The #4 Mk1 Lee Enfield

A while back I posted on the #1 Mk3, this is the younger brother to it.

In the 1930's the British decided to upgrade the Enfield design. They wound up with a rifle that looks quite similar, and works exactly the same(proving that some people really do understand the idea that if something works, you leave it alone). There were enough changes that not many parts are interchangeable, but it kept the heart of the system: that fast, smooth bolt-action. To look at it, the big difference is the sights. The front is very similar to the #1, but the rear is completely different; instead of a notch mounted on the barrel, they moved it to the rear of the receiver and made it a large-ring aperture:

My understanding is that the front sight(available in a number of different heights) was changed to give a 300-yard zero, which with the trajectory of the Mk VII ball ammo, meant you could hold center of mass on the average human body from up close to about 400 yards and get a body hit.

If you needed finer accuracy, or to pot at an enemy target further away? The sight flips up to provide a smaller aperture ladder.

This is one of the earlier models, screw-adjustable from 200 yards to way-to-hell-out-there(less technically known as 1300 yards). Shooting at an individual target at that range was mostly hope even for a fine rifleman, but if you had a squad firing aimed volleys... I believe this was a holdover from the WWI days, when sights were graduated out to over 2000 yards for aimed volley fire; that was before a lot of people believed/understood that machine guns would take over that job. A later version was graduated just about the same, but instead of a screw adjustment it used a spring-loaded clamp on one side; squeeze it down and slide the aperture up or down. Later yet, they went to a simple L-shaped sight with two apertures, one for 300 and the other for 600 yards.

Several people have expressed the opinion that this was the best bolt-action rifle of WWII, and the #1 Mk3 and it the best bolt military rifles ever. The Springfield '03 and '03-A3 and the Mausers(damn near identical in many ways) had a more rigid, arguably stronger action, but the Enfields were quite strong enough to handle their cartridge well. And had a ten-round magazine instead of five, and in a rush could be worked and fired faster. I'm staying out of that argument, but I do say the Enfields had their advantages.

The military ammunition of WWII is a fine round. A .312" diameter bullet weighing 174 grains, travelling about 2700 feet per second. With an interesting feature: the Brits decided it needed to be more lethal, so they came up with the idea of forming the jacket, then placing an aluminum insert in the nose with the lead core filling behind that. The bullet was stable and accurate in flight, and had good penetration on hard targets. On soft targets(enemy troops), because of the center of gravity being moved back by the insert, after impact the bullet began to yaw and tumble, becoming a high-velocity roto-rooter going through the target. The Mark VII ball stayed their standard round, so far as I know, until they got rid of the .303 cartridge altogether.

Speaking of accuracy. A friend of mine got hold of a #4 Mk1(T) a few years ago; this is the WWII British sniper rifle. Rifles that showed superior accuracy were boxed up and delivered to gunmakers Holland and Holland. They touched up the trigger, bedded action and barrel into the stock, fixed scope bases and mount and generally worked their magic on them. The mount and scope were numbered to match the rifle, and all was placed in a travelling chest(when moving long distances by truck, ship or rail the rifle was packed in the chest to keep all together and protected). His rifle had the scope base pads, but the cheekpiece and mount were missing. He found a cheekpiece, and happily, there's a company making replica mounts, and he stuck a Bushnell 4x scope on it while looking for an original scope. With 1960's production Pakistani ammo, this rifle will shoot groups a fraction over 1" at 100 yards; God knows what it could do with match ammo.

Overall, it's a great rifle. It's capable of fine accuracy, it can take treatment that would break a lot of firearms and keep working, and it can lay down a lot of shots, accurately, in a short time. Fast to reload with 5-round chargers, and a spring-loaded trapdoor in the butt to hold a pull-through and oiler. It's different from touching up a Mauser-style trigger, but the trigger can be made lighter for target work. This one just arrived to a friend, and we'd tried it out to make sure it worked before he decided to keep it. Yes, they're good, but there are a lot of junkers out there so you have to make sure you didn't get one. This appears to be one of the good ones.

Note: this now includes the stuff I was too tired to add in last night. So if it looks different from earlier, that's why.