Diagnosis please

I have a sporterized Lee Enfield No 4 Mk1 and took it hunting for the first time this morning. I took four shots at does at 100 yards, all clean misses. I zeroed in this rifle at the range exactly two weeks ago today and haven’t touched it since. I took it back to the 100 yd range today to see what was up, and all shots were in the 6-inch circle, but there was no consistency at all. Some were high, some were low, some left, some right etc. I switched from cheap ammo to Federal ammo and got no change in results. The rifle has a Leupold VX-II scope professionally mounted; I checked all connections and everything is tight. The rifle has never been super accurate, but I haven’t seen variances like this before. I’m willing to accept an occasional miss, but the last doe just stood there watching me blasting away at her and missing. I hate to be embarrassed in front of the does.

Now I’m thinking maybe it needs to be recrowned? I don’t know much about this but it’s the original barrel on a 75-year-old rifle and the crown looks different than my other rifles — it’s flatter and more beveled vs a nice rounded crown.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

could be..bore shot out, bad crown, other than that ?

fouled ?

Might try another scope on it first before touching anything else.

Scope took a dump, it doesn't like the ammo you've tried, it needs to be cleaned, or it's shot out (unlikely).

I bet I needs cleaned.

Reupold puked...............

Please don't take offense, but maybe you just missed. Heart pumping, adrenalin flowing, last night's burrito... We've all done it, gone back to the range and found it wasn't the rifle.

Poor ammo,in a poor rifle,coupled with a poor trigger and undoubtedly a poor mounting system...do not equate to the Warm/Fuzzy.



I've more faith in the SMELLE,than the Reupold..................(grin)

I'm sure your arm and shoulder will be sore for a week after you run the first few patches through it. Like most said above the barrel bore most likely needs some TLC.

Scrub & polish the bore. Then try re-shooting.

If it still sucks, try another scope.

If still sucky, try some handloads with bullets of the correct diameter & re-try.

If none of that works, get a Tikka rifle.

I like it!

The last Lee Enfield I picked up took more than week of running Wipefree through the bore twice per day before I got all of the copper fouling out of it. It would not shoot worth a damn prior to a deep cleaning. After the first day of soaking lots of metal flakes came out of the bore with the first few patches I ran through it. The up side to all of the fouling was that it protected the bore and it was pristine.