Lee Enfield No1 mkIII* SMLE by Iron Airsoft (Matrix)

[Erab]

Introduction:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee-Enfield

 

I have been airsofting for about 12 years and through out all that time I have always wanted a Lee Enfield. Unfortunately the only option available was the S&S which is pretty expensive and as it is spring powered the bolt looks completely wrong. So I was very excited when I saw that Iron Airsoft (who?) was going to be releasing a gas powered No1 mkIII (my personal favourite) a year or so ago.

I had been waiting for any info or reviews to come to light about it but there is very little on the internet about them and what info there was is sketchy, out of date and not very positive! For $400 + shipping and import it just did not seem worth the risk. That was until I saw Evike had slashed the price on them and I could contain myself no longer.

All in it only cost me £217, including shipping to the UK and import tax, total bargain in my book!

I have never done a review before as all the RIF’s I buy normally have a huge amount of info online already and I would have nothing new to say! I would like to get some info out there on this rifle tho, so here we are.

This review will be done in a few parts over the next couple of months, the reasons for that will become clear when you read on. All photos were taken on my phone so they are what they are. I will get some outdoors pics up soon.

 

Un-boxing/initial fondling

 

The rifle came in a plain brown box and was packaged pretty well with a few bits of foam holding the rifle secure. In the box you get the rifle, 1 magazine (more on that later!) and a very poor “instruction” pamphlet. An exploded diagram would have been nice.   

 

 

First things first, the wood colour. Yes it is pretty red but nowhere near as bad in the flesh as the pictures/net comments make it out to be. It just looks new and shiny, I am sure a few months use will dull it down a bit but if not sandpaper and wood stain are cheap! If that sounds like too much effort real steel stocks and most parts will fit fine.

As it came from the USA it did come with an orange tip, soon to be taken off with some paint stripper.

As soon as I took it out of the box I was very impressed with the weight (4kg) and feel of the rifle. This thing is rock solid, perfectly balanced and with very few casting marks or imperfections. Much better quality than I was expecting and better than some real SMLE’s I have seen! I can not stress enough how good this RIF feels and looks.

The wood seems to be reasonably good quality with a even, smooth coating of varnish/stain and the metal parts appear to be fairly good quality. All the metal parts are non magnetic except the trigger guard. The butt plate is brass and is fitted nicely; there is also a flip open compartment in the butt plate to put an oiler bottle and to allow access to the takedown bolt.

The sights are nice and give a clear picture. The fronts are fixed and the rears are adjustable.

I can see no plastic parts anywhere at all. I can however already see the black finish coming off of the moving metal parts. Also the whole bolt area was dripping in thin grease, so a lot will of got into the hop chamber and barrel.      

 

 

The trigger wobbles about a bit when not cocked but is solid when loaded. The trigger pull is fairly hard but it breaks nicely. Very similar to the real one. The mag release is located in the trigger guard just in front of the trigger and works fine.

The bolt pull is very light and smooth but be warned that pushing the bolt closed does require some effort for the last inch, the RS operation has been replicated very well.

There is a knack to it as it is a different action to the standard VSR/L96 etc, with a in and down motion needed to chamber a round.  

Rack the action slowly; watching the round into the chamber is the best way to do it. You can do it very fast with a bit of practice but be warned I shattered the second BB in the feed tube by cycling to fast!

The safety works ok and stops the trigger being pulled when the rifle is loaded. Forward to shoot and back to keep safe. 

 

 

The magazine

 

This is the part where it goes a bit down hill.

Out of the box the mag was dead, it would not hold any gas. When I took it apart all the valves were quite dry but a bit of PTFE tape and some lube sorted them out in 5 minuets. The fill valve has a tiny o-ring in it that likes to work its way loose when you fill the mag so keep an eye on it.

 

I don’t recognize the valves and fear they are new design but if any one does please let me know what they are compatible with. They seem fine for now but I would like some better quality ones.

 

The big problem was the o-ring that sits between the top and bottom parts of the mag.

 

The o-ring was bone dry, there was no grease used when it was being assembled. This caused it to deform and split. No amount of grease and PTFE will fix that.

I contacted Evike who were very apologetic and offed to take it back and fix it, not very cost effective to ship it back to the US tho so I asked them to try and get a replacement part out to me. So far they have had no luck but they did tell me there should have been 2 o-rings in the mag! The QC at Iron Airsoft is not great.  

