restricted or not lee enfield

bazza888

are lee enfield type rifles restricted?im looking at the ones on shoot.ie,and also is a monitired alarm required for it also?

rrpc

bazza888 wrote: »

are lee enfield type rifles restricted?im looking at the ones on shoot.ie,and also is a monitired alarm required for it also?

'Type' is making this very broad, so I'll confine myself to the Lee Enfield only.

It is not restricted because:

• It's nominally less than the .308" maximum for unrestricted fullbore rifles.
• It's not a semi-automatic.
• It's not an 'assault rifle' nor does it look like one :rolleyes:
• It's not a bullpup
• It doesn't have the telescopic stock, pistol grip etc. that would make it
  more 'dangerous' :rolleyes:

Unless you already have five other firearms or three restricted firearms, no you won't need a monitored alarm

You will need a good gunsafe and proper locks on your windows and doors, but you already knew that didn't you?

BryanL

would it be restricted if it was painted Black!:eek::eek::D

johngalway

BryanL wrote: »

would it be restricted if it was painted Black!:eek::eek::D

Only if it's "tactical" shade black :rolleyes: You know, like in Hollywood? They're always shooting people there, the madness of it all.

bazza888

well i have a brattonsound gunsafe have a 22 allready,was also wondering is 303ammo hard to come by

Grizzly 45

• It's not an 'assault rifle' nor does it look like one

Certainly was the assault rifle in 1914..:D

rrpc

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Certainly was the assault rifle in 1914..:D

Hence the inverted commas

But it wasn't really one then either, was it?

Grizzly 45

In the true defination of an assault rifle, certainly not..
In the media,police paranoia,and general ignorance of firearms line of things.IE a military weapon used by civillians fits 100%:(
Still and all it's rate of fire and quick reloading was enough to convince some German troops they were up against a machine gun section rather than a squad of riflemen.

rowa

is the lee enfield an assault weapon ? i'd say that apart from the ak47 series of rifles the lee has probabily seen more action than any other military rifle and are still in use in afghanistan and the police in india still use them , i believe there was something like 17 million of them produced all over the world .

BostonB

Its a rifle not an assault rifle. IMO.

rowa

your right its not an assault rifle , but it was a good battle rifle !

BostonB

rowa wrote: »

your right its not an assault rifle , but it was a good battle rifle !

Whats a battle rifle?

AFAIK, rifles of WWII and after are accurate to far longer distances than an assault rifle. After WWII they realised most combat happens over 200m or less. Where weight of fire is more important.

Mellor

rrpc wrote: »

'Type' is making this very broad, so I'll confine myself to the Lee Enfield only.

It is not restricted because:

• It's nominally less than the .308" maximum for unrestricted fullbore rifles.

I'm pretty sure a real/original Lee Enfield is greater than .308 (but if reconditioned to a modern caliber perhaps not)
I'm surprised this was picked up on by some of our more cartridge savvy posters

Mellor

BostonB wrote: »

Whats a battle rifle?

I believe
A battle rifle is a heavier rifle that fires a more powerful round at a slow rate.
A assault rifle is lighter, fires a less powerful round at a higher rate of fire.

Grizzly 45

Not quite;
A battle rifle fires a full power cartridge like,30.06 or 7.62 NATO,and can have select fire,and be box or stripper clip loadable.

A true "assault rifle" will fire an intermediate power cartridge like 7.62X39 Warsaw Pact,the original 7.65 MP 44 round or even the US 30cal M1 carbine round in the M2 rifle version.It MUST have select fire and be mag loadable.
The freak to the defination is the 5.56 NATO round rifles,while they will have the functions of a assault rifle,the calibre does not fit the bill as a full power cartridge or intermediate, it is a lightweight varmit round.BUT for expediency they are classified as assault rifles.

BTW the original cal of the LE was .303 British.Smaller than .308 I belive in case dia but not in length.

BostonB

Is that recent term? I've never heard it before over the years. A battle rifle?

BostonB

I always thought the Lee Enfield was 303 same as the Spit and Hurri

Grizzly 45

There are a good few .303 calibres out there.None ASFIK interchange.
.303 British, .303Lee Enfield,.303 Rim,303 Bren [Could be wrong here but those cals could be one and the same but called differently .Some of the LE boys will no doubt correct us?]
.303 Savage is another.
Battle rifle is/was a term allright,but as those guns are falling out of most armouries around the world,it is falling into disuse.Most people just call them assault rifles

Mellor

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Not quite;
A battle rifle fires a full power cartridge like,30.06 or 7.62 NATO,and can have select fire,and be box or stripper clip loadable.

A true "assault rifle" will fire an intermediate power cartridge like 7.62X39 Warsaw Pact,the original 7.65 MP 44 round or even the US 30cal M1 carbine round in the M2 rifle version.It MUST have select fire and be mag loadable.
The freak to the defination is the 5.56 NATO round rifles,while they will have the functions of a assault rifle,the calibre does not fit the bill as a full power cartridge or intermediate, it is a lightweight varmit round.BUT for expediency they are classified as assault rifles.

well I was just giving a general answer, this is obviously much more detailed and better. full/intermediate is clearly a better way than more/less to describe it. But you get the idea of my point. I forget about the select fire part (I blame the restricted list, rifles that resemble nonsense)

BTW the original cal of the LE was .303 British.Smaller than .308 I belive in case dia but not in length.

This was the exactly round I referred to.
.303 British is often given as the classic example of the caliber not matching the name.

You are right that the case is narrower than the .308 (the rim is wider) and that the .303 is longer.
Now, I may be mistaken, but doesn't the bullet diameter determine the restriction? The .303 Brit being .311, hence why I flagged it.

