Lee-Enfield

Lee-Enfield
general information
Military designation:	(Short Magazine) Lee-Enfield Rifle
Country of operation:	United Kingdom , various Commonwealth countries
Developer / Manufacturer:	James Paris Lee / Royal Small Arms Factory
Development year:	1888
Manufacturer country:	United Kingdom
Production time:	1888/1895 to 1950 (GB), 1963 (India)
Model variants:	about 40
Weapon Category:	gun
Furnishing
Overall length:	1133 mm
Weight: (unloaded)	3.93 kg
Barrel length :	640 mm
Technical specifications
Caliber :	.303 British
Possible magazine fillings :	10 cartridges
Ammunition supply :	Loading strip / metal magazine
Cadence :	20-30 rounds / min
Fire types:	Single fire
Visor :	Iron sights or diopter
Closure :	Bolt handle repeater
Charging principle:	manually
Lists on the subject

The Lee-Enfield bolt action rifle is a British orderly rifle that has been used in various versions by armies and police forces for over 100 years.

history

The predecessor of the Lee-Enfield rifle was a repeating rifle patented by James Paris Lee in 1879, whose cylinder lock, trigger mechanism and box magazine already corresponded in concept to the weapons later used by the English. Since Lee wanted his invention to be ready for series production and the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company was interested in the manufacture of repeating rifles, it was agreed in 1876 that the weapon should be brought to production maturity at Sharps and manufactured by the newly established Lee Arms Company Bridgeport . When Hugo Borchardt , chief engineer at Sharps, left the company in September 1878, the completion of the first .45-70 Government rifles was delayed so much that planned tests with the US Army were no longer necessary. In total, the Lee Arms Company produced around 300 rifles.

After the Sharps factory closed, the production of the Lee military repeater was successfully taken over by the Remington Arms , which manufactured over 100,000 of these weapons between 1880 and 1907.

The first Lee rifle made in Britain was the Lee Metford Rifle Mark I with a seven- slide barrel developed by William Ellis Metford . It fired a rim cartridge in .303 caliber still loaded with black powder. The magazine held eight rounds. Introduced in the British Army in 1888, this weapon replaced the single-shot Martini-Henry rifle . In 1892 a variant of the Lee-Metford, the improved Mark I *, was added and in the same year the Mark II followed with a 10- round magazine, at the same time a cartridge with smokeless cordite powder was introduced. The last weapons with the Metford barrel were the carbine introduced in 1894 and the Mark II * model from 1895 with additional safety. In 1895 the Rifle, Magazine, Lee Enfield Mark I was also introduced, in which the barrel was provided with deeper rifles to adapt to the new ammunition. This was then replaced in 1902 by Short Magazine, Lee Enfield Rifle, or SMLE Rifle for short .

The SMLE rifle in the twentieth century

British Indian Army soldier in a Lee-Enfield Mk III in Egypt (1940)

The Enfield Mark I appeared in 1902/03. The weapon is still used today as a hunting weapon.

In some Commonwealth countries, especially Canada and India , the weapon is still used by police or reserve units.

The Canadian Rangers were armed with the weapon until a few years ago. From 2015 it was replaced by C-19 rifles manufactured by Colt Canada , a licensed product based on the Finnish Tikka T3 rifle .

Many older Lee-Enfields were also still in use in the Afghanistan war . The USA had taken over 200,000 pieces from British stocks and passed them on to the Mujahideen as weapons aid .

An overview of the different versions can be found under Royal Small Arms Factory .

The .303 caliber, Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield, Mark I & III called SMLE for short , is a robust rifle that is insensitive to dirt.

Thanks to the soft and fast action of the lock, this repeater can fire up to 20 rounds per minute. The training of the British soldiers placed high value on a quick sequence of fire and accurate shooting, as the British initially used few machine guns . This was evident in the first days of the First World War in the high losses on the German side. The high ammunition capacity of ten cartridges for a bolt-action rifle at the time favored a quick firing sequence. In the beginning, however, there were also versions in which the magazine slot could be locked so that each shot could be loaded individually through the ejection opening.

Lee Enfields were also used as sniper rifles. Since the first versions were loaded with loading strips from above, the telescopic sights were attached to the side. But this was not an optimal solution. Later versions (in 7.62 mm NATO) received their telescopic sight over the barrel.

There were also versions in .22 lr (lfb,) which were used as training weapons for the British Army. This version, which is extremely rare today, was shot as a single shot, the empty cases fell into the still existing but empty magazine when the bolt was opened.

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  SMLE Mk. III

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  Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mk. I

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  Lee-Enfield No.4 Mk.1 rifle from 1944

literature

• Martin Pegler: The Lee Enfield Rifle. Osprey, 2012, ISBN 978-1849087889 . (82 pages online PDF)
• WHB Smith, Joseph Smith: The Book of Rifles. The National Rifle Association, Library of Congress Catalog No. 63-12562, 1963.
• Norm Flayderman: Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms. ISBN 3-87349-313-6 .
• Frank Sellers: Sharp's Firearms. Beinfeld Publishing Inc., North Hollywood 1978, ISBN 0-917714-12-1 .
• WHB Smith, co-author of Joseph E. Smith: Small Arms of the World. A Basic Manual of Military Small Arms, 1957.
• Lee-Enfield Gun Manual (description and handling of the models "No.1" to "No. 5") Archive.org

Web links

Commons : Lee-Enfield  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Rifle Detailed description of the basic model and further developments