The Small Arms Committee of the British Government and military was set up in 1900 to oversee advancement in weaponry. Although the design of the 'new' Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Rifle was completed by 1903, and in the process of issue to replace the obsolescent Charger-Loading Magazine 'Long' Lee-Enfield, the Committee was already considering both the choice of design for a new cadet or training rifle in 'miniature calibre' (see the War Office 1906 Pattern Miniature Rifle) and as early as 1910, they were tasked to consider yet another service rifle, with a specific set of configurational differences from the SMLE.

The requirements were for a smaller calibre with higher muzzle velocity and accompanying flatter trajectory. The rifle's locking action was to be forward lugged in the Mauser style, to improve accuracy. The main stock's woodwork was to be one-piece, with just a separate upper hand-guard, and the barrel was to be of greater weight. The final proposal was to include an aperture sight, such as would otherwise not be trialled until ten years later on the conversions of the SMLE to the Rifle No.1 Mk.V.

A number of prototype single-shot rifles, without magazine, were built at the Royal Small Arms Factory. Two of these are held at the Leeds Royal Armouries, now custodians of the original Enfield Pattern Room, to which sealed approved pattern examples of most small arms were submitted as control items to regulate ongoing production at whichever factory was to be engaged for their manufacture.

October 1913

THE EXPERIMENTAL RIFLE.
THE NEW SIGHTING.
[COMMUNICATED.]

The experimental rifles have been withdrawn on completion of the annual musketry course, and same improvements suggested are to be carried out. There is a flash on discharge, and the ammunition will receive attention.
While, as regards action and calibre, the experimental new rifle has no feature of novelty, its aiming media indicate a revolutionary advance in military views concerning sights. Doubtless this has been inspired by the demonstration of the enormous superiority of the aperture by Service riflemen at Bisley.
The new weapon will carry about 485 yards with type, which only requires to be white instead of black to fulfil all the requirements of a good field sight. The backsight, mounted over the bolt, is a combination of a fixed elevation aperture battle eight, when folded down, with a tangent elevating backsight, when raised. It does not admit of lateral adjustment, nor of exact adjustment of elevation, while somewhat exaggerated protecting wings tend to slow any sort of adjustment. Military opinion appears to have arrived at the conviction that accurate aiming and shooting in the field is practicable only at such short distances as can be embraced by a fixed elevation or battle sight.
The new weapon will carry about 485 yards with a trajectory which does not exceed 18 inches high at its vertex, about 640 yards with a 36 inch trajectory, and about 820 yards with a 68 inch trajectory, such heights being respectively approximately those of prone, kneeling and standing men.
While an 18 inch trajectory would hit objects of any height exceeding 18 inches sip to about 485 yards, and a 36 inch trajectory objects of any height exceeding 36 inches to about 640 yards, provided aim is always taken at the ground line, it is obvious that both 36 and 68 inch trajectories would carry the ballet over the heads of prone anon for the greater part a their flight. Hence, if the present system of a single fixed elevation battle sight and ground line aim is adhered to, our new rifle, the latest development in flat trajectory weapons, can only have a fixed sight range for prone, kneeling and erect men' of about 485 yards. The alternative on trial at present is to give the battle sight an elevation. whereby a 30 inch trajectory results. Objects exceeding 30 inches thigh are vulnerable to about 600 yards, but to 'hit lower objects reliance is placed upon errors of aim.
Though, in view of the present state of knowledge and powder development, trajectory cannot be further materially flattened, and therefore the battle sight range cannot be sensibly extended by any ballistic enhancement. this result can easily be attained by development of the battle sight, without sacrificing tare essential principles of simplicity and fixed elevation, provided the Ommundsen or negative angle system is adopted. With a combination of negative aim for prone figures and ground line aim for all others a battle sight giving a 86 inch trajectory can be used. and prone figures will be vulnerable to 560 yards. and kneeling and erect figures to about 640 yards. thereby giving oar new weapon the longest battle sight range of any small arm in existence. Surely such an advantage is worth consideration, seeing that the extension of the fixed sight range, is the only point of superiority over the present .303 it is possible for the new rifle to achieve.
With all battle objects vulnerable to 640 yards by means of the battle sight, the tangent elevating sight. which 'will deal with longer distances, claims consideration. Incidentally, while the tangent sight will be of minor importance in the battles of the future, and so far as field shooting is concerned it is immaterial whether it admits of lateral or fine adjustment, it is the only eight applicable to target shooting, and is, therefore, of the first importance from that standpoint. Target shooting is a sport, not it is true having much similarity with field shooting, but a sport nevertheless, and the only sport which induces the practice and study of marksmanship. And good marksmanship in turn, is a condition precedent to good /results, either in the field or elsewhere. For this reason to entirely ignore the claims of target shooting in the design of the new sight would be a deplorable step. While its entire suitability to the circumstances of war need not in the smallest degree be sacrificed to refinements essential to target shooting, its utility for target Shooting can be wholly negatived by the omission of lateral and fine adjustment for wind and elevation. To anticipate objections to these views it may be confidently asserted that the existence of mechanical means whereby exact elevation adjustment is made possible does not necessarily imply that elevation will be so exactly adjusted in the field that errors in estimating distances will not be discounted at least as much as heretofore -or that .the function of adjustment need necessarily be slowed. At the longer distances in the field considerations of hurry and excitement apply with much less force, moreover, direction and lateral accuracy are of so little moment that the effect of shooting 'with the wind gauge out of centre -would be as likely to be beneficial as otherwise.
Though it may bo desirable to enforce the practice of aiming off When necessary by resorting to an unadjustable sight, it is recognised that in the field the practicable limits of aiming off are very small, whereas in fixed distance target shooting circumstances frequently necessitate allowances exceeding the width of several targets.
This would be rendered so uncertain without the aid of a correcting medium in the shape of a laterally adjustable backsight as to destroy all the pleasure and in many cases, even the possibility, of target shooting. The windgauge and fine adjustment question has been exhaustively thrashed out in the past, and the present British service sights have mechanism for both. No
evidence is forthcoming that shooting with refined sights in the field es elsewhere is inferior to that with the crude sights which characterise Continental firearms. On the other hand English shooting at targets is infinitely superior to Continental shooting, and no grounds exist for supposing it is or will be inferior .on the battle field. Great Britain has more practical experience of war than any Continental nation. Let England lead. To follow the example of nations who are not our equals in shooting of any sort, by reverting to their crude aiming devices on the last word in military small-arms is a retrograde step for which there can be no justification.

