Steel used in Ishapore SMLEs and RFI 2A/2A1

[timmy]

This post addresses this one, but with additional detail:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=29070&p=275924#p275919

As I understand the subject of the steel assay used in Ishapore SMLE and 2A/2A1 rifles, someone bought several 2A/2A1 rifles and had them analyzed by a lab. It was found that the hardness and composition of these rifles was the same as the No 1 Mk III* SMLE rifles.

Some 2A rifles were actually based on refurbished No 1 Mk III* receivers.

After Indian freedom, SWES48 steel was substituted for the original EN19 assay. This led to failures in proof testing, and adjustments were made in the testing process to accept these rifles.

Around 1950, EN19 steel was again used in SMLE No 1 Mk III* receiver production, as well as the subsequent 2A and 2A1 rifles.

The new batches of EN19 steel used in rifle production were superior to the pre-war EN19 due to better production techniques.

The first RFI rilfes were of the 2A type -- about 50,000. The rest were 2A1, a much larger number. Mine is a 2A.

I have yet to shoot mine. I have assembled a collection of ~250 cases, which are mostly military cases. But, this is of little importance to me. Generally, military (7.62x51 NATO) cases are thicker than commercial (308) cases, requiring a different loading. Also, as is well-known, 7.62x51 NATO chambers are different from commercial 308 chambers. Allowing for the thickness in the cases (requiring a lesser charge) I will only be shooting my 2A with cast bullet loads and will run the rifle at much reduced pressures. Thus, the strength of the rifle (which I believe sufficient for its intended purpose) won't even be an issue.

Shooting this rifle with the Ashoka on the butt socket has always been my desire and intention, along with pride of ownership. This, I'll accomplish with no problems and much satisfaction, I'm sure.

I mention this due to the arguments regarding RFI 2A/2A1 steel, with some saying that it was better than No 1 Mk III* steel, and others claiming that it was the same steel. When the facts are followed, it can be seen that there is justification for both positions, but in the case of the RFI 2A/2A1 rifles, there's no issue regarding strength needed for these rifles to function as intended.

[Respectful]

This seems interesting to me here in USA. I am collector of sort but I shoot what I buy and not really in keeping it for some other person to enjoy more....so I shoot like its my tool. Anyways I mostly have more modern ones like AR15's, Semi AKs 47 variants and 5.45 ..Galil - FAL. I was able to purchase an Ishapore A2 from a batch that had come over. Since being .308 Version I jump on it - very nice looking and have shot some Israeli mil surplus and also commercial and not my own reloads. I am curios now. This was addition to having also gotten a Nazi Israeli re-bored to .308 K98 and a couple of Mosin Nagants in 7.62 * 54. So I ignored buying 303 calibers Enfield's thinking this was a good one since it was made more later with better metal alloy. I like the look of it and keep this more on display and shoot very rarely. not sure how to check on it except what is written maybe on rifle itself.

[timmy]

Respectful: you may be interested to know that the SMLE-derived RFI 2A and 2A1 were chambered in 7.62x51 NATO as well. After the Sino War in 1962, India adopted a modified FN FAL and modified the SMLEs to shoot the same cartridge as a backup.

Mosin Nagants are quite a bit of fun! Milsurp is great for them, but for my Finn M39 and arsenal refurbed 91/30, I'm sticking with my cast reloads.

The black rifles are great, but not my cup of tea -- I like the older milsurps, tho I'm sure you have plenty of fun with AR type rifles.

[Respectful]

oh,,,Thank You for the history on the SMLE...at the time of purchase I was just glad to see one available from India and I did not want another cal to reload or another type of ammo...But that piece of history is very nice to know. Do you use a mix in your cast reloads to make it more hard? So no need to cast my own as I have access to a lot of jacketed bullets...so primers and powders are available to load ...reloading presses can be purchased ...Great...w hat type of Primers or Dies etc...nice to know what is available? or site to view ?

I have FN 308 Police rifle bolt action ...I have a savage heavy barrel 30-06 and Savage 7mm Rem Mag for need to hunt but I dont have a safe hunting ground just yet...Public State Conservation owned ones free to access I went a couple of occasions - I saw a lot of orange vests and did not feel safe,,,plus Deer run into private lands after the first shot the private friend places are far and have to have time to do a lot of pre-work etc ..so just paper punching at the Moment. I have STG58 FAL that I am getting my now 16 yrd old get into having fun..Trying to get into 300 Blackout Bolt gun for use with a CAN...as soon as my Lady says ok.. now I have to get an OK on buying since we are now partners I tried to tell her she needs to upgrade her Sig 228 to a Sig M18 9mm in exchange...still working in it.

