LAST EDITED ON Dec-15-15 AT 09:46 PM (EST)
 
>I've never seen one of those in person, but I can only assume that
>they make great .22s, because I have to think that a rifle as
>big and heavy as an SMLE, originally designed for .303, would
>essentially have no recoil at all firing .22 rimfire. From what I see
>here, it seems like your experience was pretty positive too. I might
>have to try and round one of those up sometime.

If there was recoil, my single-digit-years self couldn't feel it. I think I was... 7 or 8, at the time. Knowing what I do now, and having shot several other rifles since, I can state that it -- or quite probably, I -- wasn't particularly accurate with it, but it didn't kick at all. Just, POP, and the target downrange sprouts another hole.

I do remember one issue with it. If you worked the bolt slowly, you had to pry the spent casing out with your fingernails. If you worked it too quickly, on the other hand, you'd end up jamming the casing vertically, between the back of the receiver and the next cartridge. You had to work it juuuust right to make the spent casing pop out neatly and fly past your shoulder.

The other bit that springs to mind is that I had a surprising wake-up call when I fired my first .30-06, after learning on the recoil-less SMLE.

>Well, that's pretty badass. Was she a cop or something? (Apologies
>if this has come up before and I've just forgotten about it; I'm old
>and crap. :)

I don't think it's come up before, no. My mother was a sheriff in Arizona prior to, well, me. She changed careers to become a computer programmer* after I was born. Between her, my grandparents (both WW2 veterans), and my uncles (Vietnam and police, respectively), family dinners had interesting conversation.

(* this is something of a tradition in my family, apparently; my grandfather, then my mother, then both my uncles, and recently a couple of cousins. I bypassed the military-or-police thing and went straight to programming, so I don't count.)

--sofaspud
--