A suggestion for the Lee Enfield.
- Thread starter Peg Leg Pom
- Start date
I don't think the British government would have to pay royalties to use 7mm Mauser. Mauser didn't invent Brass case ammo and as long as Enfield don't try to sell it as a Mauser product I can't see a problem.
If you could patent ammo then the descendants of Luger are owed a boatload of cash for the use of the 9mm round.
If you could patent ammo then the descendants of Luger are owed a boatload of cash for the use of the 9mm round.
Let us be clear. Changing to a rimless round is an enormous and costly investment. All rifles to date become scrap. All ammunition stocks to date become scrap once the army has all it's new rifles. New manufacturing parts are needed to make new ammunition. Separately for each contractor. You will be making thousands upon thousands of costly new guns before you even begin to increase the number of guns available because they are replacements. This knocks on to machine guns too. The RTC could go 8mm BESA because they already had a separate ammunition system to supply the main armament so they did not draw from normal supply chains. So now you need to replace all your expensive Vickers MMGs too. Then the troops and armourers need to redo their training to take advantage of the new round and guns. All of this just to gain a tiny advantage over a perfectly serviceable weapon.
OTL the army kept abreast of all the alternatives but did not propose spending this money until they had a new rifle design of superior accuracy to the existing one. As they were going to replace everything anyway it was the time to do the same with the ammunition and they had tested and trialled assorted possibilities. Including 8mm Mauser. Their considered choice was the .276. This was all the result of a great deal of research and trials (including 7mm Mauser) over many years identifying weaknesses in the Lee Enfield and what was best to address them. As it happened the Great War did not match expectations and the Pattern13 rifle and .276 rimless round were the right answer to the wrong question. Actual experience showed that the Lee Enfield was a better military rifle in being reliable and effective. Reliable being key. Troops liked the 10 round magazine (and the 20 round one too). The rims were of little consequence once troops were trained to load charger clips properly as a further 50 years of service demonstrated.
Now the PoD would need to be back when the Lee Metford was being designed and approved. One might investigate why they followed Swiss research (and had trial Swiss rifles and ammunition) in the concept but not the rimless option. It was exactly at the time when a rimless option was possible but not in general service anywhere whereas the rimmed case was a well known quantity with certain advantages of it's own. The rimmed choice was a safe and serviceable one and still a popular one across the armies of the day. remember this is replacing the single shot black powder Martini. The Lee Metford was intended to be used as a single shot rifle, but with a reserved magazine load to cope with sudden cavalry charges. They may have thought the rimmed round an easier single loading option.
Unless the commission set up to choose the first magazine rifle decides to go rimless in the 1880s there is no feasible reason to change to a rimless (8mm Mauser or other) until the OTL decision of 1913 which ran into the Great War barrier. I suspect that troops would more notice an advantage from the magazine possibly taking a couple more rounds than from the cases being rimless.
Equally if one were designing a new magazine rifle then rimless would be the way to go. The .276 being a bit more powerful than experience eventually showed was necessary even without looking for a modern intermediate round. Myself at the time I would have gone for one of the 6.5mm rimless types combined with sound musketry training to take advantage of the flatter trajectory and fit simple aperture battle sights. Longer range sights being superceded by machine gun and artillery fire. All in a shorter length barrel. This would be a better military rifle in actual use however much it might be a poorer target weapon. Keep the Lee rear lug bolt system though.
OTL the army kept abreast of all the alternatives but did not propose spending this money until they had a new rifle design of superior accuracy to the existing one. As they were going to replace everything anyway it was the time to do the same with the ammunition and they had tested and trialled assorted possibilities. Including 8mm Mauser. Their considered choice was the .276. This was all the result of a great deal of research and trials (including 7mm Mauser) over many years identifying weaknesses in the Lee Enfield and what was best to address them. As it happened the Great War did not match expectations and the Pattern13 rifle and .276 rimless round were the right answer to the wrong question. Actual experience showed that the Lee Enfield was a better military rifle in being reliable and effective. Reliable being key. Troops liked the 10 round magazine (and the 20 round one too). The rims were of little consequence once troops were trained to load charger clips properly as a further 50 years of service demonstrated.
