Ishapore .303" Lee-Enfield No.1 Mk.III* 1945: Getting the Iffy Ishy SMLE Range-Ready 

But, what about the headspace,... you didn't check the headspace..... you should have checked the headspace..... bad things happen when you don't check the headspace...

The thing about Ishapore is...their quality varies a LOT based on whom the guns were issued. If it was Indian Army, or Navy, the gun would be given extreme care and remain in great condition. However if this was issued to Police, prison guards, or any such "rear echelon/ civil servant " troops...may Lord Shiva has mercy on your soul.

Rather than use a steel screwdriver blade as a scraper a better idea is to make a brass scraper from a old cartridge case. Flatten the front of a case with a hammer. Then trim off the front with a pair of tin snips. Your will then have a wonderful little scraper that can remove rust but not bluing. I learned this trick years ago from a German gunsmith who always had these small homemade scrapers on his bench. Since they are cheap and easily made you can also make specialized scrapers to clean things like bolt faces .

It's quite amusing how often brake cleaner is used to clean things other than brakes.

Your spot on about Mr Novak at restoration of firearms. I never miss an episode. He puts so much love into his work it becomes obvious it is his passion.👌👍👏👏👏 nice shooting, nice jazz music.

A friend has one of the Ishapore .308 conversions. Without any cleaning, the first time he shot it with around 10 rounds it held a 3 MOA group at 100 meters. I was impressed. Now I just have to convince him he really doesn't need it. By the way, run of the mill No.1 Mk.III's here in the States seem to have really gone up in value.

In 1962, Rifleman Yashwant Singh Rawat of 4th Gerwal rifles, Indian army would singlehandedly face 500 PLA soldiers armed with Type 56 AKs ,SKS, and DP 28s while armed with only his Ishapore. At the end, he and 2 of his buddies (3 total) would kill 300 Chinese soldiers before their outpost was overrun. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaswant_Singh_Rawat

Got my #5 today, shoots wonderfully! Not as much recoil as i expected, but quite the thumper!

''Do the maintenance''. >___

Hazal yogurt wow thats a very nice bucket 😅😅😅 with the blue mosque on it lol

A plumbers adjustable spanner opens those linseed oil bottles for me.

Mmm. Very nice. Like the look of the rifle ... Again nice range work.

I am a convert to "boiling out" for these renovations.. all the bits go in a big pot with a handful of old fashioned washing soda (sodium carbonate) and get a good boil for about half an hour.. then lay out on paper towel to dry off. This will dissolve out or at least soften any gunk which can then get brushed off with a fine carding brush.. I use the ones from Brownells or 0000 wire wool which will not touch the finish. Boiling also sets any incipient rust back to blue. For barrels I use a steam pipe made by mounting a length of drain pipe over a pot of boiling water. The barrel and action get hung in the pipe for 30 - 40 mins and then carded or rubbed down. Cheaper and quicker than a tank and does not need gallons of distilled water. Once the bits come out of the boil/stem, coat them in plain oil (not gun cleaner, kerosene or plain spindle oil is fine !) and let them set overnight.. I have since found out that this is what all the old gunsmiths used to do.. Send your $$$$ Holland & Holland or Purdey in for a service and what do they do with them... boil them! (I am not sure if they made tea at the same time....!)

I love my Ishapore Enfield .303 No. 1 mk. III. Made in 1950, and shoots straight as an arrow. Had to clean quite a bit of that miserable suncorite paint off of it, and there was more than a little mud and grease from the subcontinent in the stock, but cleaning her up was part of the experience.

Linseed oil? No, Ishapores were oiled with Ghee :) :D

0000 steel wool is useful for rust removal and taking the grit off the stock without affecting patina

Anecdata = anecdotal data : )

The way you said "the subcontinent" there was ssssooooooo f..king imperial it made me laugh

Man I wish mine shot that well. I get groups like that at 100 yards.

She's a beautiful SMLE. Still my favourite bolt action weapon of war. In OZ many years ago, any and every farmer would have one for stock protection and hunting. I had to make do as a small child with a toy reproduction, with a plastic shell which ejected. 😱😂👌👍👏👏👏

Headspace, shmeadspace... Great vid, Bloke. Maybe play around with the torque weights and sequencing of the screws. That is, muzzle to rear, rear to muzzle, mid and out fore and aft... Are those addressed in any manuals you've come across?

I pick up my Ishapore later today. I can't wait to lay my hands on it. I kick myself for not snapping up one of the many nearly unissued Lithgow SMLEs that were imported in the 1990s for a hundred bucks or so! GREAT video, AMAZING shooting for a rifle of this type. Thanks for sharing!

