303 Jungle Carbine tamed.

Maybe I'm just a big jessy but even though it was my first centrefire rifle & I still have it some 40 years later, I've long found my Jungle Carbine a nasty little thing to shoot. That rubber butt pad had gone as hard as heck & being narrower than a normal LE butt plate, it was somewhat less comfortable to shoot than a hard brass butt plated No4. My kids are now of an age where they wanted to shoot Dads old cannon & not wanting to put them off, I wanted to find a way to tame it. The inspiration for this came while perusing a Pachmayr catalogue & I saw that their Decelerator Youth pad did not have a steel insert in it. A bit of measuring & I was sure (I hoped ) that I could reshape one of these to screw onto an insert behind the No5 butt pad retaining plate which would make it much more comfortable, not look too out of place & also give me a bit more length of pull. I'm fairly tall & broad across the shoulders & even though the butt stock is an issue L its always been a bit short for me, which hasn't helped perceived recoil. I started by disassembling the stock LE butt plate.
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& offering up the insert I'd made out of a bit of 5mm steel. It doesn't show here but one side has a radiused edge to sit neatly insert the butt reatining plate. Seen here with the other components.

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The new pad was attached with some 5mm x 15mm machine screws (close to 3/16 x 5/8). I did a quick shape job with a sanding disc on a 4" disc grinder. I'll tidy it up a bit sometime but it was a proof of concept effort to begin with. I was happy enough with the look of it. I left it as big as I could taking account of the size of the flat area of the butt retaining plate. Hopefully these shots will show it OK. It was very effective, totally eliminated any bite & made it great for the kids to have a blast with.

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Edited to say that this mod has not altered any of the stock parts & it totally able to be returned to original.
Cheers,
Steve.

They'd need to be a huge amount softer than the original before I'd want one but thanks for the heads up.
Steve.

AFAIK the sling loop has been like this as long as I've had it. To be honest, I've not taken a lot of notice whether or not it is as it should be. I'll wander over to milsurps & have a look at a few. It an easy mod to make, I probably should have done it in ali or drilled some big holes in the steel insert to lighten it a bit but it doesn't show as having affected the balance any & it simply comes up & shoulders better than I've ever known it to.
Steve.

Ignition Override said:

Nice solution, especially if it interests young family members in milsurps. Hope you keep the original parts.

My two Jungle C's have a firm recoil, but they feel better than my Yugo Mauser.

I just sold my Mini 30, in order to have instant cash in case another authentic Jungle C., or maybe Spanish FR8 is seen near Memphis.

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Theres no danger of me not doing that, to me, this was the attraction of doing it this way, that it could be returned to original in about 5 minutes (well 10 at the outside ) I'd sure recommend something like this, its gone from being a pain to fun in one easy go.
Steve.

DougW said:

shinz, I have to correct myself. I thought it layed closer to the wood, but I am wrong. I have 3 Enfields with the "L" long butt stock, the #5mk1 Fazakerley being one of them. Check the stock on the left.

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Doug, nice looking line up, & yup, your JC loop is the same as mine. Are those North American production #4s, afaik (not much ) the Brit ones had the brass butt plates least the couple I do have but my #4* has the pot metal butt plate.
Steve.

Told you I didn't know much, maybe I need to get mine out & test the butt plates with a magnet. I felt sure the 4* was what I called pot metal but I'm sure Zamak is the correct terminology. I might be surprised at what I find. Were the steel butt plates plated/coated to prevent rust at all? Do you have a pic of one . I've alway thought the brass & zamak ones were cast to that shape but can't see a steel one being cast, it'd be more likely to be stamped or forged I'd have thought.
Steve.

Sunray said:

Depending on the kid, a No. 5 Rifle(Jungle Carbine is an American importer invented marketing term only) may not be a great idea. No matter what you put on, but your's will be a whole lot better than the issue butt.
"...what I called pot metal..." Nope. Zinc or brass. No steel on any of 'em.

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You're right of course about the correct nomenclature but most people know the term Jungle Carbine now & like it or not, it has become common useage. Probably make the Greater Oxford Dictionary before long it it hasn't already
I've been making up reduced loads for the young to fire, Sierra 125grnrs over a mild charge of 4198, about 7.62x39 ballsics. Even with this the #5 tended to bite some. The Pachmayr pad has eliminated that almost completely. I now find it totally fine with full power loads, which I have pretty much never done till now.
A bit of research tells me that Zamak is an alloy of Zinc, Aluminum, magnesium & Copper, whereas pot metal is supposedly Zinc & Lead & of far inferior qualities, makes sense. I think I'll let that be my thing to learn today.
Steve.

DougW said:

Couldn't stand it:

Steel left, Zamak center, brass right.

6 of my 7 #4mk1's have the Zamak butt plate. Only my '43 BSA has the brass butt plate.

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Thanks for that Doug, the steel one is knew to me, my #4* now confirmed as Zamak. Is the steel plate stamped or forged?
Steve.

RugerMcMarlin said:

SHINZ This is the best fix for a jungle carbine I've ever seen, do you realize you took the worst of the enfield kickers and made it ENJOYABLE? My fix was to sell it, I like yours way better.

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Thanks for the compliment, I sure knew that this thing kicked like a mule & had ceased to be fun. When a bought it I was a teenager,I played Rugby, you know, like gridiron but without padding & helmets & back then the recoil didn't bother me, nearly 40 years on it sure does. I think I saw on here in a thread some time ago about replacement pads for these but getting any sort of gun part out of the USA is an exercise in frustration. Gone were the good old days when I could fax an order to Brownells & it'd turn up a couple of weeks later, 4 if I was feeling mean & had them send it surface. The local agent for Pachmayr & Lyman had a youth pad in stock. I'd hatched this plan ages ago but having found out the hard way about inserts in pads I put it aside, so when I found their youth pad didn't have an insert it was game on. The beauty of it is, apart from the extra length of pull which is welcome & the ability to return it to original, was that I could do it with basic handy man tools. A disk grinder to shape the insert, an angle grinder with an emery disc on it to shape the pad. A 5mm tap which I had anyway but most any engineering shop would sell or drill & tap a couple of holes for you & anyone can do it & it really was a complete pussy to shoot after this.
Steve.