.303 British stories

[Huntsman]

Well seeing as a popular 30-30 story has drifted to he .303 let's start a thread so as not to hijack.

My story starts off in Cold Lake 2002, it was my second year there and had just sold a brand new Winchester Mod 70 Black Shadow in 30-06 in order to put a down payment on a Honda Big Red.
I had in my gun locker all full wood #1MKIII, two No.4 MK1(2 groove and 5 groove), No.5 Jungle Carbine a P14, E.A.L., and a whole slew of sporters mostly No1's

So anyhow I was without my ought six for my second hunting season and settled on one of my 303's, the No4 with 5 groove. A trip to Edmonton I stopped in at Milarm and bought a drop in scope mount. Put some sporter wood on and Zeroed it at the range. I. Ame accross a flush fit 5 round mag
On a previous hunt in an area just north of the base on the Hwy towards Primrose Lake (PLER) I spotted a homemade tree stand. Not it in use I decided to borrow it for the morning. An hour after first light two whitetail does walk out to my left approx 80 yards. I take a shot at the closest one and she drops in her tracks. I smiled and seeing as she was kicking a little I poured a cup of tea and gave her a few minutes. I climbed down and started my walk towards her, 4 rounds left in mag. I got about 20 yards and she jumps up and darts towards the tree line, I was like wtf?? So I take a snap shoot at her bounding away, clean miss. She goes in about 20 yds. So i reload and slowly walk in , Snap! Twig breaks under my boot. Up she goes again I shoot again...miss...and another 30 yds she darts. Crap! Two rounds left! I reload. Every step is a delicate as walking on egg shells. This time I see she's behind a blow down and we are both breathing heavy. Me from fear of losing her and or seeing her suffer as it's a 30 minute walk back to truck for more ammo. She lifts her head up and just as pull the trigger her head goes down , missed again. Gosh darn it!! I chamber my last round and control my breathing and wait. I make a whistle and picks up her head I squeeze the trigger, it's done. Omfg. What in the heck just happened. Why??
Seems the scope was loose. The one and only screw the tightens it from the bottom loosened off. I never heard of Loctite back then. Now I know.
So when I squeezed off the first shot, the 180gr bullet went thru both her front knees. I felt horrible. Absolutely horrible!! I got home and removed the scope and mount and relied on the iron sights.
I took the deer to Hamel's meats and enjoyed every last pepperoni stick, steak and burger. Lessons learned the hard way. But I was just thankful she didn't have to suffer had I had to walk back to my truck. This whole episode took less than two minutes but seemed liked forever.
I've since got rid of all my 303's and never went back.

[Musk e]

Like many it was my first big game rifle.
I purchased it off my uncle when I was 14 for $75 I believe.
Every nickle I earned myself by doing odd jobs or babysitting for neighbors.
The stock had been sporterized and it just had the factory iron sights.
The first deer I seen with it was a lil 3x3 I fired a shot from maybe 100 yrds and it just stepped behind some snow covered spruce.
Not feeling great about my shot I slowly made my way to where it had been.Shortly after arriving there it stepped out from behind some trees maybe 20yrds away and a second round finished the job.
I could not believe my good fortune I had my first deer and a buck at that!
I'm not saying it did but it sure seemed like that deer knew he was sacrificing himself for me the way he just stepped out so close.
My father did not have a truck at the time so we loaded that deer onto the trunk of the car and tied rope to its feet fed into the back windows and tied to the seat belts to get it home.
I killed my next few deer and some coyotes with it then sold it to a family friend after I acquired a scoped 30-06.
There have been a few times over the years since then I have carried one for different reasons.scope issues on primary rifle or even just to switch it up for nostalgia and always managed to fill my tags when I did.

[bessiedog]

Oh man!..... I was waiting for this thread. 90% of my great memorable hunts have been with my trusty .303....

I'll wait till there's more stories before I share..

Where's Cat???

