More on the Enfield:
What Enfield you should buy..it really depends upon what you are looking for and what you want to do with it.
If you are just collecting ONLY and want an Enfield Collection then you will want to try to get one of each type of model.
If you want something to shoot and blast away..then you will most likely want something like an No.4 Mk.1 or one of the repro "Jungle Carbines".
The No. 4 Actions are the strongest (Except for the P14 and 1917 Enfield which are really a beefed up Action based on the Mauser design)
The smoothest actions are the No.1 Mk III (or SMLE) rifles. But their actions are a lot weaker than the No. 4 Mk 1 and No. 4 Mk.2 rifles.
The SMLE is definately "neater looking".
Random Stuff:
The No. 4 Mk. 1 Action can withstand pressures equivalent to 7.62 NATO. So you can rebarrel these actions, change the extractor and magazine and get it to shoot 7.62 NATO.
Which is the Brits did for sniping weapons. The L42A1 was such an Enfield. Basically they converted No.4 Mk.1 T Sniping Rifles which were originally chambered in 303 Brit and created the L42A1 which was chambered in 7.62 NATO. They used the L42A1 up until about 1985.
Another thing you can do is to take a reamer and ream out the chamber on a No. 4 Action, and ream it out to 303 Epps. And you can load it up to 7.62 NATO pressures. (DONT do this on a SMLE !!!! It will blow up on you.)
If you have a P14 then you can hand load your 303 Epps to be very HOT.
The Enfield has an interesting quirk. The barrel harmonics tend to compensate for variations in muzzle velocity from shot to shot which tend to have the best effect at about 900 yards on group sizes.
You will notice that the Enfield's rear sight does NOT have windage. However, if you look pretty hard..you can frequently come across a Parker Hale target sight. These are very sweet, got windage and elevation. And they screw in where the safety is..no gunsmithing necessary.
I put a Parker Hale PH5A sight on one of my SMLE's it shoots very nicely now!
Check out
www.303British.comand the Lee Enfield Forum at:
www.gunandknife.com/cgi-bin/forums/enfconfig.pl for more info. Also the FAQ at
www.recguns.com for more info