Excuses excuss..... go out and buy another gun already. Simplifying is good but variety is the spice of life!
My mini with the flash hider blasts a ton of air upwards to keep the muzzle down you can see it at the range with the baffeling on the firing line, not that the muzzle jumps that much. I will have to get some good pics up later.....

I have an Enfield SMLE that has been sporterized that is an excellent Scout rifle and was actually what the Col had in mind when he designed the original.
A good rifle cartridge ,he settled on .308 but my .303 is fine.
Light and handy but still capable out to 600 yards.
My SMLE has a 10 round mag and is charger fed
I picked up some bandoleers and chargers for it.
The Col liked bolt actions but did not discount a semi if it could be made light enough. The Socom 16 is a beautiful semi scout. A bit more cash than the 100$ I spent on my SMLE though.
The scout scope is the one thing the Col considered least important. He said a good set of iron sights or a red dot or holo sight would do just as well.

It's hard to beat the fun of letting off a clip full 223 from a semi auto.
Target practice is great but just having plain fun can be important too.
I had a mini 14 and it could be a blast.
Wish now I hadn't traded it off.

Unsub,
The SMLE is an awesome rifle. I have a jungle carbine, which is one of my all-time favorite rifles, of any style. The bolt is incredibly smooth; they did an outstanding job designing it.
Having the heavy-duty detachable 10 shot mag is the icing on the cake, to me.
I have thought about putting a site of some type, or a scout mounted scope on mine, but it just looks so pretty as it is.

I agree with you that the .303 is a good round. I have had people tell me it's a hard cartridge to find, but I have never had problems resupplying.

I have also read of other having problems loading the stripper clips, but I have not had any issues.

I was actually looking for a full-size enfield, when my brother came up with the Nagant I ended up getting.

CoyoteBC,
You are right. Sometimes, it is just fun to shoot for the sake of shooting. A .223 in any form is great for that. When I had my Galil, the 50 round mags were a blast to run through.

If I had a yen for a Mini-14 or AR15 type rifle, I think I'd try to get it before the November elections. One never knows what knid of bans will come down the pipe.

My Mini is not the ranch rifle so I had to mount a scout rail, I chose the Ulti-Mak rail, and mout the sight in the scout position. All in all, it's a nice set-up. At some point, I'd like to have a barrel shortened to eliminate some of the whipiness and improve accuracy.

I picked up the newer updated Mini-14...shoots awesome...love the factory iron sights as well...