I have a carbine and have fired it with some Nazi marked ammo. As far as I could tell, it was about on par with other guns of its era. The straight pull bolt is handy, but is not as fast as a SMLE. Unless you get one that has been rechambered and rebarrelled to 8mm Mauser, there are few options for reloading. The milsurp cases have Berdan primers, so it would be work to even find the primers. The actual caliber is .329, not .323, like the 8mm Mauser. Lee makes dies, and also moulds, but finding jacketed bullets is not easy. As the service velocity is around 2,000fps, lead bullets can still be used to get full power loads. Of course, the gun shoots about 18 inches high at 100 meters, so replacing the front sight is necessary if you plan to hunt with it. Unless you want to use it as a single shot, you will need to find the clips for the rifle. Finally, I have heard that the firing pin is a weak point of the design, and there seems not to be a source of replacement pins, nor are they easy to produce. I bought mine as a curiosity, as I did not have a straight pull rifle in my collection, but I still wish I had bought the unissued SMLE the store also had, instead, as it was a more practical rifle as a shooter.