[Respectful]

So Timmy - don't answer this ? "Do you use a mix in your cast reloads to make it more hard? So no need to cast my own as I have access to a lot of jacketed bullets...so primers and powders are available to load ...reloading presses can be purchased ...Great...w hat type of Primers or Dies etc...nice to know what is available? or site to view ?" You are "home on the range"

Lots of options on Primers, Surplus Ammo , bullets and what not - money is the limit- not as quite the old days when SKS were less than $50. Those days are gone but other things came out better ,,,,
One question though ....I stayed away from Lead Bullets due to breathing in some particles and get into Blood Stream buy shooting a lot of it. :hence my question on Alloy mix ? or if you power coat then and cure - it might help in this...I assume yearly blood work does not show high in lead ?

[eljefe]

Usually a mix of 94/96:2:2 of lead :tin:antimony is the preferred mix. You can get wheel weights at the local tire shop for a 6 pack. For speciality lead there are several smelters who will smelt lead to your requirements.
If under 1500 fps, no need for a gas check. But ideally a simple lube of 92:6:2 of bees wax:vaseline:2T oil will be enough.
Yea, you can powder coat with harborfreight mixes or use HITEK epoxy coating. Both need to be cured in a cheapo toaster oven at 400F for 8-10 min.
Lots of info on both techniques on castboolits.com

[Respectful]

Thank You eljefe, on the steps and seems very interesting and affordable with smelt option available. I have seen may people talk using the powder coat option with very great looking color options. Kudo's for all here sharing and being very helpful at this site. Fist time I have run into many of us on a site - great feeling.

[timmy]

So Timmy - don't answer this ?

Please forgive me, Respectful, for not answering your summons immediately, for I was out of town traveling.

Do you use a mix in your cast reloads to make it more hard?

The only firearms that one uses pure lead as a projectile are muzzle loaders. I'm not sure of the composition of air gun pellets, but I would think that they must either pure lead or nearly so, but it would be very hard to cast them. They would be swaged.

Yes, to answer your question. I use anywhere between a 1:10 and 1:20 mix of tin:lead, which is sufficient for ~800 feet per second velocities from 45 Auto, 45 Colt, and 38 Special loads. I have yet to find a need for gee-whizz hollow points for targets. Every target I've ever shot was dead before and after shooting it.

I do intend to start using linotype and monotype (of which I've acquired a nice little stash) in some loads to see, as some suggest, that an increase in accuracy can be obtained with harder bullets. Linotype and monotype contain antimony, which will give additional hardness over 1:10 tin:lead bullets.

So no need to cast my own as I have access to a lot of jacketed bullets

Casting, to me, is something that I want to do, not something I have to do in some situations. I enjoy crafting the exact bullet I want, and I enjoy making what I shoot, rather than paying someone else for my bullets.

Also, there are certain guns for which store-bought bullets are not available. One can either cast for these guns and shoot them, or look at them.

Whether you would be able to cast as easily as you wish could be complicated. Issues with fouled gas ports on semi auto rifles can arise, and I have no idea how bullet lubricant -- either conventional or powder coat -- would affect your suppressors.

Lots of options on Primers, Surplus Ammo , bullets and what not

Apparently, you have not been buying primers or powder for reloading for the last four of five years. Ammunition got very scarce and primers and powder were just about unobtainable. Maybe about a year or so ago, small pistol primers started appearing, and most stores would limit quantities to 100 or 200 primers at a time. Gradually, small rifle primers have become available too, and every now and then, large pistol primers will come up for sale. I picked up 1500 today, as a matter of fact. What are almost impossible to find are large rifle primers.

Shotgun primers are quite rare too, but some French Cheddite primers have been popping up on store shelves. They are said to be substitutes for Winchester 209 primers (as you know, you can't substitute or mix-and-match shotgun reloading components. Unlike rifle and pistol reloading, one must follow shotgun reloading data exactly, unless you want to ruin your gun or blow your hand off.

The problem with the French Cheddite shotgun primers (and also with Bosnian large rifle primers, I understand) is that they are actually metric, so while you can ram them into your hulls (or brass cases), and they will work, they enlarge the primer pocket so that you can never use domestic primers again. No thanks.

Muzzleloading primers are almost never found. I did see some #10 CCI primers about six months back, and that has been it.

Powders, too, were unavailable, but are coming back in a hit or miss fashion. What is available is often at twice the price they sold for 5 years ago. Given that a 155 mm artillery round takes about 7 Kg each, world conditions make this understandable. Many European powders are unavailable, also for understandable reasons now. There are nitrate shortages, and nitrates are the key component to powders. National militaries command the greatest attention for powders, then ammunition makers. The person who reloads is at the tail end of a powder maker's or seller's concern. My theory (not what I know) is that reloading cannister powders are what powder makers make and sell to keep their manufacturing lines going between large runs for big customers. Reloaders get the crumbs, in other words. Just my thought on this, though.