Now the PoD would need to be back when the Lee Metford was being designed and approved. One might investigate why they followed Swiss research (and had trial Swiss rifles and ammunition) in the concept but not the rimless option. It was exactly at the time when a rimless option was possible but not in general service anywhere whereas the rimmed case was a well known quantity with certain advantages of it's own. The rimmed choice was a safe and serviceable one and still a popular one across the armies of the day. remember this is replacing the single shot black powder Martini. The Lee Metford was intended to be used as a single shot rifle, but with a reserved magazine load to cope with sudden cavalry charges. They may have thought the rimmed round an easier single loading option.
Unless the commission set up to choose the first magazine rifle decides to go rimless in the 1880s there is no feasible reason to change to a rimless (8mm Mauser or other) until the OTL decision of 1913 which ran into the Great War barrier. I suspect that troops would more notice an advantage from the magazine possibly taking a couple more rounds than from the cases being rimless.
Equally if one were designing a new magazine rifle then rimless would be the way to go. The .276 being a bit more powerful than experience eventually showed was necessary even without looking for a modern intermediate round. Myself at the time I would have gone for one of the 6.5mm rimless types combined with sound musketry training to take advantage of the flatter trajectory and fit simple aperture battle sights. Longer range sights being superceded by machine gun and artillery fire. All in a shorter length barrel. This would be a better military rifle in actual use however much it might be a poorer target weapon. Keep the Lee rear lug bolt system though.
''So now you need to replace all your expensive Vickers MMGs too. Then the troops and armourers need to redo their training to take advantage of the new round and guns. All of this just to gain a tiny advantage over a perfectly serviceable weapon.''
there is quite a good chance to change things over. the new vickers, replaced the older maxims in 190?? . so its not to much of a chore to bring in a new 303 rimles
there is quite a good chance to change things over. the new vickers, replaced the older maxims in 190?? . so its not to much of a chore to bring in a new 303 rimles
The Vickers could be swapped to rimless ammo quite easily. It needed a new barrel, bolt and extractor oh and new sights. Thats all Colt changed to build the Vickers in 30-06. Original Maxims were swapped very easily between calibres the Vickers is only slightly more expensive and labour intensive.
Well technology was changing; look at the path from the Tower Pattern/Short Land Pattern Musket to the Enfield Pattern 53 to the Martini-Henry (via the Schneider conversion) to the Lee Enfield (via the Lee Metford).
Not Invented Here or We Can Do Better (than those Damned Foreigners).
BTW does anyone know was there any parallel effort to the P13 rifle to re-chamber the Vickers-Maxim in .256?
Indeed. The US paid 50c per rifle (20c for the extractor mechanism, 25c for the internal magazine and 5c for the collar) plus 50c per thousand stripper clips. That's on top of a manufacturing cost of around $14.50 for each rifle
The .30-06 bullet was a less well known case of patent infringement (blame Crozier as usual), a case than rumbled on until 1928 when the US was forced to pay $412,520.55.
Old patents were for 10 years in anycase.
And as now, doing a minor change gets you off the hook.
See 9mm Largo, 9mm Bayard, 9mm Browning long, 9mm Glisenti and 9mm Steyr
All very close, and in some guns, interchangeable
Cryhavoc101
Donor
Indeed many privately owned Vickers in existence today have mod kits that allow them to fire 30-06, 8mm mauser, 7.62mm NATO and 7.62x54R Russian many of these built for foreign users etc - so given the ease of such conversions and the expense of the guns its a no brainer to keep the "Queen of machine guns" in service despite a ammo change.