I also contacted Iron Airsoft directly for parts and they even got back to me! They said they would be making more parts in June so hopefully a full set of bits will be available soon. Along with spare mags I hope too.

 

Now to be honest I expected the mag to be DOA, so I was not too disappointed. Cheap, ACM, niche and gas rarely works straight out of the box!

So I went to my local Halfords and got some of this http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_173106_langId_-1_categoryId_255217

This fix is one I have used before on WE G39 mags with great success and only takes a few minutes to do.

First strip down the mag (2 little screws & 2 pins), clean off all the grease and throw the o-ring in the bin.

 

Don’t be shy with the sealant and apply to both parts of the mag. Also run a thin bead along the top of the lower half of the mag.  

Make sure to only put a small amount on the area next to the bb tube as you do not want any of this stuff to get in there when you squeeze the two halves together.

Oh, don’t forget to put the spring and bb follower back in the mag before putting the two halves together! As you can see in one of the pics below I was not paying enough attention with mine!

 

Wipe off the excess sealant that squeezes out and replace the pins and screws. Check that no sealant oozed into the bb tube with a toothpick or something. Then leave it alone for 24 hours.

Job done.

 

You can still take out the valves for maintenance.

You will have to go to the original post to see the pics as there is a upload limit here.

 

Shooting:

 

Getting the mag to work was always my big concern with this rifle so as long as it puts a bb out of the pointy end I will be happy. I plan to take it all apart to check the seals and change the hop and barrel anyway, so at this stage I just want to make sure it works.

 

Using Blaster .2’s and a X3200 chrono at room temp with propane firing 1 round every 5 seconds I got:

Shot 1-  320 fps (very promising I thought)

Shot 2 - 234 fps (ah)

Shot 3 - 328 fps

Shot 4 -  302 fps

Shot 5 -  254 fps

Shot 6 -  295 fps

Shot 7 -  217 fps

Shot 8 -  338 fps

Shot 9 -  330 fps

Shot 10 - 281 fps

Shot 11 - 310 fps

Shot 12 - 262 fps

 

So a spread from 217 to 338 fps.

I think this is caused by the release valve on the mag not seating properly on the bolt and just bad air seal through out. I might try putting a thin o-ring on the bolt rubber to push it out a bit or on the mag valve, I’m not sure yet and will have to fiddle a bit to find the best solution. 

 

I also occasionally get a misfire where the hammer does not strike the valve hard enough to release any gas. I have to drop the mag, re-cock, replace the mag and then fire. Hopefully this can be fixed by a stronger hammer spring, if I can find a compatible one.

 

Range wise I was only getting about 50 feet but every round was dead straight! There were a lot of inconsistencies in range due to the power fluctuations. So not a skirmishable rifle yet.  

The hop adjustment works fine and is through a small grub screw on the top of the receiver, it can easily over hop a .25. I have not tried anything heavier yet as there are other things to fix first!

 

You get about 30/35 shots out of a fill of gas and you can top load bbs with the mag in the rifle. You do have to take the mag out to gas it tho as the receiver gets in the way of the bottle. I tried a propane can with an AI adaptor, WE gas and a few others but they were all about 5mm too short.    

 

I am hoping a change of hop rubber; barrel, hammer spring and a general service will have this shooting at 380 – 400 fps reliably.

When I was emailing Iron Airsoft about spare parts I also asked what barrel and hops are compatible and they said it was AEG. So I will be putting in a FireFly soft and a LCT 610mm 6.02 barrel (I will confirm the barrel length later when I have taken it all apart).

 

Taking the bolt out is easy. First pull it fully back, rotate the front part of the bolt up (counter clockwise) and pull out. When you want put it back in there is a small spring loaded nub to push on the receiver that allows you to fully rotate the front of the bolt down (clockwise) and close. All pretty simple.

 

One thing to note is if you rack the action without the mag in the rubber o-ring/collar in the bolt can fall out as it is only held in place by lube! So be carful.

 

Initial conclusions:

As it stands it is not a useable airsoft rifle but it does have promise and I firmly believe, with a bit of patience and fettling, I can get this working fine. The system looks to be a good one that just needs a bit of TLC.