Many retailers will list long lines of powder products, but when one looks into what's actually on the shelf, one is lucky to find 1/3 or 1/4 of what is listed for sale, if that. Ask me how I know -- I was just looking today. Common pistol pistol powders, like Unique and Bullseye are not available.

This is not to say that no powder is available -- powders can be found to reload ammunition, but I think that the order of the day will be that one must either accept and work with a very limited number of expensive powders, or start working with new powders, knowing that they may not be available tomorrow. That's when a new load with a new powder must be developed, which adds costs and time to the reloading project.

So I would say in response to your views of reloading, my experience is that it is not quite so easy as you picture it. It takes thought and work to do, and bullet casting adds to those two elements. Both also take investment, the amount of which depends on the quality of tools that are chosen and the number of tools one wants for special tasks. For instance, loading cast bullets is better done with special expander plugs, and more sophisticated and expensive seating dies will give more accurate results by ensuring concentricity. But all of this stuff depends on the results one wants and the ability to pay for the equipment.

Moving on to another topic, you said:

I was able to purchase an Ishapore A2 from a batch that had come over.

I did not mean to be tedious by related the history of RFI 2A or 2A1 rifles. As you already have one, you know these things. But you did not say "2A," you said "A2," and as my skills at mind reading are non-existent, I did not perceive that you also had one of these rifles. I'm sorry.

Here on IFG, we use English to make content available for everyone. Nobody here is a "grammar nazi" and it's understood that English may not be the first language of many. But I would gently suggest that you take a little more time to proof read your posts so that all of us can understand what you mean.

Since being .308 Version I jump on it - very nice looking and have shot some Israeli mil surplus and also commercial and not my own reloads.

Your RFI is your rifle, and you may do as you wish, but I very strongly doubt that yours has been rechambered to 308. It is most likely 7.62x51 NATO, and this is not the same cartridge. While modern bolt and semi auto rifles might be able to shoot either cartridge interchangably, a rifle like the SMLE-based RFI 2A/2A1 has marginal strength for such high pressure cartridges.

I'm sure that you are aware that commercial 308 cartridges are loaded to a higher pressure standard and that the cartridges are NOT of the same dimensions, and the 308 cartridge fired in a 7.62x51 chamber may exhibit excessive headspace -- a dangerous thing in a weak action like the RFI.

This site discusses the matter, but the information is widely available all over the internet:

https://www.bearcreekarsenal.com/blog/7 ... s-308.html

As I said, it is your rifle and you can do with it as you please, but I'm not about to shoot commercial ammo out of mine. I will only shoot low pressure cast bullet reloads out of mine.

Finally:

This was addition to having also gotten a Nazi Israeli re-bored to .308 K98

I'll note here that it is impossible to bore an 8x57 barrel of 0.323" diameter to a 0.308" hole! These guns were rebarreled with 7.62 mm diameter barrels!

Again, forgive me for not being available to respond to your posts when you wished.

[Respectful]

Timmy, Thank you for education on cast reloading...It is more complicated that I would want for me to do as a personal choice. but it is very interesting. I totally agree what you wrote on the availability of primers and powder. I had long waits to replenish but I had stocked enough to carry me through those times and now. The shotgun Ammo reloading is something I have not tried yet but thanks for the important details on it. I do understand the differences between .308 and Mil Spec 7.62 * 51 Ammo. While I have shot a couple of mags full to test with Ishapore, I was not aware of what you have written on it and thanks for pointing that out. Definitely not interested to damage myself. Thanks for the link, something I will read up on it. I do have a M! Garand 30-06 Springfield so I have researched that far more on it with higher pressure commercial rounds due to prevent op. rod damage and have added a different type if gas plug to account for it. I will sit and digest what you have written and many thanks to you addressing your concerns. I will be more careful on what I write as the last thing I want to do is misguide anyone. Since I have not really researched on the work done on these Nazi K98 , I stand corrected it from you that it was not re- bored and must have had been barreled. Thank you for your time on your feedback and definitely has given me some good food for the thoughts and my safety.

[timmy]

Resepctful, casting has a number of approaches and solutions.

When I was young, I could shoot my handguns for the cost of shooting 22s. I dug lead out of the backstop at the rifle club and melted down old plumbing and telephone cable splices. I pan-lubed bullets before I bought a Lubamatic sizer.

I very much enjoyed making my own boxes of reloads.