[elkdump]

Some of the most ungodly aberrations on firearms were excuses for scope mounts on .303 Enfields , there were hundreds of attempts by every bubbafied back room machinists to make big on the millions of SMLEenfields worldwide ,

There are few good mounts for these rifles , but there are many junk versions,

A badly mounted scope us not the fault of the caliber or the rifle design/ model

The .303 Brit in a rifle in good condition is just as deadly and capable at ,2 or 3 hundred yards as any other medium case capacity calibers

I killed my second mule deer buck (about175 yards) one shot flop, with a .303 Enfield sporter with a 4xWeaver scope mounted on a "tip-off mount" that was in about 1968, in the following years after that I killed many deer, several moose and dozens of bears with that .303 , it never failed me,, nor the .180 gr SabreTip Dominion ammo I used in it, I never shot at anything over 300 yards, the .303 did every job with authority,

I shot several thousand rounds of IVI surplus ball ammo and hundreds of rounds of Dominion and Winchester thru that rifle , it shot good when I got it, it shot good when I sold it many years later, it was always cleaned and bore washed after every outing,
I've had 100's of rifles since then , many far more powerful and fancy, but none anymore dependable

[Puma]

Here is a .303 story for you, not a hunting story but a purchase story.

1977 I think, saw a Lee Enfield advertised in the Bargain Finder for $20.00

Called the number, a Cochrane number. Lady said it was a #4 MK1* Longbranch made. I said I'm on my way.

Found the house not far from the river, one of those little tiny houses that are now long gone.

The rifles front wood had been cut back, but everything else looked good.

I said "I'll take it" and handed her a 20.

She says "But wait, don't you want to try it first ?"

Puzzled, I ask "What do you mean?"

She says , "Shoot it"

I say "Where"

She says, "In the basement of course, my husband shoots it all the time"

[Dick284]

.303 British, putting round holes in square heads since 1914!

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by bessiedog

Oh man!..... I was waiting for this thread. 90% of my great memorable hunts have been with my trusty .303....

I'll wait till there's more stories before I share..

Where's Cat???

Cat's been busy shooting his 303 out to 375 meters this morning!
Cat

[Dick284]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

Cat's been busy shooting his 303 out to 375 meters this morning!
Cat

And what else have you been shooting?

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by Dick284

And what else have you been shooting?

Shot 20 rounds of light cast 250 grainers out of the 375 H&H - that load is more like a 243 however!
Cat

[purgatory.sv]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

Shot 20 rounds of light cast 250 grainers out of the 375 H&H - that load is more like me a 243 however!
Cat

Are you casting your own 375H&H?

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by purgatory.sv

Are you casting your own 375H&H?

I got a mess of them in the horse trade I made along with another 303!
If I could only find someone to trade that Ruger Tropical for a Ruger 1A in 303,I would be super happy!
Cat

[catnthehat]

We had a big reddish coloured rock out at the Outpost of the Empire, and one day a bunch of us were out shooting and Blackman lay down on the shooting position and let one fly at it.
It hit low, and he handed the gun to Oldbadger who slid the elevator up a bit and handed back to him.
The next shot landedsquare in the Centrt of that 24" rock that was sitting at 1,000 meters!
That was an all original Lithgow......
Cat

[58thecat]

1992 my first 150 class whitetail with a sporterized 1917 enfield.
Two bucks fighting allowed me to close the gap to 100 yards, she shoots a little hi so I aimed a little low and yanked the trigger...buck jumps up, I fall down, gather myself and walk over, fell down again as I never saw a buck this big coming from Vancouver island and all.

[Passthru]

Yep. Reliable and does the job. Killed many a deer with mine and still going. I posted my buck and story in November and the year before. Both with my .303 Not sure how to add a link for it though. One was 50 yards and the other was 15 yards. Many others before I joined AO too.

[Grizzly Adams]

Shortened to legal barrel length, with iron sights, my bear protection gun.

Grizz

[elkdump]

Originally Posted by Passthru

Yep. Reliable and does the job. Killed many a deer with mine and still going. I posted my buck and story in November and the year before. Both with my .303 Not sure how to add a link for it though. One was 50 yards and the other was 15 yards. Many others before I joined AO too.

Another confirmed kill with .303 good to hear

It never ceases to amaze me , how anyone was successful hunting before the internet ,,, AO etc,

One more brain, not turned into mush by a magnum caliber

[calgarychef]

Ha! I've got a good one...try and top this.


I had a 303 and enjoyed it however it became a safe queen. I sold it to an Inuit girl in Iqualuit last winter and she was so excited to get her first rifle. She wanted to shoot a polar bear so she could sell the pelt and take her son to the west Edmonton mall. A thoroughly pleasant story and one that made everyone (except the polar bear) happy.

