John_Harper_UCD%eurokom.ie@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (02/09/90)
From: John_Harper_UCD%eurokom.ie@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU The Irish governments department of defence has (at least until recently) several thousand Lee-Enfields for sale (.303 and .308 (?)) most of which are still in grease - the number could be as high as 30000. I remember using the rifle while on a local defence force outing - teenage years - not very successfully. However, I do recall the effect of leaving the gas ports blocked :-) Jerry Harper, Computer Science, University College Dublin, Dublin 4.
wmartin@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL (Will Martin) (02/12/90)
From: Will Martin <wmartin@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL> To Jerry Harper: I'm a little confused by the comment in the basic posting: "I do recall the effect of leaving the gas ports blocked :-)" The Lee-Enfield is a bolt-action rifle. The only "gas ports" I can think of would be channels in the bolt and receiver to allow the harmless (or at least relatively safe) venting of gasses in the event of a ruptured cartridge. (Actually, I'm more familiar with such in Mauser actions than in Enfields; I'd have to dig my Enfield out to examine it so refamiliarize myself with how that works in that action.) Perhaps you could expand a little on this -- were you firing a Lee-Enfield that still had those gas-relief vents clogged with grease, and the cartridge case ruptured? I could imagine a couple possible results -- if the grease was soft enough, the gasses could ignite it as they blew it out the vents. That might make a spectacular fiery effect and would be, shall we say, "disconcerting" to the shooter. :-) Of course, if the vents were really blocked with hardened material, much more serious effects, like the bolt lugs shearing off and the bolt coming back at the firer, or the receiver cracking open or shattering, or the gasses blowing the magazine out the bottom of the receiver, would be possible. I hope the effect you reference was not as severe, and you were not injured. (Your reference implies you can look back on the incident with amusement now, so I take it there was no injury.) The other possibility is that you are meaning the automatic rifle made at Enfield that was based on the FN FAL. Then "gas ports" would refer to the adjustable port on that rifle that controls the functioning of the action. In that case, the port being closed just means the rifle would not cycle the action, and each round has to be manually loaded by actuating the operating handle. I believe that is the position of the gas port used when firing rifle grenades. Regards, Will wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil OR wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil