliens, had them too. John Hechinger was a pioneer gun control advocate in DC. I read in an obituary that he ordered his stores to stop selling handguns.
I have a good condition M1917 Enfield rifle in .30-06 Springfield that I inherited. It is not actually a Lee Enfield, which I have used as a teen to hunt deer and we referred to it as a .303 British.
During WWI we actually produced more 1917 Enfields than 1903 Sprinfields.
The 1917 Enfield was simply a British Pattern 14 Enfield redesigned to handle the 30-06 cartridge. The pattern 14 was actually a Mauser action which the British had intended to replace the old SMLE with. It was also going to be a .280 caliber.
When WWI came along they abandoned the .280 since having two different cartridges would have been a logistical problem. They contracted with American manufacturers to make pattern 14 Enfields in .303. I am not sure how many were actually made but I once had a pattern 14 in .303.
“In another 10 years we will be about 100,000 people in number, grunting at one another and scavenging burnt-out buildings looking for a rusty can of beans.”
Another optimist I see. Thought I was the only one left.
One of the Ishapores I sporterized with a fancy synthetic stock. The other I kept original. They both can ring an 8 inch cast iron skillet at 400 yards with the iron sights.
The bolt is slicker than just about anything I’ve ever fired. The folks at Enfield knew what they were doing, that’s for sure.
Hey, optimist: Those are my beans. Find yer own can.
Just did. Thanks. You are so screwed. LOL
Yeah, I celebrated his death in January, 2004. Best month of my life.
And right now I'm showing 75% chance at head shots.
A very fast action, so fast that the Germans thought that the British infantry platoons were using machine guns at times. I imagine the sound was their first clue.
Prize for the weirdest accessory was the periscope sight for shooting fom the trenches while keeping one's teakettle down.
Am I missing something?
Bullet type, shot placement and marketing.
A ball .303 round at 200 yards will enter one side of any North American big game animal, punch through any bone in its way and exit the other side.
As long as the shooter is good enough to hit the heart/lungs, the animal will go down pretty quickly.
Stopping a charging animal is not much different. At non-acute angles of impact, a ball .303 will punch through the skull bone and scramble the brains thereby causing the animal to drop in its tracks. A chest shot will create a very looong wound channel that may exit the rear. I don't know if a .303 will break a leg bone or just punch a hole though it but I doubt the end result of facing a charging moose with a .303 will be much different from say a .300 Winchester Magnum.
Marketing also plays a role in that gun and ammo makers would prefer that hunters believe they need something more than WWII surplus rifles.
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