Hey folks, I picked up an Ishapore Lee Enfield in overall rough condition. When there is an odd number of rounds left in the chamber, the rounds on the right side of the magazine, the bullet does not sit high enough in the magazine to feed, and it jams against the front of the mag. Usually if I push more vigorously on the bolt handle, it will feed on the second attempt.

Additionally, the second to last round, one on the left, does not lift high enough for the bolt to engage. Every time I try to chamber the second to last round, the bolt skips over the case head and locks up the gun by pushing the round partially up and locking up the gun. I like this rifle very much, but I need to solve these issues.

have you cleaned the mag yet? (inside) and is it SN'd  to the gun?  if I recall correctly they really didn't interchange mags on lee's.  you can also try stretching the spring a little  (be careful not to break it. ) Is this a 7.62 gun or a .303?

Is the magazine number matched to the rifle?  Albeit removable, these weren't deigned to be mag fed rifles and some had the mag chained to the rifle.  This being said, interchanging mags can lead to feed issues as mag lips get bent out of spec to the parent rifle.  In your case it sounds like this could be one of the problems.  Additionally, your spring might be out of spec tension wise.  You can try Numrich to see if there are any replacement springs available as I dug one up there once.  You can also try your luck with the aftermarket mags that occasionally pop up and work on fitting it to your rifle via trial and error.

I will check next time I am home if the number is matching. I will also look around for a spring. Thank you for the advice.

Feed issues on Enfields are almost all mag related. Sometimes you get a No1MK3 mag in a No4MK1 and vice versa.

It's a 7.62 model.

Quite a few years ago, when my parents still had their hardware store and they had an FFL, I bought one of the 7.62 Ishapore "Jungle Carbines" made from cut down 2A and 2A1 rifles. Mine had the same issues you are having, not feeding from one side of the magazine. In my case, it was the left side.

About all you can do is to try and tweak the feed lips and see if that helps. Mine was doing the same thing you say yours is doing, the round isn't coming up quite far enough to feed reliably. I SLIGHTLY opened up the left feed lip and tested. It didn't take much movement, but I did get mine to feed reliably by SLIGHTLY bending the feed lip. Go SLOW and test. It probably wouldn't take much to bend the feed lip too far and screw everything up. The 7.62 magazines aren't real common and I can see a screwed up magazine completely ruining the gun if you couldn't get another. I honestly haven't looked to see if you can even buy new magazines if your original gets messed up or not. Either way, from what I have read, even if you do find an original magazine, it will still need tweaked to work since the magazine wasn't really designed to me removable in the sense that an AR magazine is. They were able to be removed for cleaning but were really meant to be fed with stripper clips and the magazine left in the gun.

As for the mag spring being weak, it has been so long since I even handled mine, let alone stripped or shot it, that I can't remember if the magazine has a leaf or coil spring. If it is a leaf spring, try a .303 SMLE spring. I honestly don't know if this would work or not, but the gun is based off of the SMLE rifle, maybe they used the same spring.

Good luck. When they work, they are fun rifles to play around with. When they don't, a lot of the parts are uncommon enough that you will probably have a VERY hard time finding them.

Bub75

I think sarco has original magazines.  Forgive me if I'm wrong.

They do, but I'd prefer not to spend 50 bucks on a magazine for a 200 dollar rifle.

I has issues with my 2A when I first got it. The mag feed lips, especially the front ones, sometimes need a bit of bending to feed correctly. Get some snap caps and bend the lips very slightly a bit at a time until the snap caps feed well.