Old British Warhorse

This morning I braved the chilly temps and went out to practice some position shooting and hauled along my old Enfield warhorse for some plinking.

She's a '42 Canadian Long Branch No4 Mk1* and today I ran some MkVIIIz 175gr ball ammo through it. There were a few fliers in the group, but for 1941/1942 surplus this stuff shoots pretty well! Fliers aside, the group in the middle comes in around 1.7 MOA, which isn't too shabby for a 75 year old rifle shooting ball ammo at 200 yards







The best I can find, the ammo was from ROF Spennymoor, based on the double broad arrow headstamp. But from what I read, the Brits dropped the double broad arrow in '41 and used an SR stamp instead. Interesting that it's a '42 date but still using the broad arrow marks.

I'm not going to say what my old eyes thought the thread title was.

Great rifle.

From what I can see, that's a good looking rifle.

Love the Enfield, have a 1943 Long Branch myself....among others...

Nice rifle! I just bought one the mag is kind of stiff going in and out is that normal or maybe the mag is messed up?

You think those rounds are loaded with the old spaghetti pyrite powder?
That stuff looks cool.

J.R Priddy said:

Nice rifle! I just bought one the mag is kind of stiff going in and out is that normal or maybe the mag is messed up?

Click to expand...

The magazine is normally loaded from the top without being removed.

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Slacker said:

You think those rounds are loaded with the old spaghetti pyrite powder?
That stuff looks cool.

Click to expand...

Do you mean, cordite? No, it’s smokeless powder. MkVIIz and MkVIIIz used nitrocellulose powders. MkVII and MkVIII used cordite. The 7 used 174gr. flat based bullets and VIII used a 174gr. boat tail bullet for use in the Vickers MMG for longer ranges. Both were loaded to similar velocities.

Very nice shooting!

I have a new resolution to never shoot cordite milsurp again due to the high burning temp and erosiveness to the throat... Only "z" marked milsurp or handloads from now on!

GoWolfpack said:

The magazine is normally loaded from the top without being removed.

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Click to expand...

It was in fact often a disciplinary matter to remove the magazine for purposes other than cleaning. The British Army for a long time assumed troops would waste ammo if they could reload too fast.

As for Enfields I always had a hankering for one converted to .308

The "z" indicates nitrocellulose powder. Probably a Brit version of 4895. I had an ammo can full of the same ammo but was all click-bang. Ended up pulling the boolits.