I am starting this thread to initiate an "investigation" into the history of the Lee Enfield Bolt Action military rifles. My desire is to do what THL does best, provide unemotional facts about a given firearms related matter, and debunk any and all myths surrounding that subject. If everyone sets their egos and nationalism aside and focuses on finding the Truth, we will have provided a reference that ALL can use.

Let's keep this a "research project". By that I mean that we don't speculate about some specific point. Repeating what experts - real OR self-proclaimed - have written is expected to be supported by citations, OR such repeats MUST be qualified by pointing out that "this is what I read from "Joe Blow"", or "this is a commonly held belief but I have no personal knowledge about it's veracity". Of course anyone can repeat without citation any FIRST HAND knowledge they have obtained through personal, HANDS ON, research. (This doesn't mean "I know this is true because I read it in "Joe Blow's" book and now I "know" it too.") If you didn't determine something with your own hands and eyes on a rifle, then cite where you got the information. I will ask those that post without citations or qualifiers to edit their own posts to add the citations or qualifiers, or they will be deleted.

Let's make a VERY serious effort to STAY ON TOPIC. This thread is about the HISTORY of Lee Enfield battle-field rifles. It is NOT about "how good they are". It is not about whether they are "better" or "worse" than some other firearm. It is not about the "goodness" or "badness" of any cartridge in which they were chambered.

Finally, let me remind everyone that we are all FRIENDS here. The Golden Rule RULES.

What I don't know about Lee Enfield bolt action battle-field rifles fills volumes, so I can't add much to this discussion but 'moderation'. So, those of you that have some cultural attachment - Aussies, Kiwies, and Limies - should probably start us off. Seems starting at the "beginning" would be a good place. When was the FIRST LE BOLT ACTION rifle entered into official use?

Paul

PS - I would like everyone that posts in this thread to copy and paste the following into the first line of EVERY post.

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

Paul

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

For starters, Ian Skennerton's final edition masterpiece, The Lee-Enfield a Century of Lee Medford & Lee-Enfield Rifles and Carbines is a 600 page book jammed with the history and development of this amazing rifle. There are hundreds of photos, proof marks, cartouches and ownership/issue marks that put this classic in a league of it's own. Included are .22 conversions, trials rifles, cartridge development, grenade launchers and sniping rifles. "The Lee-Enfield Rifle has plausibly earned a place in military history as the principal implement in British and Empire weaponry."

So, first up are the designers- Lee, Metford & Enfield RSAF. All historical verification taken from Skennerton, my opinion so noted as (RHS opinion).....stay tuned.

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

Great, Rick.

To be as objective as possible, does anyone know of a credible source that 'takes issue' with any of Skennerton's publications, and spefically this one, The Lee-Enfield a Centruy of Lee Metford and Lee-Enfield Rifles and Carbines? Labrador, Qld. : Ian D. Skennerton, 2007, 608 p.  ISBN 9780949749826[/COLOR]

That is not to suggest that there IS any credible source that might challenge some of Skennerton's reporting, but rather just to make sure that all credible sides are given consideration.

Does anyone know if the Lithgow Small Arms Factory museum "endorses" Skinnerton's above work?

Paul

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

Skennerton Ch2. Pg 15.  William Ellis Metford was born on the 4th of Oct 1824. he was elected as an Associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers in March 1857.During the period from 1852 to 1857, Metford accomplished a number of successful rifle experiments. He then married and took a post in India at the height of the Mutiny. It was here that his detailed knowledge of bullet making and pyrotechnics was put to the test. Poor health forced his return to London in 1858. Metfords rifling was his greatest claim to fame and adapted to the new 30 caliber small bore in 1899, the year he died.

James Paris Lee was born in Scotland on the 9th of August 1831. His family migrated to Canada in 1835 or 36. James made his first firearm at the age of 12 which ended up burning him. He also shot himself in the heel while hunting and was considered accident prone. In 1858, his family moved to Jamesville, Wisconsin where he applied for US citizenship. In 1860 his family moved to Stevens Point where he developed his obsession for repeating arms. He went to work for the Sharps Rifle Company and then Remington where he developed his famous bolt action with rear locking lugs and detachable magazine for which he was granted patents. His first production rifle, the Model 1879 was adapted by China, The US Navy, Spain and Argentina. The Model 1879 also the basis for the English trials rifles. He took out patents in England, Russia and Belgium on the improved Lee which was manufactured in 7x57, 7.62 Mauser, 30-40 Kraig and the 6MM Navy, all of which were for military contracts. Quite a few of the Lee magazine rifles were also produced for the sporting market. By the end of 1887, after a series of successful trials in England, the Lee Magazine Rifle was decieded upon as Britian's new magazine rifle. Lee died on the 24th of February 1904 at Short Beach, Conn....his estate valued at $51,641. Improvements and preparations for manufacture at Enfield Lock involved two other Notables in the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield story, two Englishmen, Joseph Speed and John Rigby.......stay tuned!!!!!

