Lee–Enfield
The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century, and was the standard service rifle of the British Armed Forces from its official adoption in 1895 until 1957.
A redesign of the Lee–Metford, the Lee–Enfield superseded it and the earlier Martini–Henry and Martini–Enfield rifles.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, colonial armies, and other Commonwealth nations in both the First and Second World Wars. Although officially replaced in the United Kingdom with the L1A1 SLR in 1957, it remained in widespread British service until the early/mid-1960s and the 7.62 mm L42A1 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 Bangladesh Police, which makes it the second longest-serving military bolt-action rifle still in official service, after the Mosin–Nagant. 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 location where its rifling design was created—the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield.
Design and history
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 that had a barrel featuring rifling designed by William Ellis Metford. The bolt has a relatively short bolt throw and features rear-mounted lugs, and the bolt operating handle places the bolt knob just rearwards of the trigger at a favourable ergonomic position close to the operator's hand. The action features helical locking surfaces. This means that final headspace is not achieved until the bolt handle is turned down all the way. Helical locking lugs were probably used both to allow the chambering of imperfect or dirty ammunition and also so that the closing cam action is distributed over the entire mating faces of both bolt and receiver lugs. This is one reason the bolt closure feels smooth. 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. To further facilitate rapid aimed fire the rifle can be cycled by most riflemen without loss of sight picture.These design features facilitate rapid cycling and fire compared to other bolt-action designs like the Mauser. The Lee bolt-action and 10-round 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 target at in one minute. 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.
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 and rounded Metford rifling after approximately 6,000 rounds. Replacing this with a new square-shaped rifling system designed at the Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield solved the problem, and the Lee–Enfield was born.
Models/marks of Lee–Enfield rifle and service periods
| Model/Mark | In service |
| Magazine Lee–Enfield | 1895–1926 |
| Charger loading Lee–Enfield | 1906–1926 |
| Short magazine Lee–Enfield Mk I | 1904–1926 |
| Short magazine Lee–Enfield Mk II | 1906–1927 |
| Short magazine Lee–Enfield Mk III | 1907–present |
| Short magazine Lee–Enfield Mk III* | 1916–present |
| Short magazine Lee–Enfield Mk V | 1922–1924 |
| Rifle No. 1 Mk VI | 1930 |
| Rifle No. 4 Mk I | 1931–present |
| Rifle No. 4 Mk I* | 1942–present |
| Rifle No. 5 Mk I "jungle carbine" | 1944–present BSA-Shirley produced 81,329 rifles and ROF Fazakerley 169,807 rifles. |
| Rifle No. 4 Mk 2 | 1949–present |
| Rifle 7.62 mm 2A | 1964–present |
| Rifle 7.62 mm 2A1 | 1965–present |
Magazine Lee–Enfield
The Lee–Enfield rifle was introduced in November 1895 as the .303 calibre, Rifle, Magazine, Lee–Enfield, or more commonly magazine Lee–Enfield, or MLE. The next year, a shorter version was introduced as the Lee–Enfield cavalry carbine Mk I, or LEC, with a barrel as opposed to the one in the "long" version. Both underwent a minor upgrade series in 1899, becoming the Mk I*. Many LECs were converted to special patterns, namely the New Zealand carbine and the Royal Irish Constabulary carbine, or NZ and RIC carbines, respectively. Some of the MLEs were converted to load from chargers, and designated Charger Loading Lee–Enfields, or CLLEs.Short magazine Lee–Enfield Mk I
A shorter and lighter version of the original MLE—the Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee–Enfield or SMLE —was introduced on 1 January 1904. The barrel was now halfway in length between the original long rifle and the carbine, at 25.2 inches. The SMLE's visual trademark was its blunt nose, with only the bayonet boss protruding a small fraction of an inch beyond the nosecap, being modelled on the Swedish Model 1894 cavalry carbine. The new rifle also incorporated a charger loading system, another innovation borrowed from the Mauser rifle and notably different from the fixed "bridge" that later became the standard: a charger clip guide on the face of the bolt head. The shorter length was controversial at the time; many rifle association members and gunsmiths were concerned that the shorter barrel would not be as accurate as the longer MLE barrels, that the recoil would be much greater and the sighting radius would be too short.Short magazine Lee–Enfield Mk III
The best-known Lee–Enfield rifle, the SMLE Mk III, was introduced on 26 January 1907, along with a Pattern 1907 bayonet and featured a simplified rear sight arrangement and a fixed, rather than a bolt-head-mounted sliding, charger guide. The design of the handguards and the magazine were also improved and the chamber was adapted to fire the new Mk VII high velocity spitzer.303 ammunition. Many early models, magazine Lee–Enfields, magazine Lee–Metfords and SMLEs, were rebuilt to the Mk III standard. These are called "Mk IV Cond.", with various asterisks denoting subtypes. Another feature present on the No. 1 Mk III as well as many other models of the SMLE was a field cleaning kit enclosed behind a trapdoor in the buttstock which included a barrel pull through with various cloths and an oil bottle enclosed deeper within the compartment.During the First World War, the SMLE Mk III was found to be too complicated to manufacture to meet military production demands led to the development of the "peddled scheme", which contracted out the production of whole rifles and rifle components to several shell companies. As a result, the production was quadrupled in the first year of the war from slightly over 100 thousands annually before the war.
| Producer | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | Total |
| Enfield | 51,576 | 271,856 | 418,283 | 640,113 | 626,330 | 2,008,158 |
| BSA | 56,416 | 275,927 | 435,212 | 468,447 | 345,732 | 1,581,854 |
| LSA | 12,101 | 65,678 | 99,433 | 97,012 | 89,990 | 364,214 |
| Total | 120,093 | 613,461 | 852,928 | 1,205,572 | 1,062,052 | 3,854,106 |
| Canada | 0 | 2,650 | 33,476 | 82,360 | 0 | 118,486 |
| USA | 0 | 0 | 282,495 | 835,355 | 0 | 1,117,850 |
| Grand total | 120,093 | 616,111 | 1,168,899 | 2,123,287 | 1,062,052 | 5,090,442 |
The SMLE Mk III* saw extensive service throughout the Second World War, especially in the North African, Italian, Pacific and Burmese theatres in the hands of British and Commonwealth forces. Australia and India retained and manufactured the SMLE Mk III* as their standard rifle during the conflict, and the rifle remained in Australian military service through the Korean War, until it was replaced by the L1A1 SLR in the late 1950s. The Lithgow Small Arms Factory finally ceased production of the SMLE Mk III* in 1953.
The Rifle Factory Ishapore at Ishapore in India produced the Mk III* in.303 British, and then the model 2A, with strength increased by heat treatment of the receiver and bolt to fire 7.62×51mm NATO ammunition, retaining the 2,000-yard rear sight as the metric conversion of distance was very close to the flatter trajectory of the new ammunition. The model 2|A1 changed the rear sight to 800 m, and was manufactured until at least the 1980s; a sporting rifle based on the Mk III* action remained in production.
The rifle became known simply as the "three-oh-three".