The look and feel of the rifle is fantastic but it does need some work to get it going. There is nothing I have found so far that any one with a bit of time can’t fix so I have high hopes for this.

Unsurprisingly I would not recommend this rifle for beginners or anyone who does not want to get there hands greasy. I bought this RIF in the full knowledge it would be a bit of a project gun so strangely I am pretty happy with the results I have got so far. J

If you have 220 quid to put into a project gun and the willingness to fettle then this seems to be a good choice. As it’s an Enfield I just could not help but buy one!  

 

I will put up more info on the take down and upgrade proses as I go but if anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

Hopefully I have not put any one off buying one of these, as I do believe there is a good airsoft rifle in there somewhere, it will just take a little effort to find it!

 

Right I’m off to watch several hours of Dads Army!    

 

PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO SEE A LOT MORE PHOTS THAN I AM ALLOWED TO UPLOAD HERE.

http://www.techbrigade.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3863

 

[ShinSeiki]

For 220£ that was a steal... I think the whole system is based off a KJW M700 (could be wrong), if so, you can get great hammer springs (KA or G&G) for cheap. Next time you open the bolt make sure to take it out and post a picture so i can compare it with the ones i have here.

 

Great purchase, baby is gorgeous, I'm so jelly...

[Erab]

Cheers dude.

 

All the pics I have are too big to put up here, sorry. There are loads of pics of the bolt and valves in the link at the bottom tho.

 

I did a full strip down just now and it is not a hard rifle to take apart! I will get a guide up next week.

The inner barrel is 610mm aeg cut. The stock barrel is cheap brass and full of grease and filth, so is the hop rubber and chamber. The chamber itself is metal and seems ok but will need a bit of packing with PTFE.

The trigger mech is great as it only has about 3 parts!

[Pistol_Dude]

Nice review! I'm tempted to buy one now, despite the problems. 

 

Edit: I can't see the photos on the other site without creating a profile and logging in.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Pistol_Dude

[Erab]

Ah, sorry.

I will try and get the pics up on photobucket in the next couple days, my bad. Thanks for letting me know.

 

I have found out that the SMLE is not compatible with the KJW M700. Luckily a friend of mine had one that he was willing to let me take apart and compare some of the parts.

The mag springs are different and more annoyingly the bolt gas router o-ring on the M700 is smaller. I noticed yesterday that the stock router o-ring is cracking so will have to go. 

I am sure the spring will be an easy find but the gas router o-ring will be a bit more effort.    I have a few fix's in mind so will keep you updated.

 

Also I put in a new inner barrel (6.02 610mm LCT) and hop rubber (aeg FF soft). The fps spread is now mid 200's to 408!

I had to dremil the cut out's on the barrel a bit to deepen them but only a tiny bit on each side. The hop uses a standard aeg nub so there are many options to experiment with.

 

I have not taken the bolt apart yet as it is held together by 2 roll pins (why? ) and I want to get the gas seal sorted first.

[Erab]

I just got this email from IronAirsoft:

 

Thanks for your letter!

We have reproduce the parts for the magazine. To Improve its stability We will produce simple parts can allow customers to install their own. We have to save your information, you will be notified as soon as possible after completion.

 

Best regards

 

Things seem to be looking up!

I must say I have had very good communication from IronAirsoft. All my emails have been answered within 48 hours and they seem pretty happy to help. Not always the case with airsoft company's.

[Erab]

For some reason I cant edit posts here so have to post again.

 

I have put all the photos up on Photobucket:

http://s776.photobucket.com/user/Erab2k/library/IronAirsoft%20SMLE?sort=6&page=1

Edited April 17, 2014 by Erab

[ShinSeiki]

Checked the pictures, forget what i said about the m700, that is proprietary from top to bottom, really interesting system.

[Erab]

Yep, I'm afraid so.

 

Hopefully IronAirsoft will come through with the upgrade parts soon.

[ShinSeiki]

Do you know anyone with a star/ares gas L96? Well makes a clone as well(ha!), i remember the gas router on the magazine being slightly larger than the m700. But hey, i was totally wrong about the system, so take any guesses with a grain of salt.

[Erab]

No, I don't think I know anyone with a gas L96 but from pics I don't think they are compatible.