However, most supers might not notice. But it terms of the law, isn't it restricted?

rrpc

Mellor wrote: »

This was the exactly round I referred to.
.303 British is often given as the classic example of the caliber not matching the name.

You are right that the case is narrower than the .308 (the rim is wider) and that the .303 is longer.
Now, I may be mistaken, but doesn't the bullet diameter determine the restriction? The .303 Brit being .311, hence why I flagged it.

However, most supers might not notice. But it terms of the law, isn't it restricted?

This is why I said 'nominally', which AFAIK is the yardstick used to determine calibre for restriction. It's far easier to do it this way then to start determining actual calibres when the difference is infinitesmally small. Even if you were to take .311 as the actual calibre of the .303 (and even that's not correct in all cases either), it's still .003 above the restricted limit of .308 and really is a distinction without a difference.

We can dance angels on the heads of pins all day, but it's an arbitrary system anyway.

Mellor

I agree, it should be a hard and fast system. check the name and tick the box. But afaik there are no guidelines on this. I was just pointing out that its is actually above, and some supers might make a big deal out a 0.03" (hardly unheard of)

rrpc

Mellor wrote: »

I agree, it should be a hard and fast system. check the name and tick the box. But afaik there are no guidelines on this. I was just pointing out that its is actually above, and some supers might make a big deal out a 0.03" (hardly unheard of)

But it's .003" which is 10 times smaller and so Supers won't see it .

Actually the bore depends on how it's measured, so if you measure a .308 the same way that the .303 is measured, it would exceed .308 if you know what I mean. :)

Kryten

It is normal for the bullet to have a larger diameter than the bore. This is to allow the bullet to form to the rifling and perform a good gas seal as it travels down the barrel.
The caliber of any rifle is measured across the lands of the rifling. In fact, if the .306 bore guage passes through the Lee Enfield barrel, the barrel fails.
For reloaders, a range of bullet diameters are available, such as .310, .311 and .312. Some even use the bullet from the 7.62X39 russian round.

.303 British is generally the name used by some ammunition manufacturers for the standard .303inch rimmed cartridge.
There are no differences physically between .303 bren, savage, MK7, MK7Z and MK8. The MK6 round, however, was a black powder cartridge used in the Lee Metford and had a (I think) 200 grn round nose bullet.

In short, the Lee Enfield is not restricted. :cool:

Mellor

Caliber is a vague term in general imo.

I wonder is there a way to measure the .338 Lap Mag to come in under .308 :D

rrpc

Kryten wrote: »

It is normal for the bullet to have a larger diameter than the bore. This is to allow the bullet to form to the rifling and perform a good gas seal as it travels down the barrel.
The caliber of any rifle is measured across the lands of the rifling. In fact, if the .306 bore guage passes through the Lee Enfield barrel, the barrel fails.

Except the 303 British which is measured between the lands to give you .311. The standard European measure is land to land which is why I said the 308 would be bigger than 308 if it was meaured the same way the 303 British was measured.

And my point was (as from the original post) that the LE is not restricted. I've asked this question about what determines the calibre for the restricted SI and was told that nominal calibre was the yardstick. It makes much more sense to do it this way because there are so many ways of measuring bore: land to land, between lands and groove to groove.

The original bore for the LE came from black powder firearms AFAIK.

Grizzly 45

[
.303 British is generally the name used by some ammunition manufacturers for the standard .303inch rimmed cartridge.
There are no differences physically between .303 bren, savage, MK7, MK7Z and MK8. The MK6 round, however, was a black powder cartridge used in the Lee Metford and had a (I think) 200 grn round nose bullet.

Read once in G&A a fellow was asking could he use.303 Savage in a LE??He was told explicity NO!..It is a totally different caliber????
I'm assuming it is somthing along the line of the .223/5.56 NATO discussion ???

Rovi

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Read once in G&A a fellow was asking could he use.303 Savage in a LE??He was told explicity NO!..It is a totally different caliber????
I'm assuming it is somthing along the line of the .223/5.56 NATO discussion ???

.303 Savage and .303 British (and various other names) are very different rounds, and while it might be physically possible to get the Savage into a British chamber, it'd not remotely be a good (or even close) fit.

Some images grabbed from AmmoGuide:

.303 British


.303 Savage


Visual comparison, with .308 Win for reference

ranger4

wonder what class the blaser 308 (LRS-2) long range sporter bolt action 308 cal rifle come under with new guidelines.

foxshooter243

ranger4 wrote: »

wonder what class the blaser 308 (LRS-2) long range sporter bolt action 308 cal rifle come under with new guidelines.

non restricted:)

ranger4

foxshooter243 wrote: »

non restricted:)

Exellent.:)

TMC121

There are two recognized definitions of caliber that differ slightly. First, there is the factual term caliber that is defined as the internal diameter of the barrel of a firearm land to land measurement. Second, the nominal caliber of a bullet refers to its nominal diameter and the characteristics of the cartridge. In many instances, the numerical value of the nominal caliber corresponds to the factual caliber, but this is not always the case, as some variations might appear.
Rifles of 30 caliber .306 -.312 fire a bullet size of .308 (7.62mm) The name comes from the nominal bullet caliber, however the bullet sizes vary between 7.60mm to 7.69mm.
30 cal, 30-06, .308Win, 30-40Krag, 300mag, Nato 7.62x51, Russian 7.62x39,7.62x54.

A .303 round is slightly above 30 cal, technical .310 or 7.7mm, but the bullet size can vary between 7.65mm to 7.74mm (depending on manufacture and type of round). That means if you have a brand new .303 unfired barrel and measured the lands on the rifle you will probably find it will shoot a bullet size of 7.62mm very well.

Unfortunately this type of caliber measurement leaves the .303 restricted.