Estonian P.14 Sniper Rifle
It somewhat is "known" that Estonia had Enfield P.14 rifles in usage as sniper rifles. So far though no one could tell me which scopes they used and how these rifles actually looked like.
A friend of mine recently came up with information on something else, but looking into this together I found something more that I thought is at least a lead to these Estonian P.14 sniper rifles.
To start with, a quotation from an article from the Estonian War Museum, to give numbers on what they actually had as weapons:
Quote:
Estonia gained sovereignty as a result of the War of Independence (1918–1920), fighting mostly against the Red Army. It that war, the Estonian armed forces received 64,140 Russian rifles (manufactured in the USA) from Great Britain and 10,033 Japanese rifles from Finland. A great deal of rifles was also taken as loot from the Russian North-West Army after its liquidation in the winter of 1919/1920. It can thus be stated that the most important rifle type in the War of Independence was the Russian and to a lesser extent the Japanese rifle.
After the war had ended, there were about 170,000 various rifles of different make and condition on Estonian territory. More than 100,000 of them were of the Russian M1891 type, 30,000 of the British Pattern 1914, 31,000 were Japanese models (mostly the M1905), 4,500 German Mausers (the M1898 and the M1888) and about 200 “Russian” Winchester M1895/1915 rifles manufactured in the USA.
as well as
Quote:
Especially in the 1920’s Estonia tried to increase the number of British rifles in total armament. Old Russian and German rifles were exchanged for the British ones with Poland and Finland. Nevertheless, the Russian rifle remained standard, equipping the infantry and the artillery at various times, and made up more than half of the total number of rifles.
and finally mentioning the modification:
Quote:
Another noteworthy fact is that Estonia also had a number of own modifications of the abovementioned models. They were produced by the armament factory Arsenal and included upgrades of the Russian rifle M1891, the British Pattern 1914 and the Japanese M1905.
For not being able to speak Estonian, some other parts are very tough to understand and read. But for what I could gather, most of what Estonia used as "sniper rifle" was not a rifle equipped with scope (since those were more expensive than the rifle, like three times higher than the actual rifle), but with a peep sight. Plus that the Estonian "sniper rifles" were set up using the Mosin Nagant M1891 action, as well as Japanese Arisaka M1905 and Enfield P.14 actions. The modifications usually included heavy barrels and a cut down stock. And actually I was able to find picture sources for such an Arisaka as well as Remington P14 peep sight sniper rifles in the possession of public museums in Estonia:
Arisaka Sniper: Museums Public Portal - Arsenali sõja-täpsuspüss M1931, ümber ehitatud jaapani Arisa...
Enfield P.14 Sniper: Museums Public Portal - Arsenali sõja-täpsuspüss M1931, ümber ehitatud inglise Enfie...
I'm still trying to learn more on the rifles with scopes. Aside of a single contract for 100 scopes only that Estonia ordered with Carl Zeiss of Jena in Germany in 1937, which were delivered in 1939 and were mounted by Tallinn Arsenal factory - accordingly on Mosin Nagant, Arisaka and P.14 actions. If these were also modified actions (like with different barrels, cut down stock, etc.), I honestly don't know for the moment. But maybe more information will turn up in future.
