| |
|
The rifle was mostly designed at the Royal Enfield Small Arms Factory, derived from the physically similar black powder Lee-Metford, which introduced Lee's rear-locking bolt system that was a major improvement on existing bolt-action designs. Experiments with smokeless powder in the existing Lee-Metford cartridge seemed at first to be a simple upgrade, but the greater heat and pressures generated by the new cartridges proved to wear out the shallow, rounded, Metford rifling. Replacing this with a new square-shaped rifling system designed at Enfield solved the problem, and the Lee-Enfield was born. The government demanded that the new design use the existing rimmed cartridge design from the Lee-Metford to use up existing stocks, a decision that would haunt the design for years.
The rifle was introduced in 1895 as the Lee-Enfield Magazine Rifle Mark I, or more commonly simply 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 21.2 inch barrel as opposed to the 30.2 inch one in the "long" version. Both underwent a minor upgrade series in 1899, becoming the Mk.I*'s.
In 1902 a new, smaller, version of the original was introduced that could be used in carbine role as well, the famous Short Magazine Lee-Enfield, or SMLE. The barrel length was now half-way between the original and the carbine, at 25.2 inches.
During the Boer War the British .303, mostly Lee-Metford's, were met by accurate long-range fire from the famous Mauser rifles. In 1910 they desided to introduce a new "magnum" round of their own, a new .276 calibre round pattered off the Ross rifle, fired in the new Pattern 13 Enfield. However the service trials took longer than expected, and when the war started in 1914 some sort of stop-gap solution was needed. Thus the SMLE remained the standard British rifle during World War I and into World War II. In 1926 the British Army changed their nomenclature and the SMLE became the Rifle No.1 Mk.III, with the original MLE and LEC becoming the Mk.I and Mk.II.
The design was fairly difficult to manufacture because of the many forging and machining operations required. In the 1920s several experiments were carried out to help with these problems. The No.1 Mk.V used a new receriver-mounted sighting system, and the No.1 Mk.VI also introduced a "floating barrel" which was not connected strongly to the stock, and therefore could expand and contract with heating without being bent.
In 1939 the need for new rifles grew, and the Rifle, No.4, Mk.I was adopted, but widespread production didn't start until 1941. The No.4 was similar to the Mk.VI, but added a new adjustment system for setting the "headspace", the spacing between the front of the bolt and rear of the receiver. The new floating barrel proved to improve accuracy, and the No.4 became the most common sniper rifle in the British forces, fitted with a 3x scope. Known as the No.4 Mk.1(T), many were re-barreled after the war to the new 7.62 NATO round and continued in service for years until the late 1980's.
Later in the war the need for a lighter rifle for use in the jungles of the far east led to the development of the Rifle, No.5, Mk.I "Jungle Carbine". The design was somewhat shorter and 2lbs lighter, but this proved to be too much for the heavy .303 round, and the Carbine had problems maintaining constant "zero".
In total over 14 million Lee-Enfields were produced when production finally shut down in 1956 at R.O.F. Fazakerly. (This includes production at India's Rifle Factory Ishapore, which continued till the early 1970's). The original Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield site has now been built over with a housing estate; however some of the original buildings have been converted and evidence of the works are still visible. Within the local area there is also the Waltham Abbey gunpowder mills.