charon.. the jungle carbine is even more inaccurate than the regular enfield.. the only reason the enfield was considered a good gun was because it had a large mag and FOR A BOLT ACTION it was fast. the reason that canadians hunt with em is because they are the most common gun. They would be far better served with a good lightweight rifle with synthetic stock and chambered in a far more powerful round like the .308 or ought six.. there is nothing special about the weak 303 round except that it is.... weak.
Mine shoots just fine. The difference in accuracy between any of the stock service weapons of WWII was too small to really be an issue, and there really are no service complaints about the accuracy of the No. 3 or No. 4. Some had better sights than others, but outside of competitive shooting matches 3-4 MOA was considered more than fine and about average. The No. 5 is credited with a wandering zero issue, but that doesn't seem to be replicatable by people actually trying to see if that is the case today. At the time, there was a big push to finally drop the lee enfield after 50 years of service for the FAL and some of that MIGHT have been political.
And the reasons you site for it, large action and fast are why it was considered to be the best combat bolt action used in WWI and WWII. It wasn't as robust as the Mauser, but there is no history of durability issues. In fact, quite the opposite. It had a bit looser tolerances than the Mauser and Springfield, but that didn't seem to impact accuracy to any great extent and allowed it to function better when dirty. The general saying is that the Mauser was the best hunting rifle (you can rebore it for more powerful rounds fairly easily and safely), the Springfield the best target rifle and the Enfield the best combat rifle (of the bolt actions). Killed plenty of Germans in 2 world wars, and plenty of others in numerous skirmishes and conflicts since including today in Afghanistan. But, I agree there are better hunting rifles and calibers.
If I ran into any big bear I would still rather have any Lee Enfield instead of the biggest handgun available. It may have somewhat less stopping power than a 30.06, and far less than the hunting magnums, but it has far more energy and penetration than a handgun round. As for its being "weak," as Wiki says its adequate for all big N. American game but the big bears -- but then the 30.06 isn't really seen as being all that adequate for the big bears. That being said, before the hunting super calibers came into being it was used frequently on all continents to successfully hunt all sorts of big and dangerous game. But as you stated, and as I have already stated there are better modern hunting choices. Even the 30.06 is better, but not THAT much better.
Don’t confuse any of the shortcomings illustrated in the military development of the 303 as being a detriment to its effectiveness as a hunting cartridge. On the contrary, when loaded with a 180 or 215 grain soft nosed bullet the 303 is extremely effective on any North American game and shouldn’t be discounted when selecting a rifle for the fall hunt camp. Between 1893 and 1914 the .303 established a remarkable reputation for deep penetration on heavy African game with the 215 grain round nose bullets. Probably the first hunter to use a commercial .303 rifle was F.C. Selous who obtained a .303 Holland & Holland Farquharson single shot in 1893. Arthur Neumann the elephant hunter used one of the first Lee-Metford's for hunting in 1894. The same year Major Frederick Russell Burnham used his Lee-Metford sporter for game and in 1896 for war in Rhodesia.
http://enfieldrifles.profusehost.net/gh2.htm