[bat119]

Early 70's 6 young people ages 14-18 in a Bellaire station wagon all armed with sporterized Lee Enfield's and the odd the 98 in 8x57. Drove into town with a pile of white tail on top blood running down the windows, nothing but high 5's from the town folk young and old all the way home.

Those were the days

[elkdump]

Originally Posted by bat119

Early 70's 6 young people ages 14-18 in a Bellaire station wagon all armed with sporterized Lee Enfield's and the odd the 98 in 8x57. Drove into town with a pile of white tail on top blood running down the windows, nothing but high 5's from the town folk young and old all the way home.

Those were the days

Oh the good ol days, when political incorrectness meant not minding your own business ,,,
1966 Toyota fj 40 , and mule deer weekend carnage, via .303 and 30-30

[JustMe]

Originally Posted by elkdump

Some of the most ungodly aberrations on firearms were excuses for scope mounts on .303 Enfields , there were hundreds of attempts by every bubbafied back room machinists to make big on the millions of SMLEenfields worldwide ,



There are few good mounts for these rifles , but there are many junk versions,



A badly mounted scope us not the fault of the caliber or the rifle design/ model



The .303 Brit in a rifle in good condition is just as deadly and capable at ,2 or 3 hundred yards as any other medium case capacity calibers



I killed my second mule deer buck (about175 yards) one shot flop, with a .303 Enfield sporter with a 4xWeaver scope mounted on a "tip-off mount" that was in about 1968, in the following years after that I killed many deer, several moose and dozens of bears with that .303 , it never failed me,, nor the .180 gr SabreTip Dominion ammo I used in it, I never shot at anything over 300 yards, the .303 did every job with authority,



I shot several thousand rounds of IVI surplus ball ammo and hundreds of rounds of Dominion and Winchester thru that rifle , it shot good when I got it, it shot good when I sold it many years later, it was always cleaned and bore washed after every outing,

I've had 100's of rifles since then , many far more powerful and fancy, but none anymore dependable

Was that an Lee Enfield or an Enfield? Two different firearms.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1917_Enfield


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[spentround]

Age 16...bought my first real rifle Lee Enfield 303. I never had a clue what they represented as to types or history but understood $29 dollars at the local hardware store. I knew nothing more than pellet guns and a single 12 gauge before that and some .22 practise. Took it to the field, set down a 10 inch pumpkin and paced away 100 steps. Second shot created pumpkin pie and I was pleased and went home. That fall deer season, three does appeared ( no idea as to range but let's say 50-100 yards) heading west followed by 4 point whitetail buck. I stood up. Buck headed fast straight away north. Missed the first shot. Second shot created some dust near the running buck and buck ran away. Went for a walk and there he was piled up with a shot just off the spine. It was a long drag back to the vehicle. That's almost 5 decades again....so young and naive. Dumb prairie kid and dumb luck. Good memory.

[elkdump]

Originally Posted by JustMe

Was that an Lee Enfield or an Enfield? Two different firearms.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1917_Enfield


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I'm glad you found wiki info about surplus rifles,,,

My first centre fire hunting rifle in the 1960's was a Lee Enfield #4MK1 , although in the years after that I did have several more .303 caliber rifles including a couple of Lee Enfield jungle carbines, a couple Ross Rifles, one of which was incredibly accurate , and a P 14 in .303 Brit and a P 17 in 30-06 Springfield .the P14and P17s were top feed/load and did not have detachable magazines like the Lee rifles

[JustMe]

Originally Posted by elkdump

My first centre fire hunting rifle was a Lee Enfield #4MK1 , although in the years after that I did have several more .303 caliber rifles including a couple of Lee Enfield jungle carbines, a couple Ross Rifles, one of which was incredibly accurate , and a P 14 in .303 Brit and a P 17 in 30-06 Springfield .the P14and P17s were top feed/load and did not have detachable magazines like the Lee rifles

I only had the Lee Enfields, never managed one of the Enfields, but I think they too were decent rifles? Nothing wrong with the $50 Lee Enfields tho


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[elkdump]

Originally Posted by JustMe

I only had the Lee Enfields, never managed one of the Enfields, but I think they too were decent rifles? Nothing wrong with the $50 Lee Enfields tho


