At a gun show last week, one dealer had an Indian Ishapor SMLE in .308 for sale.

Wanted $225 plus tax, which I thought was reasonable.

For a cheap [sporterized] truck gun or loaner rifle, are those Indian SMLE's in .308 Winnie worth while?

Thanks ahead of time.

Cougar, I had one of these rifles that the importer had put a synthetic stock on and it was a pretty decent rifle. The only reason I sold it was because of the expense involved mounting a scope. If you don't mind the iron sights then you should do well with your Indian Enfield.

I have one I bought from Navy Arms maybe 10 years ago. They had put the action in a synthetic stock. I think I paid about $150. Got a scope mount from them for another $30. After I did a little trigger work (just stoned all surfaces flat and took off any projections) got a reasonable trigger pull. It puts a 5 shot group in about a 2 - 2.5 inch group at 100 yards. Well worth the money.
Ken

I'd go with yes. I have an old Enfield beater rifle like that which became a "beater" gun for me. If it was a .308 I probably wouldn't be looking to replace it, but it's a .303 and I'm leaning more towards '06 performance.

The .308 Indian Enfield has no collector value. If you want an economical rifle to shoot, why not a new Stevens or even the Mossberg for about $50 more? You're going to have to put more than $50 labor in just to clean up the Ishapore. The Ishapore would have to be tapped to mount a scope. It has of course the crappy
old notch sight. I tried the clamp on mount which didn't work for me.
Check the article on www.surplus rifle.com---I can't paste it. Click on SMLE the look in a right side column for Ishapore.

The guys at www.savageshooters.com love their Stevens rifles. Brand new out of box accuracy is outstanding. Collecting is one thing and an economical shooter is another. $225 is too close to a brand new accurate gun. That's my opinion anyway.

Thanks for all the replies, and I do mean ALL.

The idea behind this project is to have a dependable (and even rugged) truck gun (walk me home gun) in a VERY popular and proven cartridge that looked non-threatening.

Plus the Ishapur has a 12-shot magazine, vs the standard 10rds for other SMLE's.

the SMLE's were the best thing going when you could get them for $59.
then again an SKS only cost $79.

quote:

Originally posted by Cougar:
Thanks for all the replies, and I do mean ALL.

The idea behind this project is to have a dependable (and even rugged) truck gun (walk me home gun) in a VERY popular and proven cartridge that looked non-threatening.

Plus the Ishapore has a 12-shot magazine, vs the standard 10rds for other SMLE's.

The Ishy 2A is a great choice for a bumming-around-gun. The Enfield action is great and the two stage trigger is good for aimed fire.

Mine likes 165gr boat tails and RL15. Good deal for $125





ZM

I like the Enfields too and bought my second, a No.4 made by Stevens in 1942 with a receiver sight, this year. .303 brass is shaking in my cleaner right now. My SMLE III was made in 1908 and has a smoother than a Tikka.

An Ishy for $125 is one thing and $225 is another. IMHO, that price it is just too close to a new sub MOA rifle.

Why would you need need a 10 rnd. magazine in a bolt gun?

If you want to start an Enfield collection, go for it but if you want a truck gun, how can you top one of these package deals topped with a Simmons scope for $300?

While the track record is obviously good, the .308 is probably quite hard on the Enfield action which was designed with the 45000psi .303 in mind, not a 55000psi .308.

I would avoid hot loads myself...just a tought...any comments?

You asked for it:

India, one of the last countries to retain the Lee-Enfield as a front line service rifle, discovered in the early 60's that the bolt action rifle was no match for modern self-loading assault rifles. With this in mind India set out to replace the aging SMLE with the more modern 7.62 x 51mm FN FAL, designated by India as the 1A rifle. Cost conscious, India resolved to issue the new 1A rifle to its front line troops while retaining the No1 for its reserve forces, the Territorial Army. Understanding supply and logistics, what was desired was to re-chamber the No1 for the 7.62mm round, unfortunately chamber pressures for the 7.62mm was beyond the acceptable limits of the No1 receiver.

In the interest of economy the Indian government decided to retain the production facilities for the No1 rifle located at the Ishapore plant and embark on an ingenious program of re-vitalizing the No1 design. Using high-grade steel and advanced heat treating, brand new receivers and barrels were manufactured capable of safely chambering and firing the 7.62mm round. Changes were also made to the magazine; bolthead extractor; ejector and buttstock, all combined to produce a brand new rifle. Officially designated the 2A Rifle and quickly followed by the 2A1 Rifle which incorporated only a change in the range scale of its rear sight with no other alterations. The Ishapore 2A and 2A1 was never intended as a front line service rifle but as a reserve and training weapon, the training part suggests any found on the surplus market may well have indeed been well used.

Fact Fiction and Safety

The 2A and 2A1 having been new manufactured using high strength EN steel, specifically engineered by the Indian government for the 7.62 x 51mm round, I would assume that it is safe to fire the 7.62mm NATO cartridge. However, there is enough controversy found within collector’s circles and on the internet suggesting that some, perhaps all of these rifles are not stronger than the original No1 rifles and that their use may be hazardous. Enough controversy that I feel it is worthy to note but not enough to say with any authority who is right. I would lean towards the safe camp as it was built and issued by a recognized government and having been on the surplus market since around 1995, I have not heard of a rash of catastrophic failures. Given this debate I should point out that there IS a difference between 7.62 x 51mm cartridge and its civilian counterpart the 308 Winchester cartridge. The most important of which is chamber pressure maximums, to understand this difference I would suggest reading Steve Redgwell’s excellent article on the subject here. With this in mind I would not recommend using commercial 308 Win ammunition, but instead stick to military surplus or 7.62mm service rifle handloads.

Controversies aside, the Ishapore 2A/2A1 rifle is certainly worth notice as an interesting variant of the Lee-Enfield.

http://enfieldrifles.profusehost.net/ri5.htm


ZM