Bedding a Sporterized 303 British?

[engineer40]

There's no shortage of info out there on accurizing a 303 British. Though most of the info is for un-sporterized ones; still with the full length wood forearm and barrel.

(I bought this one already sporterized).

I have bedded a couple Remington rifles but definitely not a pro with these 303's. I have had good results in how the rifles shoot though after my bed jobs.

I'm going to definitely bed the rear recoil lug and the front forearm bolt. Those 2 areas look like they need it the most.

Thinking through what happens when a bullet is fired and how a rifle torques, I'm also thinking about bedding both of these vertical areas I pointed to with the arrows. There is a little bit of play in both areas and it seems to me that this would also help?

I'd like to ask if I'm thinking through this correctly? I haven't seen anyone else bed these 303's in those 2 areas to help with accuracy. Opinions??? Thanks!

 

[engineer40]

I decided just to bed this 303 British freakin everywhere man... Once I started closely eyeballing the fit of the aftermarket stock closer, I noticed barely anything that needed to be touching the stock, actually was.

The only thing I can figure out is they made the stock will super loose tolerances because there were so many versions of the 303 British.

I did the main part of the receiver last night, full bed job. Upon inspection today, it turned out great! It's nice and tight! The recoil lug and the receiver screw channel have zero tolerance now. There is bedding along the sides all the way front to back. I'm very happy with how it turned out!

I just bedded the trigger guard. It's curing now... Tomorrow I'll need to figure out how to do those 2 perpendicular areas I mentioned in my OP above.

I was grouping around 2.5 inches at 100 yards with this old war rifle. Nothing to brag about for sure. No doubt this will shrink that a good bit. That stock was honestly so loose I wouldn't be surprised if it took almost an inch off the grouping.

 

[engineer40]

Well I took out my 303 to test yesterday and see if my bedding helped any.

After firing a few shots to dirty the barrel up a bit, I fired 8 shots for a group. 7 of the 8 shots fit into 1 7/8 inches. 1 shot I remembered pulling and it was obvious which one that was when I saw the target up close. It was a few inches away from all of the other shots.

This was using cheap Prvi ammo. At first I thought "meh, the bedding seems to have helped some".

When I got home and compared my targets to the targets I saved before the bedding I got a little more excited! I was a little over zealous with my estimation of how well the rifle originally grouped. The best of my original targets were around 2 3/4 inches. But if I had to guess I would say the average was closer to around 3 inches, using this same ammo.

Well dang! This thing is shooting pretty good now comparatively! Thank goodness that I saved my old targets to compare!

Almost makes me want to start reloading for it and maybe even get a better scope and rings; and ditch this cheap Amazon scope I have on it.

It is a fun rifle to shoot. I like that it holds 10 rounds. I like that it looks different from most every other rifle and I get lots of comments about it. I enjoy telling people it was made in 1943 and talking with them about some of the history of the firearm.

I enjoy the "cock on close" design of the bolt. And it makes me wonder why most bolts "cock on opening"...

 

[engineer40]

I was reading up on the accuracy potential of the 303's. Here are a couple quotes I found:


"As the others have said 4 moa would be ok. 6moa isn't out of the question. If you're lucky 2moa is possible."

"I've shoot maybe two hundred different No4's. If you can get under 2moa it's special. 3-4 was the norm for these when new. Any that shot under 3moa were set aside for the No4(T) program."

"With various factory ammunition, I only got 4-6 MOA using Prvi Partisan, Hornady, and Remington. With my best handloads, the best accuracy I could achieve was 3 MOA. I think that's the best you can hope for with such a old military surplus"


That's making me feel pretty good about my 1 7/8 inch group with factory ammo! (And that was 7 shots. Not just a lucky 3 shot group).



Here is a quick pic of me shooting it at the range yesterday.

 

[Varmtr]

Over the years there has been many ways and variations of bedding the No1 Mk3's and the No4's that the Poms, Aussie's and the Kiwi's did for 1000y shooting.
To much to go into but the best book I have seen that explains all this and more is called The 2012 Complete Book on Lee Enfield Accurizing author Roger Wadham get the colour version, well worth a read.