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My first LeeEnfield was $9.95 on sale at Army&Navy Dept Store in Newwestminster BC , the ser No's all matched on the magazine, bolt and bayonet , a gun smith installed the tip off side mount and Weaver 4x scope for another $59 if I recall correctly, hunting ammo 20xDominion 180gr SabreTips was about $3.95 , deer tags about $2.00

[JustMe]

Originally Posted by elkdump

My first LeeEnfield was $9.95 on sale at Army&Navy Dept Store in Newwestminster BC , the ser No's all matched on the magazine, bolt and bayonet , a gun smith installed the tip off side mount and Weaver 4x scope for another $59 if I recall correctly, hunting ammo 20xDominion 180gr SabreTips was about $3.95 , deer tags about $2.00

In another thread about the 30-30, we talked about how much more popular the 303 was here in Canada. Likely because the SMLE was $49 in the Eatons catalogue while the Mdl 94 was $99. Wasn't nearly the free cash back then so most bought the 303


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[saskbooknut]

In the early 60s, our Eaton's store in Victoria had Lee Enfields stacked like cordwood on an island display - No. 1 Mk. 3* were $9.95 and No. 4 Mk. 1 were $14.95.

We bought ammunition that was packaged, paper wrapped 10 or 15, by Churchill or other British makers cheaply - it was military ammo with soft point bullets substituted. Later Century Arms got into the ammo business with surplus ammo in plain pasteboard boxes of 20.

My first Coast Blacktail deer was a doe taken with a full wood No.1 Mk. 3* - B.C. deer tags were 50 cents then.

[JD848]

I was 15 and cutting 70 miles north of Kenora in 1970 living in 10 x15 foot log shack on skids and was just out school,never been in bush much,but in order to quite school you needed a job under 16.

I kept seeing deer eating the tops of the trees at the landing so one day the machine broke down and the older guy I was working with lent me his 303 and shot my first deer,but I didn't know how to gut it and asked my co worker to come and help me and his only reply was your nothing but a green horn and go learn how.Back then there were no time outs ,you grew up in a heck of a hurry.

I took off back but it was dark when I arrived my flashlight half dead all i had a was lantern an axe and the 303,but the wolves had move in but were all around a 100 yards away,very scary for a 15 year old kid.There was no way they were gettig that deer it was going home to mom,i roughly gutted it and the more the wolves smelt blood the louder they got,i fired one shot in the trees and left my old shirt on top and split.i shot thr deer on dec 15 and it froze solid so when I got home on the 23 I carried the skin deer in the house,never had a father ,so it was the first wild game we had to eat and my mom cooked it perfect,so the 303 has a very deep spot inside of me and it will always be at the top of my list of guns.
The story CAT told about the rock the very same thing happened to me and there were 7 shooters and the only bullet to smack that rock was a 303 ,you only had 2 tries the first I was low ,then I adjust my rear flip up sight and bingo bang on.The rock was not a 1000 but a good 700 yards.

[JimPS]

In the 1950's and early 1960's you could buy Enfields every where for under $10 bucks.

Even at Safeway.

While doing the grocery shopping, my dad used to whimsically scan the piles - looking for his old customized service rifle that he lugged around during World War II.

He never did find it.

[SamSteele]

My great uncle was a missionary in Rhodesia (you can tell how long ago that was by the name of the country...) and my grandfather gave him a BSA .303 that my great uncle used on a bunch of different plains game. He came back home and after a number of years he gave it back to my grandfather who gave it to me. I had a BIL that was new into hunting but didn't have any rifles, just his PAL. I cleaned the rifle up, redid the stock, and gave it to him for Christmas. He took his first moose with it the next fall.

I love the fact that this rifle has been used by three generations on two different continents. It just gets the job done!

SS

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

We had a big reddish coloured rock out at the Outpost of the Empire, and one day a bunch of us were out shooting and Blackman lay down on the shooting position and let one fly at it.
It hit low, and he handed the gun to Oldbadger who slid the elevator up a bit and handed back to him.
The next shot landed square in the Center of that 24" rock that was sitting at 1,000 meters!
That was an all original Lithgow......
Cat

Here's a pic of Blackman shooting at 1,000 with the Lithgow
Cat