Have you done an episode on how the electronic target works? I'd like to see how they work. Cheers.

If one does ever need to remove the firing pin, take out the retaining screw fill the screw hole with oil and put the retaining screw back in, then store the rifle muzzle down for 24 hours before attempting to unscrew the firing pin, so many instances of broken tools due to the firing pin seizing in the cocking peice, the screw hydraulically forces oil down the firing pin threads making removal easy, just a tip that I found works.

The draws on mine were totally rotted out and caused stock damage elsewhere from the action banging against the wrong areas, ended up having to buy a replacement drill rifle stock. I would have had to cut the draws out completely and replace with new wood, and the area was so rotten I didn't think it would hold and be worth the work. Very sad since it's a serial number matching stock. Maybe someday I'll have the skill and knowledge to fix it. I'm great with mechanical stuff, but woodwork I'm nearly useless. Drill stock still needs fitting work because it's shooting terrible yet has a great bore...I've had so many other projects this thing has just sat... there's a major lack of info and videos on dealing with those draws and the stock fit on these rifles is really complicated and has a major effect on accuracy. I have a lot of learning to do to get this thing fitting properly so it shoots well. I am guessing I need to replace those pressure pad springs as well.

I’m curious- do you do a lot of trading, selling guns after you’ve evaluated them for a while? If so, does Swiss law have anything to say about that? In the US, if you do a lot of buying and selling, the ATF thinks you’re a dealer, and you should get a CCR (collector of curios and relics) FFL (Federal firearms license) to avoid problems.

I have a 1916 No 1 Mk III* that looks very good externally. Would you recommend this level of takedown for all enfields or did you have particular suspicions about this one?

I love my smle nr1 mk3 1918. Its the same gun my great grandfather used in france. I have a brand new old stock barrel ready for it!

I just put a 2A1 back into working order, my groups could use some work but mercifully the windage on the front post wasn't messed with by bubba. It does, however, shoot significantly higher than it ought at 100 yards, about 15 inches using Am Eagle 150 grain (no shops in my area had M80 ball and I didn't think to order some). I'm going to hold off breaking the stake on the front post until I try some other loads, I think I definitely understand your affinity for the Enfield now, though. It has such great balance and has a reassuring density while still being svelte

Fantastic, 👊👊👍👍😎😎

A good scrubber is Scotch-Brite - which is plastic steel wool.

I just purchased a sporterized 1918 BSA no1 mk3 here in America and plan to put it back in it's original configuration. I'm using a new walnut stock. Any suggestions from the crowd on what to use for the brass cross pin at the back of the lower foregrip?

I'm 95% sure that "brown kack" is just the preservative paint. That was a commonwealth thing to do at least during WWII to prevent rust. My Australian SMLE still has it's green preservative paint under the woodline. As for the oiling of the stock. I'm personally against it. The crap that you pulled off on the rag would be the same crap pulled off with just a damp (water) rag. I cringe when I hear people that regularly reoil their stocks. I personally don't want ugly blackened wood!

That glue the C&R uses, mixed with black pigment is the glue you need I suspect. A small inaccuracy in the stock equals considerable inaccuracy in the bore sight. I'm just guessing here, but every little bit should help?

Is the lack of wear in the barrel and action the result of the Indian army being financially tight? I remember reading that internal soldiers were limited to a small number of cartridges.

If you tinker with the stocking some more. please video it. I (in my 20s) Took a very good stock off a very good Lee-Enfield, and replaced it with a Plastic "sporter" stock. Everything I took off has been sealed up in a cardboard box for . . . 30 years now and I am a bit intimidated by the counter pressure aspect of Lee Enfield stocks when I think about putting it all back as it should be.

Dipped in cosmolene for long term storage?

Lovely. I daren't do this in case the semi-floating wood nymphs will get me. 🇬🇧

This MkIII looks like a candidate for some Anvil conservation love

This is pretty much the same process I used for my No4 that came to the US from Greece, and the Chinese Type 53. A friend cleaned up the wood on the Type 53 for me, including steaming out dents and such, while maintaining the large variety of armory stamps.

Clearly trespassing on Mark's patch 😆

I love these rifles. Beastly strong and reliable they are, accurate too.

i want to order or buy grendle smle no 1, can i get it?

Do you use naval jelly to combat rust? If not, what do you recommend as a rust preventative, especially in a humid climate and where rust is already present?

