Lee-Enfield

Type	Bolt-action rifle
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	MLE: 1895–1926 SMLE: 1907–present
Wars	Second Boer War World War I Various Colonial conflicts Irish War of Independence Irish Civil War World War II Indonesian National Revolution Indo-Pakistani Wars Greek Civil War Malayan Emergency French Indochina War Korean War Arab-Israeli War Suez Crisis Mau Mau Uprising Bangladesh Liberation War Nepalese Civil War Afghanistan conflict
Production history
Designer	James Paris Lee, RSAF Enfield
Produced	MLE: 1895–1907 SMLE: 1907–present
Number built	17,000,000+
Specifications
Weight	4 kg (8.8 lb)
Length	SMLE: 44 in (1,118 mm)
Barrel length	MLE: 30.2 in (767 mm) SMLE: 25.2 in (640 mm)
Cartridge	.303 Mk VII SAA Ball
Action	Bolt-action
Muzzle velocity	744 m/s (2,441 ft/s)
Effective range	550 yd (503 m)
Maximumrange	3,000 yd (2,743 m)
Feed system	10-round magazine, loaded with 5-round charger clips
Sights	Sliding ramp rear sights, fixed-post front sights, "dial" long-range volley sights; telescopic sights on sniper models.

 

The Lee-Enfield bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle was the main firearm used by the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century. It was the British Army's standard rifle from its official adoption in 1895 until 1957.
A redesign of the Lee-Metford which had been adopted by the British Army in 1888, the Lee-Enfield superseded the earlier Martini-Henry, Martini-Enfield, and Lee-Metford rifles. It featured a ten-round box magazine which was loaded with the .303 British cartridge manually from the top, either one round at a time or by means of five-round chargers. The Lee-Enfield was the standard issue weapon to rifle companies of the British Army and other Commonwealth nations in both the First and Second World Wars (these Commonwealth nations included Canada, Australia and South Africa, among others). Although officially replaced in the UK with the L1A1 SLR in 1957, it remained in widespread British service until the early/mid-1960s and the 7.62 mm L42 sniper variant remained in service until the 1990s. As a standard-issue infantry rifle, it is still found in service in the armed forces of some Commonwealth nations, notably with the Indian Police and Bangladesh Police, which makes it the longest-serving military bolt-action rifle still in official service.The Canadian Forces' Rangers Arctic reserve unit still use Enfield 4 rifles as of 2012, with plans announced to replace the weapons sometime in 2014 or 2015.Total production of all Lee-Enfields is estimated at over 17 million rifles.
The Lee-Enfield takes its name from the designer of the rifle's bolt system—James Paris Lee—and the factory in which it was designed—the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield. In Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa and Canada the rifle became known simply as the "303".

History and Design



The Lee-Enfield rifle was derived from the earlier Lee-Metford, a mechanically similar black-powder rifle, which combined James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt system with a barrel featuring rifling designed by William Ellis Metford. The Lee action cocked the striker on the closing stroke of the bolt, making the initial opening much faster and easier compared to the "cock on opening" (i.e., the firing pin cocks upon opening the bolt) of the Mauser Gewehr 98 design. The rear-mounted lugs place the bolt operating handle much closer to the operator, over the trigger, making it quicker to operate than traditional designs like the Mauser.The rifle was also equipped with a detachable sheet-steel, 10-round, double-column magazine, a very modern development in its day. Originally, the concept of a detachable magazine was opposed in some British Army circles, as some feared that the private soldier might be likely to lose the magazine during field campaigns. Early models of the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield even used a short length of chain to secure the magazine to the rifle.
The fast-operating Lee bolt-action and large magazine capacity enabled a well-trained rifleman to perform the "mad minute" firing 20 to 30 aimed rounds in 60 seconds, making the Lee-Enfield the fastest military bolt-action rifle of the day. The current world record for aimed bolt-action fire was set in 1914 by a musketry instructor in the British Army—Sergeant Instructor Snoxall—who placed 38 rounds into a 12-inch-wide (300 mm) target at 300 yards (270 m) in one minute.[10] Some straight-pull bolt-action rifles were thought faster, but lacked the simplicity, reliability, and generous magazine capacity of the Lee-Enfield. Several First World War accounts tell of British troops repelling German attackers who subsequently reported that they had encountered machine guns, when in fact it was simply a group of well-trained riflemen armed with SMLE Mk III rifles.

Standard Mk VII .303 inch cartridge for Lee-Enfield rifle
The Lee-Enfield was adapted to fire the .303 British service cartridge, a rimmed, high-powered rifle round. Experiments with smokeless powder in the existing Lee-Metford cartridge seemed at first to be a simple upgrade, but the greater heat and pressure generated by the new smokeless powder wore away the shallow, rounded, Metford rifling after approximately 6000 rounds.Replacing this with a new square-shaped rifling system designed at the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) Enfield solved the problem, and the Lee-Enfield was born.



Sniper rifles


During both World Wars and the Korean War, a number of Lee-Enfield rifles were modified for use as sniper rifles. The Australian Army modified 1,612[44] Lithgow SMLE No. 1 Mk. III* rifles by adding a heavy target barrel, cheek-piece, and a World War I era Pattern 1918 telescope, creating the SMLE No. 1 Mk. III* (HT). (HT standing for "Heavy Barrel, Telescopic Sight),[7] which saw service in the Second World War, Korea, and Malaya and was used for Sniper Training through to the late 1970s.[45] There is evidence that some SMLE No. 1 Mk. III* (HT) sniper rifles were used by Australian forces during the later stages of the Vietnam War.[citation needed]
During the Second World War, standard No. 4 rifles, selected for their accuracy during factory tests, were modified by the addition of a wooden cheek-piece, and telescopic sight mounts designed to accept a No. 32 3.5x telescopic sight.his particular sight progressed through three marks with the Mk. 1 introduced in 1942, the Mk. 2 in 1943 and finally the Mk. 3 in 1944. Many Mk. 3s and Mk. 2/1s (Mk. 2s Modified to Mk. 3 standard) were later modified for use with the 7.62 mm NATO L42A1 Sniper Rifle. They were known by the designation Telescope Straight, Sighting L1A1.
Holland and Holland, the famous British sporting gun manufacturers, converted the majority of No. 4 Mk. I (T) sniper rifles, with the rest converted by BSA and, in Canada, Long Branch arsenal.These rifles were extensively employed in various conflicts until the late 1960s, and when the British military switched over to the 7.62x51 NATO round in the 1950s, many of the No. 4 Mk I (T) sniper rifles were converted to the new calibre and designated L42A1.[35] The L42A1 sniper rifle continued as the British Army's standard sniper weapon until the mid-1980s, being replaced by Accuracy International's L96.