Shooting a Lee Enfield to 1000 Yards

The old long range targets used back then had a 30 inch (3 MOA) aiming mark, for a score of 5.  I’m not sure I could see that with my shooting glasses today set to focus on the front sight.  I know I couldn’t read the number boards at the Tennessee 1000 yard range, I had to count how many targets over from the end of the line on each shot!  It’s just a little smudged speck in the haze and try to put the front sight just below the little speck. 

Well, should be fun and likely a humbling experience!  Part of what I’m doing is to try and replicate what the service rifle competitive shooter achieved with this rifle back in the day at the long ranges. 

The elevation here is 1800 ft which helps increase bullet velocity.  Will be interesting to see how accurate the Strelok predictions are…

To recap, I shot my Faz UF56 DCRA 7.62 No. 4 Conversion (converted to 7.62 by Long Branch in 1966).  This rifle has about 1000 rounds thru the barrel.  Fitted with PH 5C rear sight.  Barrel bearing at the middle (sling swivel) band.  Standard front sight.  

Temp 45 deg, wind was across the range left to right about 8 to 9 mph.  Some squirrelly winds for sure as there are some places along the range where there is protection from berms along the sides, other places where it is open to the winds.  At some distances, the winds reversed direction!  Was tricky to deal with.

Two loads were shot, for the first time in this rifle:

Load 1:

155 gr. Sierra Palma MatchKing

45.0 gr. Varget

Lapua Case

WLR Primer

Load 2:

175 Sierra Tipped MatchKing 

43.0 gr Varget

Lapua Case

CCI BR-2 Primer

Muzzle Velocity predictions were made by interpolating on the Hodgdon online load data. Range elevation settings were predicted with the Strelok ballistics program.

All shooting was done prone in sling with no support, working my way down the range starting at 100 yds, then 300, 600, 800 and 1000.  These 5 different ranges have electronic targets that record the bullet velocity and shot position on the NRA Target overlay on the monitor.  The targets are the current US NRA Military type targets:  SR-1 at 100, SR at 300, MR at 600 and LR at 800 and 1000.  

The Strelok velocity and elevation setting predictions were surprisingly very close!  Generally within 20 fps and 1 MOA.  I was very surprised by this.  The actual velocities were slightly less than predicted.  I attribute this to the high pressure area that moved in last night resulting in clear skies by the morning. Adjusting for actual pressure put the predicted velocities to within less than 10 fps from actual.

Load 1 turned out to be marginal for triggering the target sensors at 1000 yards.  About 40% of the hits displayed a warning that the velocity was too low, but it did show the hit location correctly (according to the RO).  This warning required the monitor to be cleared of all hits before proceeding, if not, subsequent hits would not register.  

Load 2 was of course slower than load 1 at all ranges up to 800 yards where it was about equal to Load 1, but at 1000 yards, it was about 20 fps faster than load 1.  This is entirely a result of the higher BC of the 175 gr TMK over the 155 Palma MK. This bullet is the ticket to reliable recordings at the 1000 yard line.

My approach was to fire as few shots as possible at the Short and Mid ranges to reserve ammo and minimize shooter fatigue for the Long Ranges. Once I had hits in the 10 or X ring, I moved on to the next range after collecting actual velocity data.  The loads really performed, standard deviations were 10 fps or less for Load 2, a bit higher for Load 1.

Here is the 300 yard target with Load 2, three shots were sufficient to confirm elevation settings.  This three shot group was only 0.68 MOA extreme spread. Note the standard deviation of 8.7 fps. 

My windage estimates were a bit off at 600, but I was happy with the elevation spread at 600 yards with both of these loads.  This is Load 1.

At 800 yards, I struggled to keep consistent elevation, this is Load 1 and I overcorrected for my first sighting shots that were low.  Then undercorrected, but pretty tight windage spread.  Note that the grid overlay on the monitor (an IPad) is 1 MOA on all these targets. 

Then on to 1000 yards.  My first sighter was a ….

By the end of the day I had shot 80 rounds and was whipped.  The final 10 shots at 1000 yards with Load 2 was showing signs of fatigue and pain.  4+ hours of prone shooting with extreme focus and concentration is very tiring.  

Regardless, not a single shot was outside of “the black” on the Long Range Targets, including my first sighters. That was better than I expected, because that 44 inch black aiming mark on the LR Target looked incredibly small at 1000 yards!  That was very satisfying. My scores were in the low to mid 90’s for ten shots at 800 and 1000.  Not competitive for modern Palma Match shooting (which uses much more accurate rifles with 30 inch heavy barrels), but I believe these results are on par with the 1967 Palma Match results which used these DCRA converted rifles.  

 

I believe the 175 TMK had a slight accuracy edge over the 155 Palma Match, which could be because of the shorter jump to the lands with that bullet in my rifle.  The 155 had to jump about 0.080 inches and the 175 about 0.030.  The bullets were seated out past magazine length and single shot loaded. 

There was absolutely no signs of excessive pressure.  The primer cups remained rounded and extraction was very easy.  If I do repeat this, I will try the 168 TMK, the 175 TMK performed very well as is. 

This sure raised some interest at the range, everyone else shooting on the bench with scoped rifles.  The RO was a bit nervous, not knowing who I was, showing up with an old “wood gun” wanting to shoot it prone at 1000 “What did you say you want to do???”  He had me shoot first at the steel plates at 600, 800 and 1000 to mitigate the risk of shooting one of the sensors.  But, I was able to hit those little 24 inch steel plates first shot, even at 1000 yds.  Could barely see it, a tiny white spec.  Fortunately, the range faces north and it was sunny, so it lit up well.