Guy stuff: Annealing some British .303 cases

[JGalt]

I've been doing some handloading over the last week, for a Bubba-fucked No. 4 Mk I Lee-Enfield rifle I have. It's dated 1943 and is a decent shooter, despite its looks. The rifle was a Lend Lease to the British government and is marked "U.S. PROPERTY." The story behind it is kind of interesting. I bought it ten years ago at a garage sale for $10. I asked the man and his wife if they had any guns and he said he had an old rifle he'd take $10 for.

He went to the shed and brought this out, and I said "Sold." The rifle was covered in gunk, oil, and sawdust when I bought it, and it took a rubber mallet to get the bolt out. After disassembling it and giving it a good cleaning and oiling, it functioned perfectly. Now for the weird part:

Two weeks later, the guy who sold it to me tried to kill his wife with an aluminum baseball bat. He banged her up pretty bad, and then sucked on the muzzle end of a shotgun. His wife survived the beating, but he didn't.

Anyway, I added the scope mount and worked up several handloads for this rifle, including 180 gr. Sierra softpoint, 150 gr. Sierra softpoint, 180 gr. cast bullets with gas checks, and 150 gr. Hornady softpont. In order to get the most reloads with my cases, I annealed some of them today...

 

[Ringel05]

Good find on the Enfield even though it's Bubba'd. Quite a few of those out there, same with K98s. A lot of those guns were sporterized after the war.

 

[JGalt]

Good find on the Enfield even though it's Bubba'd. Quite a few of those out there, same with K98s. A lot of those guns were sporterized after the war.

It's pretty amazing how many Enfields, Springfields, Mausers, and Japanese Arisakas GIs brought back here from the wars. I've picked up a lot of them at garage sales for pretty cheap over the last 20 years.

 

[1srelluc]

Good find on the Enfield even though it's Bubba'd. Quite a few of those out there, same with K98s. A lot of those guns were sporterized after the war.

Yeah, I used to "rescue" them if they had not been cut-down too bad.....Now the cost for a stock-set/hardware is too prohibitive to mess with them.

Springfield Sporters would sell you a stock set for either a #3 or #4 with all the hardware for under $50.00. Sadly the guy that owned/ran it passed and Sarco got all his stock.