I never thought it would be competitive at Camp Perry but it's going to be a hoot when I get her and her cousin the Win Lee on the line. :D
Before you bang away with the Lee, please track down descriptions of the safety mods retrofitted to some of the rifles by USMC and make sure your rifle has them.
The guy killed shooting a Win Lee 10 years ago made serious mistakes reproducing the cartridge case, but it was the rifle's design flaws that killed him.
I started down the rabbit hole just after the DeRitter incident and have no fear of the 1895's design. I was shooting one of my win-lees, oh, five or six years ago using modified 25-06 brass from Buffalo Arms. Didn't have any problems. My thoughts on the matter at the time was the 25-06 was designed as a rimless case and should have a substantial web in the case head and minimal brass has to be removed to get it to chamber. Besides that I don't believe BA would put their winkies in danger by building and selling dangerous ammunition.
Also, I have not read where the Navy had reports of the Winchester Lee having catasrophic failures like the army was having with the 1903s as reported by Julian Hatcher. Perhaps Knute can run down the Navy reports.
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Deacon in the Church of the Mighty Krag. Member of PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals). Liberty Works Radio
Are you talking about the Winchester Lee Straight Pull? If so, here is an early report when the rifle was accepted by the Navy. I'll have to find later reports to see if the Navy actually dropped the rifle for other reasons than to standardize with the Army.
Make sure to click on the four tabs by the scroll bar for different places the rifle was written about in the report.
Yeah that the gun. My research poor that it is tells me the War Department got rid of the W-L for ammo logistics. I could not find any reports of receiver failures due to design flaws. Perhaps they did occur but the reports are lost to time if they did exsist.
Whereas the flavor of the times and the thinking of the Ordnance Dept was becoming more scientific in their outlook regarding injuries to soldiers and sailors.
Deacon in the Church of the Mighty Krag. Member of PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals). Liberty Works Radio
Some of the W-L that saw USMC service have modifications to the rear of the bolt. There us a U-shaped piece of sheet-metal thickness steel that would protect the shooter if the striker were to be blown free. IIRC, it is spring steel and snaps into grooves machined into the rear of the body of the bolt.
If the USMC armorers had not encountered problems, that mod would not exist.
That must have been an authorized mod and must appear in writing somewhere.
I have not found any references to bolt assembly issues with this gun during military use. Not saying there weren't any. Ian from "Forgotten Weapons" has an informative video on this rifle, in case you haven't seen it. The only issue he brought up was with non-military reloaded ammunition. He also explains why it went out of vogue and without manufactured ammo soon after the Navy dropped this rifle.
