I imagine it would have been brass only; otherwise RG would probably not have been able to fulfil its quality control guarantees for the finished ammo.
Will, all of the Enfield-barrelled No4s are optimised to fire normal 144gn RG ball, so you should probably use that as your benchmark. RG does indeed vary by batch: typically it all shoots very well, but some batches will produce "flyers" - maybe 1 in 10 will go off by 2-3 moa.
Some batches seem just fine: a load of RG89 available here at the moment is 100% consistent and is just as good as 155gn match ammo (its also less than 1/2 the price of the 155...).
When people are serious about shooting 7.62mm rifles in target or sniper matches, then they seek out RG "Green Spot" sniper ammo. This stuff is normal ball that apparently had better quality control.
If you are having problems with normal RG, then something is amiss with your rifle. Since you say it is difficult to extract, I wonder if someone has tightened up the headspace too much? Easy to do if someone was using .308 gauges, or the wrong type of 7.62mm gauge (there are different length "reject" gauges for each type of weapon - e.g. a rifle gauge is different to a GPMG gauge).
7.62 Enfields
Moderator: joseyclosey
Range was 100 yards.
This is the longest rang I have available. Elmer.