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

Can't wait to read some more.

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

  Metford was a railway engineer by profession but an avid Target shooter and hand loader. The Metford rifling was deisgned to deal with Black Powder fouling in bores for paper Patched bullets. His health was damaged durign a seige in the Indian Mutiny. There are letetrs published on the web gorm Metford during this period I believe. The so-called ENfield rifling was also a Metford design which he gifted to the Government to improve their rifles. It's known as "Enfield" as it was tested and then adopted by the Government plant at Enfield Lock.

    BSA was a major producer of the Lee series of British Battle rifles Sparkbrook was one of their plants. BSA had been making rifles for teh british Government and in fact was established just to supply the British Goverment with arms. The made Sniders, Martinis and then the Lee series.

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

Thanks for adding the prefix, guys. I even forgot to do it!:o:stop: I took care of that.

Because I know Rick can handle it, I'll call him out 'publicly' on not providing the citation for his comments on Metford and Lee.

Rick, you have to have either known those two guys personally and are reporting your personal information, or we need a citation from whence you got that information.

It is important to me that this thread be "squeaky clean" with respect to what we assert in it. I would like this thread to have long-term and long-ranging significance. People will come to the net to get information before they will buy an expensive book. If we are disciplined, this thread COULD
become a referenced location that extends beyond THL's 'borders'.
Paul

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

I am a history mutt... but this might be of use.

http://www.skennerton.com/rifles.html

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."
I thought I did that....Unless otherwise noted, all historical data is from the final volume of Skennerton. And now on to Joe Speed.

Skennerton Ch2 pg. 21. Joseph Speed came to the Enfield factory as an engineer at age 25 and worked his way up to Assistant manager and manager from 1891 to 1909. Speed was criticized by the London Times for taking out patents on important improvements he made to the Enfield development. He redesigned the magazine and magazine cut-off, bolt, long range dial sight, dustcover, handguard and safety catch. The War Department never granted Speed any compensation for his improvements unlike Metford and other inventors who assisted the Ordnance and War Office. As a talented factory manager and engineer, Speed's input to the development service Lee was considerable.

John Rigby MA. Rigby was the Superintendent at the RSAF from 1887 until 1895. His term of management at the factory saw the transition through manufacturing and troop trials for the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield. He took out patents on his combination nosecap/sword bayonet bar design which fixed the 1888 bayonet.

Colonel H Watkins held the post of RSAF Superintendent from 1899 to 1905 during a critical period of Lee-Enfield and Short Lee-Enfield development. He took out patents on the double trigger pull, magazine charger guide and special nosecap of the MK1 SMLE rifle.

Dr Aston was another Superintendent who was also involved in the development of the leaf rear sight on the early Short Lee-Enfield rifle, although it must be pointed out that Joseph Speed remained the factory manager during his tenure.

Of course there were hundreds of superintendents assistants, managers and inspectors that were involved in the production of this rifle all of whom are listed in Skennerton.

Next up, The Magazine Rifle Trials....stay tuned.

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

Skennerton Ch3 pg27. Original rifle trials included the following candidates:

1. Kropatshek
2. Hotchkiss
3. Winchester, M1876
4. Lee Rifle
5. Lee Carbine
6. Gardner Rifle
7. Green Rifle
8. Vetterli Rifle

PFC Gregery of the 1/23d Royal Welsch Fusiliers was injured on May 19th, 1880 when a cartridge exploded in the tube magazine of a Winchester. The committee decided to eliminate all of those rifles in which the cartridges were positioned in the magazine with the cartridge touching the bases or caps of the cartridge in front. The rule eliminate the Kropatshek, Hotchkiss and Winchester. In 1882, the committee asked that one or two of the best magazine rifles be submitted for consideration with other new rifles being submitted bu America and New European arms. These included the following:

1. Mannlicher
2. Improved Lee
3. Chafee-Reece
4. Jarmann
5. Schulhoff (3)
6. Spencer-Lee
7. Gardner
8. Lee- Burton
9. Remington-Lee

Other stragglers emerged including the Owen-Jones(RHS opinion), however, by Arpil 1887 the Lee-Burton, the Remington-Lee and the Lee Bolt action were the last three finalists. By October 1887, the Lee Bolt action in .303 had been decided upon with Metford's bore grooving and entry.