Now, there is talk about banning lead bullets completely, and there are no lead smelters in this country. Getting buckets of automobile wheel weights is becomign a thing of the past as many are zinc. So, just like buying powder and primers, bullets are another thing that in the future may be banned, limited, licensed, or in some other way limited. Having components may possibly contribute to the freedom to shoot in the future.

SMLE/RFI 2A/2A1: These were the oldest battle rifles of a major nation, older than the 1891 Mosin Nagant or Carcano. The James Paris Lee system was arguably obsolescent by WW1, which is why the British developed the P14 Enfield at that time. Note the clip charger bridge, which was added to the design: it not only provides for clip charger loading, like the Mausers had in the Boer War, but it also strengthens the receiver by not letting the sides bulge apart by the rear locking lugs. Still, the action is very fast. Famously, in the retreat from Mons, the British regulars put up such a hail of fire toward the Germans that the Germans thought that they were facing machine guns.

Israel had all kinds of old weapons during the early years. Besides German weapons, they also had a Czech Avia fighter, made from an Me 109 assembly line in Czechoslovakia that was mated to a Junkers Jumo bomber engine. (The Daimler Benz plant was destroyed.) The Jumo engine was heavier and turned in the opposite direction from the Daimler Benz 600 series and the Israeli pilots called them "mules" -- their handling left something to be desired. WW2 Sherman tanks were also used for many years after WW2.

[Respectful]

Thanks for more insight on the casting, Real cool on the cost saving end with use of some elbow grease so to speak and the enjoyment that comes out if it. So nice to hear what you had done when young. Enjoyed reading it. I started first just shooting the Ruger P89 DC purchased second hand and just got enough reloading stuff to recycle my brass and buying copper coated bullets from Midway USA - during my college days- using Alliant Unique powder. I dont like the ban some forks want to push as administrations change we hope all is going to be ok. Thanks for more history on the Enfield's and Israel use of weapons. I admire them very much.

I checked my purchase receipt on the Enfield form SOG and it lists as "Enfield Mod 2A #1 MK3 .308" - So in respect to needing to shoot the 7.62 * 51 Ammo I shot saying commercial ammo I still still have it and did a look over. I don't have any commercial 308 Hunting ammo as those are of different caliber in my inventory, These are White Winchester USA and the box notes 7.62 147 gr. Full Metal Jacket. Q3130. I was quoting it as commercial - The cases have WCC 99 and Nato (+) stamps on it. Winchester lists it as muzzle 2750 fps 2468 Ft/Lb energy. So I am thinking it is loaded to Nato Mil spec. Surplus Israeli was of 1970's purchased at a great price of $70 for 500 came in Steel Ammo Can. The Enfield cost was $90 rounded. This was in 2001. But I now know what not to shoot out of it.

[timmy]

I checked my purchase receipt on the Enfield form SOG and it lists as "Enfield Mod 2A #1 MK3 .308"

SOG isn't held in the highest regard in some circles, and like some other gun sales, advertisements aren't always to be trusted. I believe that some vendor sold Mosin Nagants as being chambered in "7.62" as if they would also shoot 308. "Buyer beware!" is sound advice, or else one could end up having bought a bridge in Brooklyn, as they say.

I can't say much about going by velocity to understand pressure. There are too many variables, and while many ways have been touted to indicate pressure (e.g., cratered primers, expanded case heads, etc.) measurements with the proper pressure testing tools have shown that the only true and reliable indicator for chamber pressure is a proper pressure testing tool. Unless you consider something that has blown up as reliable -- too much excess pressure will cause this!!!

Checking a reloading manual that lists pressures will show that a fast burning powder can exhibit lower velocity with higher pressure, while a slow burning powder might exhibit lower pressure at the same velocity. A direct relationship between pressure and velocity doesn't exist, in other words.

The SMLE originally chambered in 303 British was intended to operate ~45,000 pounds/sq inch. Sticking with such a limit mirrors the technology of the time, around 1895 or so. (Remember that the 303 was originally loaded with a compressed charge of black powder.) This puts it right with 7.62 x 54r Russian, 30 40 Krag, 7.5 x 53.5 Swiss (for M1889 rifles), 7 x 57 Mauser, and other similar cartridges. Pressures for 7.62 s 51 NATO and 308 Winchester are shown in the link that I posted above, and are quite a bit higher.

As I noted, the Indian batches of EN19 steel are supposed to be better than what was used in the original SMLEs of WW1 and earlier vintage. This is probably true, and might give a little more margin, but perhaps not. The design plays a big role in rifle receiver strength, and the M98 Mauser is a great example of this. The design of that rifle is a lot of the strength.

[Respectful]

Thanks for the update on SOG - these all purchased are going only for Display History. They sit there anyways. Thank You Timmy and it is very educational and taking your time putting it into the format that people understand. Appreciate it!