help

[johnjnam]

Hi All
Please help!!!!!

I am living in Namibia and advice out here is on rather short supply .
I do have in my collection a 1908 Mark 3 Lee Enfield .303 which I have customized recently .
The barrel was ( is) badly corroded and the front part was shot out .
So I have shortened the barrel by 6 inch , cut a new crown to the barrel . shortened the wood by 6 inch to keep the original shape of the rifle .
I have also fully bedded the barrel across the entire length so that it is absolute solid in the wood .
I have tested it with the open sights and it shot well and the grouping was under a 3 inch on a 100 m . Every now and then a flyer appeared but I guess that is acceptable .
I must also mention that I am reloading my own ammo for all my rifles - including the .303 .
But old age is catching up with me and the eye sight is slowly fading - which made me decide to fit a Pecar Berlin 4 x scope .
I have checked scope mounts and rifle mounts and all are tight and solid .
Have also tested 3 different scopes on the rifle and the effect is the same .
Every first shot is 3-5 inch high - then they settle back to a 2- 3 inch grouping .
Allow the barrel to cool down then the first one goes high again .
I tried different loads , projectile weights , primers ,. Bullet seat depth – Nothing works - the effect stays the same .
I tried shooting with a clean barrel and a fouled barrel and it seems that the more copper deposits in the barrel the better the grouping becomes . but the first one is still high .
Please help !!! I am at the end of my own advice here . I really would love to use the rifle for hunting here as it is so nice and compact now with the shorter barrel .
Please try to mail me back directly at johnjnam@yahoo.com as I can not always enter all internet sites from here .
Thanking you
John .

[royinidaho]

John,

Welcome aboard.

I have no experience with that particular rifle but the symptoms point at barrel bedding. At least they do for me.

Is there any way to free float that barrel? That would be my first solution.

Hope this helps.

By the way, how does the last few inches of a barrel get shot out. That, I don't understand and I've never heard of it.

[britz]

If I had to guess, there was mud in the barrel at times and fired causing some damage to the muzzle. I'd guess the barrel is probably not in the best shape if you had to remove the last 6 inches from it. If you are getting some verry bad cold bore shots, the isn't it possibly due to a slighly stressed barrel such as an uncentered bore too (since the rifle could be as much as 100 years old and manufactured in mass during one of several wars) just a thought.