The flintlock muskets were patterned after Dutch ones then the American Snider conversion, Swiss Martini, American Lee and latterly the Belgian FN SLR. The Enfield rifle muskets were based upon French bullet research and the Lee Metford upon Swiss research. The Vickers was from the American Maxim, the Lewis American, the BREN and BESA Czech. If anything Britain's small arms had the least NIH syndrome. Even with pistols Colt, Browning and Smith and Wesson .38 ammunition.
BTW I am not opposed to a rimless round and the 8mm Mauser was sound but I simply question if there were not far better things to AH change with the existing OTL budget. When the army did look at it seriously they went for the Mauser rifle (in effect) and their own over powered 7mm round. I would still go for a short Lee with the 6mm on Arisaka/Carcano case lines going into a 15 round magazine but I am not on a military commission in 1913.
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But would you not need to also replace all of the rifles to match?
Later in WW1, with the Machine Gun Corps concentrating Vickers MMGs, then they have their own ammunition supply system independent of the infantry but pre WW1 the Vickers were integral to the infantry like the cavalry Hotchkiss so only one type of ammunition need be supplied to infantry or cavalry regiments and that might be an opportunity to change were it deemed necessary. But they were flat out making .303 Vickers which could fire literally for days even with a cloth belt and rimmed .303.
I would spend the conversion costs on simply buying more Vickers.
If the rounds designed for the same chamber you shouldn't have to change the whole rifle, just the detachable bolt head and.extracter, and they were continually modifying the older Lees anyway. It was not uncommon to find a pre Boer War rifle that was almost indistinguishable from the 1907 vintage S.M.L.E so adding that modification to the list would hardly be an inconvenience. You wouldn't even need am armourer to do it, just issue Tommy Atkins the new bolthead and have him do it. Jobs done in a few seconds.
I agree with the previous two posts. I can't see much advantage to moving to either the .256 or .303 Rimless.
However such a decision being made, dragging on, and causing serious problems when a Great War analogue starts has potential. This was a small part of the background for the EDC.
However such a decision being made, dragging on, and causing serious problems when a Great War analogue starts has potential. This was a small part of the background for the EDC.
Anderman
Donor
Mh are you sure ? I remember reading that Paul Mauser or better the Mauser company wanted this royalties but the US government insists on a single large sum and that what was payed . IIRC 250 000 $.
I meant, in regard to adopting a rimless 303 it's easier to do that at the sam time you bring in your new machine gun. so no sperate ammunition for rifle and automatic weapons.
https://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/.303
.303
Also known as 7.7x56R
Standard cartridge of the British army from 1888 until it was gradually phased out from the 1950s, although it was still in use in the No.4 Mk.I T until the late 1960s or possibly early 70s (someone who was there might like to correct that), and with Cadet forces until the 1980s.
The big mystery about .303" is that is is rimmed. Rimless .303" ammunition had been submitted, but was objected to on two wholly spurious grounds: the danger of misfires, and the feed of machine guns. These spurious grounds completely overrode the genuine grounds against rimmed ammunition which were voiced at the time, namely the extra size required for the magazine, and the danger of rim-jams (i.e. one rim catching another. [see Skennerton, p. 44]. Such are twists and turns that lead to the great British Military Procurement Mysteries.
.303" started as a black powder cartridge, but was filled with cordite from about 1891 onwards.
In 1910 it lost its 215gn round-nose bullet and gained a 174gn spitzer (pointy), although it was still flat-based. This had significantly better ballistics. This was called the .303" Mark VII. To increase the range of the Vickers gun, in 1938 the 175gn boat-tailed Mk VIIIz (z means that it was loaded with nitrocellulose and not cordite - Mk VIIz was also later produced) was introduced, but could not be used in rifles due to the higher chamber pressures in anything other than emergencies.
