IOF 315 rifle and cartridge

shahid · Post by **shahid** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:23 pm

But one question comes to mind. Why in the world did IOF choose this crudest of designs for Civialian rifles ? Why not go for 30-06 or .308 or some Rusian design. They had access to excellent Chzech designs as well post 1947.

BSA did enjoy extreme reputation in India for their guns and bicycles .

Post by **eljefe** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:30 am

shahid";p="17355 wrote:But one question comes to mind. Why in the world did IOF choose this crudest of designs for Civialian rifles ? Why not go for 30-06 or .308 or some Rusian design. They had access to excellent Chzech designs as well post 1947.

BSA did enjoy extreme reputation in India for their guns and bicycles .

What crudest of designs? The Enfield rifle or the cartridge -303 Rimmed?

shahid · Post by **shahid** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:40 am

The action of this Lee Enfield type. Really crude, and the 2 piece stock to add more ugliness. IOF do it further by painting the barrel black instead of blueing it.

If anything less than perfect maintainance and care the .315 rifles by IOF malfunction.

Extractor is one of the biggest problems. Magazine fit another one. Cartridge breaking in the chamber after firing the worst.

Post by **eljefe** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:52 am

Shahid,
The Lee Enfield, as made in UK (and by Indian Ordnance) during WW2 won the war.2 wars in fact , for the Brits.
Many Older Indian Army soldiers will swear by the "three nought three"

The rear locker and 303 cartridge made a perfect combo.One of the fastest service rifles of its times.

That we couldnt do a decent 'copy' job and IOFB gives away awards to fitters who designed their junk pots is a shame on us...117 USD is the cost of the IOFB 32 cal Mark2 in US, sells for 80-90k here.
Suggest you get your facts right about the weapon in question...what exactly do you mean by -30-06
or 308-the cartridge or the rifles they fire?
what were comparitive excellent czech designs of 1940's
Finally, remember, the world tends to go with the winners, and England had won WW2.
Only in the late 60's and 70's did the world discover that the Arisaka rifles were technically superb. Who cared? Japan had lost the war, see?

YouTube · Post by **mundaire** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:52 am

This is really going OT now... but I think I should add here that I saw a new example of the .315 IOFB rifle yesterday. I'd gone to get my shotgun license renewed and there was a gentleman there with one of these. At first I thought he had had the bolt of the rifle chrome plated... it was looking all nice and shiny, not like the ones I have seen so far, which have a dull, crude aluminium type alloy bolt...

Anyhow, asked him if it was an aftermarket modification and he said that this is how the new rifles are coming these days... so I guess IOFB have now replaced the old alloy bolt - maybe due to too many failures? I shudder to think of what would happen to the shooter when their alloy bolts fail while firing though!

Cheers!
Abhijeet

shahid · Post by **shahid** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:05 am

IOF did make .315 rifles with a Kevlar stock in 1999-200 and it was offered by NRAI to its members. Plastic stocks did not find much favor by Indian shooters.

Post by **eljefe** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:07 am

Maybe, but your still not clear about about the 308 and 30-06 designs/cartridges...

shahid · Post by **shahid** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:07 am

Asif,

I know that IOF or whatever it was called pre independence did make .303 service rifles for military use. But did it make civilian supply .315 as well ? I doubt. These came in after independence. Earlier it was always imported rifles.

Post by **eljefe** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:08 am

Sure,whenever the 315 came in , the shortcomings were in our COPYING, not in the original design...

shahid · Post by **shahid** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:09 am

What I mean was why this action. IOF could have chosen mauser action, other actions from eastern block and made 7.62 NATO or .308 or a very popular in India 30-06 rifles from the very begining. Why this crude .315 ?

Post by **eljefe** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:13 am

IOF could have chosed any action-the end result would have been the same.When they couldnt execute a great design like the Enfield, what guarantee that a controlled feed design , more advanced if I may add, like the Mauser, would have been a success?
For many years the 30-06 was used by the Browning MMG here in India, We're lucky that it wasnt made a P bore...Ciao and good night, we are waay OT and will split this thread tomorrow.

shahid · Post by **shahid** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:18 am

Still only 11.45 here. Good night Doc.

YouTube · Post by **mundaire** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:25 am

shahid";p="17408 wrote: What I mean was why this action. IOF could have chosen mauser action, other actions from eastern block and made 7.62 NATO or .308 or a very popular in India 30-06 rifles from the very begining. Why this crude .315 ?

Shahid, the answer as always is money. When the Indian military began adopting the FN FAL/ SLR 7.62 NATO rifle (in the mid-sixties or so), the IOFB was first tasked with transitioning the large quantities of SMLE's in current use to the 7.62 NATO cartridge, so that while the military waited for all units to be equipped with the SLR, they could at least standardise on the ammunition.

Hence for a period you had SMLE's in 7.62 along with SLR's in the same calibre in use with the military. Once all units were equipped with SLRs, the SMLE's we now "surplus". Many of these (in both .303 as well as 7.62) were issued to the para-military and police forces. This still left a HUGE store of surplus military rifles as well as now useless machinery and tooling to manufacture these rifles.

Some of the surplus rifles were given to countries even poorer than us as military aid, some seem to have found their way into the US market, where they still sell quite cheaply, but they could not be sold to civilians here as .303 and 7.62 are both military chamberings and therefore classified as PB.

Now, from here on this is purely speculation on my part - IOFB now had in it's inventory huge quantities of actions, parts and machinery to produce SMLE's, which the government no longer wanted to buy from them. So when they decided to use their surplus capacity to make products for the civilian market, it would seem obvious that they would want to put to use all this idle inventory and machinery. So what do they do? They begin by making SMLE rifles, with a sporter stock and overbored so that they are now chambered for this .315 cartridge, which incidentally also uses a case which is almost identical to the .303 case (more existing equipment being put to use again).

A starved domestic market happily laps up what it can get and the .315 is a commercial hit!

That's my reading of the situation... would be happy to hear others inputs on this.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

YouTube · Post by **mundaire** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:55 am

The last few posts have been split (from the IOF crtgs and recoil thread) and merged with the original discussion on the .315 IOFB rifle and ammunition.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

shahid · Post by **shahid** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:19 am

You are right. I too have heard from old shooters that the first few lots of barrels were 7.62 mm overbored. SO this seems to be the case. Match it with Lee Enfield already being made from a similar rimmed case and here you have a .315.

But mind you, THis low velocity heavy bullet does have its merits at closer ranges of 60 to 75 yards. It outperforms 30-06. At this range a 30-06 bullet has plenty of velocity to penetrate out of a light sand bag filled with a bit of dried grass and wood shavings while the .315 bullet remains inside.

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IOF 315 rifle and cartridge