THE RIFLE DESCRIBED.

The military correspondent of the " Pioneer " gives the following description of the new rifle, which is now in the hands of those specially selected to try it. A series of satisfactory tests 'have been carried out by the Munster and Suffolk battalions, the 5th Dragoon Guards and other units. The barrel is a couple of inches longer than the present pattern, and is therefore a better proportioned rifle than the short small arm. These two inches have, of course, a greater use than that of mere ornamentation, although of course the short rifle calls for no affection on the score of beauty. The greater length of barrel allows the proper consumption of the gases, so that in the new pattern there is a reduction in the " kick," and a little less violence in the muzzle discharge. In fact, the escape of the bullet from the barrel is a smooth process in comparison, and this will restore any slight inaccuracy which was lost when the old barrel was reduced. Of course, no one wishes to have a target. shooting, small arm on service. but at the same time accuracy need not be thrown away. One is reminded of the stopping of 4,000 Zulus by the good use of a rifle in the hands of Sir Evelyn Wood. The rushes of the impi were only kept down by shooting the leaders, but one warner who seemed to bear a charmed life was coming on with a fine rush, the bullets falling clear of him. Wood, knowing the defects of the rifle, took one, made allowances, and killed the leader, his successor, and a third leader, and the attack died away. And one also remembers the nervous tension experienced when well-aimed single shots are telling every time. Our own men in South Africa used to fidget when the officers went down with accurate Mauser bullets. However, the new rifle is an accurate one of .276 bore and is a couple of ounces lighter than the present small arm. The barrel comes clear of the woodwork in the last few inches towards the muzzle, and in appearance the rifle looks like the Mauser but without the extra ounces associated with the Boer sir all arms. The foresight is of the barleycorn order, with protecting horn flanges, and the backsight is placed behind the bolt and close to the eye oil the firer, so as to get a long sight radius. The aperture in the bar, of course, simplifies aiming, but the open sight can also be used. The " peep," however, makes the sighting semi-automatic, and the steady ,holding of the foresight upon the object is all that the soldier will have to learn. The loading is by clips of five cartridges. The ammunition, of course, is of the high explosive variety, and the bullet is about 176 grains. The shape is of the decidedly pointed kind with sloping shoulders---a bullet that no doubt will often turn over in flight and give a " keyihole " wound. The trajectory is very low, little above the height of a man at any point, and the velocity is little short of 3,000 feet. I expect to see the normal cartridge range at about 2,850 o" 2,900. Firing at 500 yards, the bullet goes easily through an iron plate three-eighths of an inch thick, and as for grouping I can safely say that the rifle is a revelation. I like the balance of it, and one looks forward to seeing it in Buse at Bisley in the match rifle competitions. Private Cook, the U.S.A. champion, and others, did well at Bisley in these events with the service Brag Jorgensen as issued, and our new rifle can, I think, hold its own also.

November 1913

THE EXPERIMENTAL RIFLE.
FURTHER TESTS TO BE MADE.

The well-informed Army correspondent, of The Pioneer, continues in that journal his discussions of the new rifle. He says:—

THE NEW RIFLE TESTS.

With regard to what I mentioned last week about the new rifle. the authorities have decided that further experiments are necessary, but whether with this rifle or with an entirely new weapon of automatic design has not been definitely ascertained. Certain it is this decision had caused the most wide-spread surprise, for the -reports made on the new rifle at the end of the experimental course at Aldershot, where two 'companies of infantry and a squadron of cavalry were armed with the rifle and put through a 'month's course on the range, were eminently satisfactory. The tests applied to the weapon were of a very severe nature, inasmuch as no one was allowed to clean the weapon once the course was started, the barrel standing the test of firing several hundreds of rounds in all sorts of weather fihrorugthout the period in a manner that proved it to be of a remarkably durable metal. the fouling and neglect having no appreciable effect on its accuracy. The sights were proved to be a vast improvement on those already in use, the aperture back-sight being placed so close to the eye as to act almost as an orthoptic, focussing the vision on the target so clearly and with such certainty as to increase the rapidity and accuracy of aimed fire by fully twenty-five per cent. That the severity of the tests imposed should have revealed defects was only to be expected, but so far as the ordinary serving soldier is concerned the defects revealed were of the most trivial nature when compared with the improvements. But it is abated that the higher explosive charges of cordite necessary to ensure point blank range up to 600 yards resulted in not only highly vivid flashes on discharge, but also to loss of penetrating power when rapid fire is used. This has been brought about by the great heat generated in the chamber affecting the explosive in the cartridge when firing. This defect 'would be accentuated by the adoption of an automatic rifle, with an increased rate of fire, so the problem that is agitating the minds of the authorities deals with the use of a new explosive for the rifle, as -well as the adoption of a new pattern of automatic rifle with which the Hythe staff' as been experimenting this year.