Inherent Weakness ?

[villiers]

I own (and shoot) two rifles: a Mauser 33/40 "Gebirgsjäger" and an LE No. 5 "Jungle carbine". Both load approximately the same Kemira N140 powder charge (according to the book). I hardly ever use the Mauser and I keep it mainly because it´s so beautifully (and expensively) made. Both rifles are very accurate (or I´d have got rid of it) but I practically never shoot the Mauser competitively. I always choose the Enfield ... and have now got myself another .308 Win Enfield conversion. I still prefer the .303. In my younger days, I saw action with the No. 4 & 5 and the FN. Of course times change ... and the FN was a very efficient weapon. But the Enfield was the product of a very long period of evolution which eventually made it better than all the others. I`m quite sure that "collectors" would prefer the Mauser but anyone who has ever used one in action will always stick to the Enfield.

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[Alfred]

I own (and shoot) two rifles: a Mauser 33/40 "Gebirgsjäger" and an LE No. 5 "Jungle carbine". Both load approximately the same Kemira N140 powder charge (according to the book). I hardly ever use the Mauser and I keep it mainly because it´s so beautifully (and expensively) made. Both rifles are very accurate (or I´d have got rid of it) but I practically never shoot the Mauser competitively. I always choose the Enfield ... and have now got myself another .308 Win Enfield conversion. I still prefer the .303. In my younger days, I saw action with the No. 4 & 5 and the FN. Of course times change ... and the FN was a very efficient weapon.

I've also owned a Mauser Carbine, the Persian Mauser, heavier than the G33/40 but aprox same length of barrel.
I've fired several No.5 Carbines since then. I consider the No.5 to be the only Carbine of its class that is reasonably efficient with the standard issue ammunition available to its users in combat.
The Mauser Carbines when using ammo suited to the K98 or Gew98 length rifles is not at all efficient and not as accurate as No.5 Carbines I've used.
I used light loads of fast burning 4198 and 4227 with my Persian Carbine, and these were very accurate.
I gave my remaining supply of these powders to a friend who wanted to start reloading for his No.5 and the results were very promising. He achieved MOA groupings out to six hundred yards using reduced loads of fast powders.

A properly taylored handload can usually result in Sub MOA accuracy with most Military Bolt action rifles of the 20th century if they are in good condition.

The Rear locking bolt of the Enfield does present some factors that should be taken into account, and these usually are taken into account by those who wish to achieve the highest level of accuracy possible.

But the Enfield was the product of a very long period of evolution which eventually made it better than all the others. I`m quite sure that "collectors" would prefer the Mauser but anyone who has ever used one in action will always stick to the Enfield.

The only Military rifles I now own are Enfields. I never cared for the Springfield or M1917, and lost interest in the Mausers long ago.

Ireload2 has used the old rhetorical trick of forming a hypothetical question that is completely off the track of the discussion, which concerned the time leading up to the FIRST world war. So while "American Gunsmith" was shooting his mouth

Exactly who was this "American Gunsmith"?
Since as I've pointed out the most vocal criticism of the Enfield Rifles came from Canadian and British sources.
No doubt some "American Gunsmith" or other has criticised the Enfield, but the Criticisms certainly didn't originate in the US.
Lee Actions had been used with some success in the US long before the British adopted and adapted it to their use.
Remington built many sporting rifles on the 1899 Lee action in calibers of higher performance than the .303.

The point is that despite attempts to stir animosity between UK owners of the Enfields and US owners of the Enfields the author of the work I linked to was quite right in saying that the British had raked the rifle over the coals endlessly in the run up to WW1. Also the Canadian criticisms of the Enfield are a matter of record.

If the US military had wished to there was nothing to prevent them from using as much of the Lee design as they wanted to.
The 10 shot Detachable box magazine for example would have been a very useful addition to the Springfield 1903 rifles.


Also Europeans often forget that the US had almost no stake in the Great War. Nothing that happened in Europe was of any real interest to the vast majority of US citizens.Only continued attacks on US Shipping by German U-boats finally made our involvement necessary.

When the US finally entered the War everyone involved expected the conflict to go on for another decade. Only the Spanish Flu with its devastaing effect on the Civilian populations finally made continued hostilities impossible. The Flu killed as many in a few months as four years of warfare, and left entire armies too ill to fight and civilian populations devastated and unable to supply there men in the field.
One reason so many WW1 era rifles survived to be issued in WW2 was that by the time these were finished there were far too few healthy soldiers to carry them into combat.

the British, being inadequately provided with Lee Enfields and aware of possible improvements, turned to American private enterprise for adequate production of the P14.

And the British nearly bankrupted Remington by cancelling the orders.
The P-14/M1917 was far easier to mass produce using US commercial manufacturing methods than the Springfield 03 or Enfield No.1. The new Nickel Steel alloy used gave it great strength. Those rifles left over at the end of WW1 were sold or given to allies and many were issued to US support troops during WW2. A gret many were sent to Britian for Homeguard use.

BTW
Contrary to popular belief the British benefitted greatly from US manufacturing techniques and automation when producing the No.1 rifles.

Much of what the British considered their own was actually bought or borrowed from "American Gunsmiths", such as the Lewisgun and the Vickers and Maxim guns. Hiram Maxim became a British Citizen after he invented and developed his machinegun design. The Vickers-Maxim MG was adopted by the US as early as 1904, chambered for the .30/03 and probably the .30/06 later on.
The US sent remaining 1904 Vickers MGs to Britian in later years.

The Lewisgun , invented by a US Army officer , had to be beefed up and redesigned to handle the more powerful .30/06 cartridges. It had worked okay with the .303 and so it was easily adopted by the British, and often used in .303 by US forces till the updated .30/06 version was perfected.
During WW2 many US .30/06 Lewisguns were sent to Britian for Homeguard use.

The Krag rifle, a Scandinavian design, was slighty less strong than the Enfield No.1, and I've never seen any Krag collector that didn't acknowledge that the single lug bolt of the Krag was a weakness of that design.

Like the Enfield, failures of a Krag action are unlikely to cause serious injury, but that doesn't make the rifle stronger than it is or perfectly safe if it blows out.
Both are suited for the cartridge and chamber pressures they were designed for, and both have very little safety margin when it comes to excessive chamber pressures. Both were subjected to the most erosive and corrosive ammunition of modern warfare, with rifles that saw a great deal of use often enough ending up with bores that can be very unsafe and cause excessive pressures even with otherwise safe ammunition.