by Gun-nut » 21 Oct 2018, 9:02 pm
I've always had a soft spot for the no.5, the first centrefire I ever shot. My father owns two, and both shoot just fine also. Never experienced the wandering zero either. I have heard however that post-war, a lot of no5's were bedded improperly by civilians and gunsmiths to a similar standard to the no4, which could often result in poor accuracy as no5s were meant to have a free floating barrel, as opposed to the barrel making downward contact on the end of the fore stock. As no1 mk3 touched on above, you never know what you're going to get with milsurps, and enfields are particularly funny in that you may find a rifle with perfect bedding and rifling that can't shoot worth a damn, and a rifle thats been dragged through hell and back with a warped stock and a pitted barrel and it shoots absolutely fine.
In regards to the wandering zero, as no1 said, I believe its mostly been blown out of proportion, other owners of no5s that I've spoken to haven't experienced any such issues with their rifles, and I suspect that rifles that do exhibit a wandering zero (whether it be due to a bad batch of rifles, poor bedding, misalignment of the flashider etc.) would be few and far between.