I have a piece of gutter with caps on the ends that I put on an old modified BBQ grill to boil rust and mung out of the milsurp barreled actions I bring home. It does a great job of removing dried cosmoline and rust. After I pull it out of the boiling water, I give it a good brushing with a stiff nylon bristle brush to get into corners and recesses. I'm always surprised at how much of the original finish is still there that was hidden under years of dirt and grime. Then the bore gets several passes with a bore brush dipped in ATF followed by a bore brush dipped in Kroil. This loosens up any lead or copper fouling in the rifling. After I let it sit for 24 hours it gets a clean bore brush followed by patches until they come out clean.

The barrel band shouldn’t be shimmed, the band is actually designed to not contact the barrel at the top. Its inner surface has a slight swell on each side, and it is these two surfaces that contact the barrel, not the entire band. I have had good results adding a thin paper shim in the forearm, just in front of the band.

Patterns like a Shotgun

Funny how you critizised the mauser for having a rear sight that is not quickly detachable, but you have to get an armorer for taking off the firing pin and sear off your favored enfield.

Big fan of the Ishy after picking up a 2A from my LGS who got 3 in from an estate sale. I picked out the best of the bunch and did a complete strip down and cleaning. It was covered in black enamel paint to the point the safety wouldn't move. Once I cleaned that paint off the park job underneath was top notch. Great rifle to shoot and very accurate even though I'm not a fan of the sights myself.

Really enjoyed that! The rifle equivalent of pulling an old truck out of the weeds, cleaning it up, firing it up and putting it back to work. Did I hear you say that was a 30 franc rifle? That's only about 30 bucks US. Where do I sign up?

There is a 1949 GRI copper wire wrapped Enfield at a LGS near me. The store actually has three of them (six hundred & seventy five each). I’ve NoGo gauged (.067) all three and two of them passed, the third swallowed it like it wasn’t even there. All three did great at the muzzle with a loaded round with a 1/4 inch or slightly more bullet showing before the brass case mouth. I’ve seen the same rhetoric everyone else has read about wrapped rifles being shot out pieces of junk and retired to grenade service. But, other than the one rifle not passing a NoGo gauge, all three have absolutely pristine, mirror finish bores and give no immediate indication of being shot out. Any thoughts on the wire wrapped rifles?

You really brought that old rifle back to life, and it looks very nice to me. When you were shooting, I could tell the impact position just by watching your technique, even before seeing it on the screen. Watch it yourself and see if you agree. That old rifle shoots very well indeed!

Search for Enfield accurizing. Think he's an Aussie guy and explains the stocking up and what's happening when things go wrong in your groupings

No sir! Name her Bella , I love old firearms. I'm now working on my Mosin-nagant M91-30, 1934 Tula. Trying to do a trigger fix. Lots of slop. Kit from MCARBO . 😎😎😎😎👍👊

Mine is a Lithgow 1941/42 that was supposedly manufactured, tested, cleaned, packed away and found in the original boxes in the late 1980's. I got mine in the early 1990's. Had it gone over by a gunsmith my dad knew at the time and cleaned.

I sure do enjoy my old No. 1 rifle. Yanks are supposed to be M1 fans, but I feel more at home with a bolt action. Also, what a piece of history these rifles are. Thanks for this.

Anyone happen to know how interchangeable parts are between Mk. III* rifles from different manufacturers? I found a 1918 BSA rifle that had sporterized wood and is missing a magazine but is otherwise in really good shooter condition. Would one of those .303 Ishapore drill purpose rifles from the 1950s work as a doner for the magazine, nose cap, and wood for instance?

I think you have done a lovely job of cleaning up your new smle, break cleaner is great for any metal parts as it washes the muck off and drys quickly. If i am cleaning metal i use nylon scourer as the dont damage the metal surface . By the way i am currently in contact with a shooting club and after sending an email with my millitary service record i am just waiting for a reply, so hopefuly i might just be at bisley next year in competition against you 😆😆😆👍👍. Thanks for the advice and help

Linseed oil ... boiled or raw? I can never remember which one is used on cricket bats, but I was told that gun stocks should have the opposite. Unfortunately, it seems to attract mould, so I just spray and wipe with Ballistol, so far so good.

I didn't know there were Ishapore .303's, I thought they only made the .308's. If you can get your hands on a .308 Ishapore I'd love to see how well that would do at 300m. I own the one with a 12rd mag but I don't have a 300m range to try it out at

I have a 1952 RFI SMLE I got back in 1991. Great rifle!

Cool gun bro!😉😉😉🔫🔫🔫

Hmm, this pressure plate reminds me a lot of what I've heard about "pre-stressed reinforced concrete" where rebars have a tension load put on them specifically to max out deflection relative to stress so it moves far less when a stress is applied to it. By pushing up on the barrel this would apply tension on the underside to max out deflection so far less "wobble" in the relatively thin barrel when shooting.

