Older Euroarms Enfield

[Yancey von Yeast, 8073]

Hello,

I am working on an older Euroarms 3 band enfield for a friend who is a reenactor. His son wants to deer hunt with it this fall. I should know all of this, but I have been shooting Hoyt barrels for too long. Anyone know what the bore diamer is and what the rate of twist should be? This will not be a great shooter but I am hoping it will be good enuf to bring Bambi down. He wants to shoot the 315 grain wad cutter, so I am going to try and sight it in on that.

Any help or thoughts would be great.

Thanks,
Yancey
114 Illinois, Vol. Inf.

[Edwin Flint, 8427]

He may be better off with patched RB. Many re-enactor guns due to repeated blank firing have an eroded breech area. If this is so, I have not been able to get them to group with minies. However, patched RB for whatever reason, worked okay.

Diameter could be anything from .575-.586 in a Euroarms. That is the spread I've seen.

[Yancey von Yeast, 8073]

Thanks Edwin! This one sure does have an eroded breech. It does not look all that bad with a bore light, but that hides the last 2 1/2" of the breech. You can really feel it with a patch. This thing is a real case.... I told him I would try to shoot it with minies to see what I could come up with, so I will try.

Thanks again,

Yancey

[Edwin Flint, 8427]

One thing you also have to watch out for on the guns with eroded breechs is blown skirts.

The back end of the minie expands into the eroded area and is then forced to narrow again in an uneven manner. This is what I suspect caused the inaccuracy problems. Sometimes, the skirt is pulled off and remains in the breech. This can be a safety problem at later re-enactments if you don't catch it and remove it.

[Joe Burchette, 2440V]

I have ser. no. 0058. can't get much older than that. :D

[R. McAuley 3014V]

Actually Joe, I think that I know of someone who has an even lower SN? One of the charter members of the 3rd GA, Brooks Dawson, had #0003, and you'll have to ask Southron Sr who got #0001 (either he or Tom Hunger)? Although when I transferred from the OLI to the 3rd GA, I could have bought a P/53 Euroarms Enfield for $99 (at jobber), I just had my head wrapped around a log and hankered to have a M-1863 Springfield which cost me $150 used. The member I bought it from was using the proceeds of the sale to buy one of the Euroarm 3-banders for $99, and by the time I finally got my head back on straight and bought a Euroarms P/53 Enfield (from Mike Yeck), it cost me $175 minus the trade-in on the M1863 Springfield! That was at the 1979 Fall National. But while 0058 is low, there are some lower serial numbered guns around. I seem to recall that the original charter members of the 3rd GA (N-SSA) got the first ten or so guns that were imported?

Richard McAuley, 3014V
37th GA

[Joe Burchette, 2440V]

There sure are a lot of us OLD guys around. :D

[Mike Seymour, 3215V]

Joe,, You got that right old timer ! I hear tell that you pulled KP with Robert E Lee in boot camp.

[Joe Burchette, 2440V]

Thats really not true. It was Jackson. :D