The rim on the cartridge was a total PITA as soon as the Bren gun was introduced - the magazine was large and heavily curved to accomodate the rims. Also, in the SMLE, P14, No.4 and No.5, the rims can cause difficulties when charger loading. The rims were bevelled to reduce the risk of rim misfeeds, but it didn't work 100% satisfactorally.
.303" was superceded by 7.62mm NATO from the 1950s onwards.
Interestingly, although the .303 Mk. VII was not the most powerful rifle cartridge of the two world wars (that honour goes to the rather spicy 7.92 mm sS Patrone of German World War II fame), it undoubtedly had the best terminal ballistics due to the lightweight aluminium or fibre tip filler which pushed the centre of gravity nicely towards the rear of the bullet. This improved centre of gravity, combined with the composite core, led to some impressive tumbling and fragmentation when it was doing what it was supposed to be doing. The Box o' Truth Does .303"
.303
Also known as 7.7x56R
Standard cartridge of the British army from 1888 until it was gradually phased out from the 1950s, although it was still in use in the No.4 Mk.I T until the late 1960s or possibly early 70s (someone who was there might like to correct that), and with Cadet forces until the 1980s.
The big mystery about .303" is that is is rimmed. Rimless .303" ammunition had been submitted, but was objected to on two wholly spurious grounds: the danger of misfires, and the feed of machine guns. These spurious grounds completely overrode the genuine grounds against rimmed ammunition which were voiced at the time, namely the extra size required for the magazine, and the danger of rim-jams (i.e. one rim catching another. [see Skennerton, p. 44]. Such are twists and turns that lead to the great British Military Procurement Mysteries.
.303" started as a black powder cartridge, but was filled with cordite from about 1891 onwards.
In 1910 it lost its 215gn round-nose bullet and gained a 174gn spitzer (pointy), although it was still flat-based. This had significantly better ballistics. This was called the .303" Mark VII. To increase the range of the Vickers gun, in 1938 the 175gn boat-tailed Mk VIIIz (z means that it was loaded with nitrocellulose and not cordite - Mk VIIz was also later produced) was introduced, but could not be used in rifles due to the higher chamber pressures in anything other than emergencies.
The rim on the cartridge was a total PITA as soon as the Bren gun was introduced - the magazine was large and heavily curved to accomodate the rims. Also, in the SMLE, P14, No.4 and No.5, the rims can cause difficulties when charger loading. The rims were bevelled to reduce the risk of rim misfeeds, but it didn't work 100% satisfactorally.
.303" was superceded by 7.62mm NATO from the 1950s onwards.
Interestingly, although the .303 Mk. VII was not the most powerful rifle cartridge of the two world wars (that honour goes to the rather spicy 7.92 mm sS Patrone of German World War II fame), it undoubtedly had the best terminal ballistics due to the lightweight aluminium or fibre tip filler which pushed the centre of gravity nicely towards the rear of the bullet. This improved centre of gravity, combined with the composite core, led to some impressive tumbling and fragmentation when it was doing what it was supposed to be doing. The Box o' Truth Does .303"
Just in case someone misunderstands. The .303 was designed to use smokeless nitro propellant. However the propellant was not ready until well after the rifle was introduced so they used a cored solid black powder pellet in the meantime. It was never intended to be a black powder round but simply had to be for a while. So it started as a smokeless cartridge but had a temporary and undesired interlude as a black powder cartridge.
BTW the Metford rifling was designed to deal with black powder fouling long before the Lee Metford came in. It is alleged that it could not cope with smokeless powders hence the change to the Lee Enfield. It was actually the fierce erosion of the hot first version of Cordite that was the problem and Enfield rifling simply had more metal so the erosion was less of an issue. Then the formulation of Cordite was changed and the erosive problem reduced but they stuck with the Enfield rifling. Were they still paying Metford royalty on his rifling? The Japanese had no problem using Metford rifling in their Arisaka rifles.
Eh?
rearward CoG are less stable, that is what allows tumbling on impact. Also means are more effected by wind drift