Re the stuck cap bottle of lin seed oil. If you warm the cap up with hot water you normally can remove the cap when the set oil softens . Works for tubes of artist oil paint too.

Paraffin would do a less toxic job instead of the white spirit. Use it as a de-greaser cleaner on nasty motorbike chains and parts all the time.

When I bought my 1914 smle it was covered in nastyness and rust like this, cleaned up well but the wood by the action was destroyed- soaked in crap for too long. I had no choice but to repair by glass bedding.

I also use the large yogurt cups with mineral spirits. I boil the stocks per Vulcan Refinishing and it works great with absolutely zero warpage.

I dont know anything about the dangers of headspace but the break cleaner will sneak up on you if you dont use gloves

I love this dude still can’t figure out where he is from Not UK not Canada Where the fuck else

Do you find the Indian made Enfields are same, less or better quaintly than UK, CA or US made?? Thanks

Yes, do watch Anvil. It completely changes what you do for these old guns. Example... steaming and boiling rusting parts to convert it back to originally bluing, rather than removing it forever, leaving a thinned out finish on the metal parts. I've changed over to almost exclusively boiling and carding parts, and slowly getting more advanced with it. Bloke, you should boil an Ishapore for a video!

What the website you said where you got the parts?

Someone (not ishapore) needs to make modern No.4 's or SMLE's. The retro theme is selling well in the US so I assume it would do well commercially. Either that or Mauser actions with clip guides (mauser doesn't count because 8 grand is too much for a standard rifle)

Mine I have is brand new.

Thank you again for all your wonderful videos. I have one question for you and anyone else in here. I am currently working to restore a LE. The stock that I have has a hole like the one underneath your left thumb at about the 2:21 mark. What is that for? What goes in it? Where do I get a replacement part that came out of there? I love my SMLE old girl and have had her for many years now. I had planned on totally restoring her fit and finish some years back and had her completely stripped down and disassembled but due to a catastrophic injury, I had to put her away. During a recent home move, many of the smaller parts and pieces were lost. Now I can not identify what that hole is for nor what came out so any help will be tremendously appreciated.

Well done Really good old rifle 100% 👍👍👍Good video 👍👍

I have an Ishy that is in bad shape but shoots pretty good. is there any way of telling when it was made. the only mark i could find was FR on the left side of the receiver.

I would like to replace the barrel tension springs on my gun for the same reason as you did. These are the springs that go into the stock and push the barrel up, in case I am using the wrong word. Can you please let me know the vendor who sells them?

Come on 100m

thoughts on heavy barrel mark 3 stocking up ?

Bore us. Let them use fast forward.

For a new owner of a beautiful no4 mk2 what book or service manual would you recommend. Thumbs up stay Awsome.

Is that the shooting range in höngerberg?

I like that cute little bottle of Brake Free. We used to get that stuff in gallon jugs in the army. I'm glad I wasn't the one paying for it.

I have this same and now also I cleaning . Actually I asking about the prices can u explain what is price of this in ur area ?

How do I take it all apart, also what brought me heat is the butt stock I guess as it's called maybe is loose on mine 1911 mk3, I got it from my father years ago when he passed my mother said he only paid 38$ for it at a gun store here in town in 1988

I know that they made many many .303s at Ishapore before converting to .308 but, I was a bit shocked when you said Ishapores and it was a .303 that name "Ishapore" here in the States has become synonymous with .308 Lee Enfield,

I've always had a hankering to own a smelly... Do feel though, that the Bloke has been holding out on us. It appears he is an accomplished keyboard player ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LToAU2h5FhY.html either that, or he has a twin.

Just make sure you soak the tissue with the linseed oil on it in water, lest your workshop burn down.

I have a question , hopefully you will have some insight on it . I just purchased a 1916 BSA Shtle III* , it is stocked with Slazenger wood dated 1944, has the cocking piece marked OA , mag & front sight MA also the trigger with small star ( lithgow) , the barrel ,receiver& bolt have matching numbers . Also it has JJCONY , importer . So was this rifle sent to Australia at one time or did the importer put this together with Australian parts ? Would like your opinion . Thanks

Could you do a video on how to prep the chargers so it is not difficult to load the rounds?

Have you ever used vinegar/hydrogen peroxide on copper fouling?

boiled or raw linseed oil ?

tried finding the Enfield Tyler site but could not: Is there a link?

Great video. Thank you.

I also use hazal joghurt for my reloading work😬

Are ishapore gun from the deep end of the barrel

Such a smooth bolt action :-)

Now i want a rifle like that too

Have you heard Anvil talk about cosmoline? I'm always amused at his love for it.