The .303 British is a fine cartridge when matched with a rifle in good
condition. The problems with the weapon are mostly psychological, but do have
a background in physical reality. Most of the SMLE's and No. 4's dumped on the
world market were shot out pieces of crap. There are SMLE's and No. 4 rifles
out there which have been re-chambered or re-barrelled for .308, but given some
of the thumb fingered clods who do stuff like that and call it gunsmithing
(particularly headspace issues when going from a .311 diameter rimmed cartridge
like the .303 to a rimless .308 diameter round like the .308) getting one of
these conversions was bit of a crap shoot as far as quality. Combined with the
round's low muzzle velocity (2200 - 2500 fps) these problems added up to a
seriously bad American civilian reputation for arguably the finest bolt action
infantry rifle ever made (shortest bolt throw, shortest bolt rotation, 200 yard
accuracy, 10 round magazine, blah, blah, blah). Best stick with a No.4 (or a
No.5 carbine if you're lucky enough to have one) in good shape - its certainly
good enough to get you two deer, an elk and one of whatever "they" are
carrying, if it comes to that.
The real problem with the Mini-30 is just that - the "30". It was originally
designed as a .308 carbine, but it couldn't handle the strain and no amount of
re-engineering could make it work and not shoot itself apart. It was scaled
back to handle the less oomphy and smaller 7.62x39 round. They were real
popular up here for several years and if you got a good one you had a, well, a
"good one", but the majority of them that I shot seemed woefully inaccurate. I
have a real Simonov, not a Norinco copy, and I think I'll stick to that for
this particular round.
As for the .223 issue ... The chief virtues of the .223 rifles are weight, rate
of fire and the portability of its ammunition (weight). The .223 is not
inherently a long range round, subject to wind drift and a significant loss of
speed and altitude at range, but a single infantryman can put a whole lot of
lead down range in a short time for an extended duration. Several infantrymen
working as a team can suppress the dog snot out of any living thing around them
for a quite a goodly distance (depending on terrain). If my aged memory serves
correctly some special units of the Canadian Army routinely train carrying a
three day battle supply of ammo. Don't mess lightly with people who are
willing to do things like that and who have business to attend to. Bad juju.
The .308 is still my personal choice in the "one guy with a rifle" battle rifle
arena - an acceptable medium between the lightweight and ammo portability of
the .223 and the range and knockdown power of the M-1 Garand (funny, John
Garand was a Canadian, also, hmmmmmmm ...) in .30-06 (ball cartridge, caliber
.30, Model of 1906). Still, all in all, now that I'm no longer young and
heavily armed, I think I'll just have a hunker on the front porch and clean my 870.
My .02, now back to your regularly scheduled linux discussion.
- Richard
_______________________________________________
http://linux.nf -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archives, Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, Etc
->http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
