Ishapore Enfield - possible reliability issue?

[gunmetal]

Just got one of these from AIM. Haven't shot it yet (or even cleaned it for that matter). However, I dropped a few rounds into the mag and worked the action just to get a feel for it.

Something concerns me about it: I noticed that the engagement area of the bolt face and the case head is barely 1mm's worth, and probably less. And, if I put a bit of side-load onto the bolt handle, I can make the bolt miss the cartridge entirely and ride right over the top, or in some cases, it will just barely start to strip a round out of the mag and then slip over it, jamming itself into the side of the case and hanging up the action.

Shouldn't there be a larger contact area here?? Is this common with this model rifle, or is there something wrong with mine? (Possibly the mag?) Sure seems like a bad day waiting to happen.

All the #s I've seen on mine DO match, including the magazine.

 

[Jeremy2171]

Your mag lips may need tweaking.

 

[AK103K]

Not to make you nervous or anything.

I had one of the Ishpore Jungle Carbines that had problems with the issue your worried about. The rifles were designed for the .303, which is a rimmed case and the .308's are rimless.

Mine would only sporadically strip a round off the mag. There was a lot of vertical slop in the mag to gun fit, and feeding was better if you pushed up on the mag. I ended up getting a new made replacement from Gun Parts, which pretty much solved that problem.

I also had issues with extraction/ejection. Mostly it was ejection. Again, the gun was designed for a rimmed case, and just a little variation in rim size on the .308's makes for a big difference in how they eject. I did replace the extractor and spring and a couple of ejectors, with no real success. Even with the ejector screw turned in until the bolt would bind, still would not guarantee that it would kick an empty out.

One other thing to keep an eye on is your fired cases. The headspace on mine was pretty much gone, and I had troubles with case head separations, especially with reloads. They do make bolt heads of different sizes, to deal with the problem, but I'd got rid of the gun by the time I ever found any.

 

[DMK]

The rifles were designed for the .303

The original Enfield No.1 design was .303, but No.2s were built for 7.62x51 right from the factory. they were not conversions.

I've never heard to Model 1917s having trouble. These were the .30-06 version of the .303 P14 rifle. Same exact situation.

 

[dstorm1911]

the mags on Enfields in either caliber need to be hand fitted to the individual rifle if yours does not have its original mag then ya simply need to do the fitting yourself or have a smith familiar with Enfields do it for you..

As already mentioned the Ishy 2a and a2a1 were designed from the get go to chamber and fire the 7.62x51 round, they are not rechambered or otherwise altered NO1MKIII* rifles, the mags are totally different if ya had one with a .303 mag in it then it deffinetly would not fit correctly as the magwell, mag catch are all specific to the 2A and 2A1 rifles The extractor must also be hand fitted on a per rifle basis ya cannot simply install a new extractor and get it to work perfectly this is why the hook is oversize on brand new extractors and trying to get a used one to function is almost an impossibility unless your very very lucky as it was already hand fitted to another rifle... poor ejection usually has nothing to do with the ejector screw but rather with the inside of the extractor hook and the spring tension, the hook must be perfectly angled on the inside edge to work correctly with your specific bolt also the length of the hook must be shaped so that it makes as full a contact with the case head as possible all while maintaing the correct extractor angle with the bolt when a case is under it.

The issue described above will require checking for mag fit first if its latching in tight and solid then start looking at opening up the feed lip on the right side just a little bit

 

[gunmetal]

As mentioned earlier, the S/N on the mag matches the rest of the gun so it appears to be the "right" mag.

There's NO side-to-side wobble of the mag, however there is a bit of up-and-down and front-to-back play. I just noted that I can feed from the mag pretty reliably if I apply constant upward pressure to the bottom of the mag, which increases the contact area between the case and the bolt.

Looks like I got a junk mag. Sigh. And this is after I paid $30 extra for one out of their "Best Of" collection, and even went so far as to make sure they knew I was more interested in function than finish or appearance.

I could try opening up the mag feed lips a bit but I don't think I could open them enough to rectify this without also making it dump rounds out.

I'll try contacting AIM Surplus and see if they can do anything, but my hopes are not high. Not that I have had any bad experiences with them but I am just doubtful that they will be willing to do anything for a mil-surp rifle. Will post a follow-up here after I hear back from them.

 

[Z71]

I've had to tweek the "feed ears" on my No.4 Mk.I and My No.5 carbine to get both to feed properly. They were having problems quite similiar to what you describe. Didn't take much, and just used a set of needle nose pliers to slightly adjust the two front ears.

 

[Braith-Wafer]

A plan occured during the 1950s to convert existing .303 enfields to 7.62 NATO as an 'emergency weapon' incase the L1A1 SLR's are issued too late.

 

[markallen]

I had some feeding issues with my 2A1 also. nine times out of ten it's the mag. I took the firing pin out of the bolt, don't want any ND while feeding live rounds, put the bolt head back in, and went at. I had to adjust the wings, on the mag, both sides, front and back, many, mant times, to get it to feed, and eject correctly. spent shells eject off the mag, not the bolt screw. take your time it will come. these mag were made for each gun. even then you don't know how many times they were dropped or banged around.

 

[dstorm1911]

Braith, yep and it was aborted as the only recievers made of hard enough steel were the savage made Enfields..

Ya can have a shop tig weld up the catch on your mag and then recut it so that it places the mag higher, if your mag isn't sitting correctly messing with the feed lips can cause a condition where it releases more than one round at a time....

As far as "best of" AIM is simply a distributer they get the boxes from Century and seldom bother to open them they just take the Century graders at their word when they mark the box none of the guns are ever actually tested for function as they'd be way behind on shipping orders if they went through testing each rifle looking for the best etc... they simply take the top box off the stack and ship it they are stacked according to Centurys grade as marked...

Even J&G sales as small as they are all they do for hand pick is the cleanest of 5 guns pulled.... thats the handpick

 

[gezzer]

Handpick is the biggest rip-off of all time. Yep I handpicked it right of the pile. I may have been born at night but it was not last night.