Increasing the calibre of a firearm

Zxthinger · 05-08-2020 2:12am #1

SMLE 303s are often increased to 0.410 to turn them into shotguns.
Is there anyone here that can rebore and re-rifle and existing barrel.
With export licences costing circa 300 euro before you even buy a barrel it might be an option worth looking at if someone was to do ithere in Ireland.

Has anyone here ever had a 303 rebooted to 410?

meathstevie · 05-08-2020 2:17am

Where are you importing/exporting from ?

Uinseann_16 · 05-08-2020 1:02pm

If your serious about a project like that you could try Doms customs rifles and ask him what your looking for
If youre trying to get it done on the cheap don't.
If youre saying what i think youre talking about relining a barrel and no its not going to be possible as your chamber is gone and youd need to turn down a new blank and take more material out of the now .410 barrel? thats a crazy amount of labor and tolerances to check
Overall itll be cheaper to buy a SMLE could be 800-1000 to get a new barrel:pac:

Grizzly 45 · 05-08-2020 1:41pm

Why bother with that conversion in the 1st place?? It is apparently a major PITFH deal in real life. The Indian police used these from the Ishapore arsenal until recently. They are single-shot,fire a specific brass 410 round and will not or with great difficulty chamber western plastic rounds and usually the runty 2inch 410 if at all. Sounds like a waste of a perfectly good 303 to me.

And yes I did look at getting a .243 bored out to 308. Every gunsmith I talked to here ran a mile from this project.it's more hassle than it is worth to them,and it was cheaper to get a Walther barrel blank,cut and chamber ,rather than go down this route.

Unless you are shopping in Italy or the US for this rifle,no one charges 300 euros for an export liscense within the union.The Italians charge that,not or the paperwork,but because the police and customs have a nice racket going,where any "arms transport" in public must have a police and customs escort at the airport from the seller.:mad:

tudderone · 05-08-2020 1:44pm

Smle's and no.4's have gone up in price, but nowhere near enough to put that amount of work into one. If you want to rebarrel an Enfield, Lothar Walther in Germany are doing brand spanking new barrels for the no.4, made to modern standards. They are the correct profile, are threaded, are chambered, and even have the lugs on the end for the bayonet.

https://www.lothar-walther.de/drop-in-barrel/rifle/enfield-no.4-mk1/1819/enfield-no.4-mk1.303british-10-mud-15.4-mm-l-640-mm-cr-moly-steel?c=656

Zxthinger · 05-08-2020 5:02pm

meathstevie wrote: »

Where are you importing/exporting from ?

As far as I know an export licence from the states is 300euro.

Zxthinger · 05-08-2020 5:10pm

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Why bother with that conversion in the 1st place?? It is apparently a major PITFH deal in real life. The Indian police used these from the Ishapore arsenal until recently. They are single-shot,fire a specific brass 410 round and will not or with great difficulty chamber western plastic rounds and usually the runty 2inch 410 if at all. Sounds like a waste of a perfectly good 303 to me.

And yes I did look at getting a .243 bored out to 308. Every gunsmith I talked to here ran a mile from this project.it's more hassle than it is worth to them,and it was cheaper to get a Walther barrel blank,cut and chamber ,rather than go down this route.

Unless you are shopping in Italy or the US for this rifle,no one charges 300 euros for an export liscense within the union.The Italians charge that,not or the paperwork,but because the police and customs have a nice racket going,where any "arms transport" in public must have a police and customs escort at the airport from the seller.:mad:

There are a few USA gun makers that reboring and re rifiling. What the benifit
.https://cutrifle.com/reboring.html

https://www.riflemagazine.com/reboring-rifle-barrels

Thanks.

tudderone · 05-08-2020 6:26pm

Anyone i have ever known who had a .410 got tired of it very quickly. They are ok for shooting rats or vermin around a farmyard, but thats about it. I had one years ago, the ammo was twice the price of good 12 bore loads, and i could not hit anything with it.

A lad in the club bought a winchester lever action .410, again it was a novelty for a month or two and was traded in, at a huge loss.

The barrel of an enfield is actually quite thin, i don't imagine there is a lot of meat for reboring and re-rifling.

juice1304 · 05-08-2020 6:42pm

You would be better off importing a barrel from lothar walther in germany. https://www.lothar-walther.de/
There is no one doing it here and very few doing it anywhere for that matter, it would cost more than buing a new barrel. Its not as simple as running a reamer down the centre of the barrel and cutting new rifiling. You colud have the barrel relined with a barrel liner. however i would send it to england or germany to someone who does it for a living rather than anyone here.

Grizzly 45 · 06-08-2020 11:16am

tudderone wrote: »

Anyone i have ever known who had a .410 got tired of it very quickly. They are ok for shooting rats or vermin around a farmyard, but thats about it. I had one years ago, the ammo was twice the price of good 12 bore loads, and i could not hit anything with it.

A lad in the club bought a winchester lever action .410, again it was a novelty for a month or two and was traded in, at a huge loss.

The barrel of an enfield is actually quite thin, i don't imagine there is a lot of meat for reboring and re-rifling.

I started my shooting life ,like many others with a single shot hammer 410,and have shot just about everything with it from snipe to geese . It certainly is a specialist gun and caliber,and proably the worst starter gun for people as you will miss more than hit with it.BUT it does teach you distance judgement real well,and the old gunfighther adage,of "taking your time in a hurry" And you WILL find it difficult to hit anything with it once you have been spoilt by usinga 12 GA and going back down,because you forget that it hasnt the range or power.Will a 410 kill?Absolutely,but within its capabilities.

Grizzly 45 · 06-08-2020 11:29am

Zxthinger wrote: »

As far as I know an export licence from the states is 300euro.

That's just the start! :eek:
That's the Feds paid. Now you need to pay the FFL dealer who can ship outside of CONUS to Europe,epending on how nice he is could be between 100 to 200 dollars.As well as the courier/shipping company,who will proably whack you with about the same price to deliver it to customs in Dublin or Shannon.No doubt Mehole and Leona will want a cut from you importing such luxury items from the USA in some shape or form:rolleyes:

OR you can wait until your FFL dealer has a big order going to Europe,and it is included in the shipment.As the 300 dollar Export liscense is unlimited in the number of firearms exported in the consingement. All you then pay is a courier shipment from the distributor in mainland EU to Ireland,and impoer fees in the landfall country.Which might be significantly cheaper than Ireland.Downside,you might be waiting litearlly 12 months for the gun to arrive in that consingement.

All in all,importing from the States,is not a cheap option anymore.You can be looking at another 600 to 750 depending add on for shipping and paperwork and fees.

Shooting Forum - Firearms licencing information

Increasing the calibre of a firearm

Comments