Coming up...The winner, Magazine Lee-Metford whose name was changed to "Magazine Rifle Mark I".......stay tuned.

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

Let me clarify my goal here a bit more. Every quote needs "backup" (citation). Either personal, first-hand knowledge of the firearm or incident, or a specific reference from which someone can find the exact quote from a published reference, or a specific quote heard first-hand from a person cited as "(personal communication with Townsend Whelen)". Saying "all of my posts will come from Skennerton (or whatever reference) is not a citation. We need a citation that follows this format: http://ica.library.oregonstate.edu/tutorials/lesson/481--Library-Tutorial-Citations-101?mid=20701&type=MiscellaneousResource&uid=1011

I'm not making this specific format style "law", (it is a GOOD place to start though), but what is necessary is the ability of a reader to go to the exact page in the referenced citation and find the exact words written. Without that ability, what is posted is simply "hearsay". I appreciate the burden this creates for the person posting, but without this we are all right back to perpetuating myths. In a more 'casual' thread, that's fine as a reader can query the poster if they care to. But this is not a "casual" thread. We are trying to create a reference. If Skinnerton were the only source of information, there would be no need for this thread, and if that's what people want, the so be it. If that is the case, then NO "arguing" about Lee Enfield rifles will be tolerated at THL, and when those arguments arise, the threads will be deleted.

The point here is to provide a No-BS source of information about Lee Enfield Battlefield rifles. There is no "if I remember correctly, Skennerton says", there is no "I read something in ***X". Citations where the exact quote can be found by anyone at any time is the ONLY thing that works. Otherwise this whole thread can be reduced to "Read Skennerton". Furthermore, without citation, the poster takes on the authority of the "expert" on the subject. This is 1) inappropriate, and 2) leads to conflicts of egos when the posted "facts" are challenged.

Cite EVERYTHING.

Paul

PS - Skennerton wrote more than one book. Saying "this all came from SKennerton" is insufficient to the purpose at hand.

Paul

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."

Turkish CLLE and SMLE conversions.

From Ian Skennerton "The Lee Enfield" pages 376-377 and 548
Ian writes about the Turkish Enfield conversion, the Turkish Model 38, where the in the 1930's the Turk set about converting CLLE and SMLE captured during The Great War to 8mm Mauser. Among other modifications done to the rifle, Ian says "The right side of the action body has been strengthen although the original bolt and safety catch mechanism remain."

How successful these conversions were, how widely spread they were I have no idea.
I don't even know if the "strengthening" was really necessary. I could only speculate that it was.

One other thing to recognise with conversions of SMLE, the Indians produced new receivers modelled on the SMLE but with higher strength steel, because they believed (thought, guessed, tested thoroughly?) the standard SMLE and it's material wasn't strong enough. Why would they go to all that trouble if the original design and material were strong enough?

Read the original post in this thread before posting.

Excellent post, 22hornet. THANKS!

Paul

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."
 
 Attached is from Ian Skennerton "The Lee Enfield" page 548
 
 [ATTACH]13759[/ATTACH]

"Read the original post in this thread before posting."


Sorry but I sort of expected interested parties to do a little research them selves. Anyway I will try to find the Metford letters although it's possible that I may have read them in the HBSA magazine I suppose and not online but a little bit of information of the rifling is found here:-

http://www.wistow.com/history.asp

Halsford was one of Metfords co developers it seems.

Here is history from th church where Metford is burried:-

http://www.redland.org.uk/cgi-bin/page.cgi?20:20:34

Where it mentiones his railway work. I was not aware that he was apprenticed th IKB though. Abit more history behind metford and his rifling work:-

http://www.ask.com/wiki/William_Ellis_Metford?o=2802&qsrc=999&ad=doubleDown&an=apn&ap=ask.com

   Another source of information should be the Pattern Room which I believe is now at the Royal Armouries at Leeds. The NRA museum at Bisley should also be able to help as many tests on the 303 and it's ammunition were their domain. Although my membership has lapsed I will ask Chris Smith of the HBSA Committee for suggestions on sources for the information.


Ahhh some extracts from his letters are founf here:-

http://www.researchpress.co.uk/index.php/longrange/loading/134-metfordalloys

  So I was not dreaming after all!