Shortened No. 1 Mk III* Rifle

[Badger]

With thanks to Advisory Panel member Terry Hawker, we've added a new entry to the England - Milsurp Knowledge Library (click here)

Shortened No. 1 Mk III* Rifle (click here)

Article Extract .....

This article was inspired by an interesting thread started by Peter Laidler on Jouster's Lee-Enfield forum on the Military Surplus Collectors Forums on April 21, 2009, titled, "1916 Shortened SMLE Enfield?" (click here), in which Peter asked if anyone could shed some light on shortened SMLE rifles, as one was housed in the Weapons collection at Warminster. Reading this thread prompted me to dig my example out of the safe for a closer look, which, in turn, prompted a quest for further information to try to answer the basic journalism questions of the Who, What, When, Where and perhaps even Why, regarding the creation of these odd little rifles.

This article is therefore written in hopes that it will lead to other collector's sharing information on any of these variants they may have in their collections, to see if some common link between them can be established, and, more importantly, with fervent hopes that some documentation will be forthcoming so we can have something other than just conjecture, speculation and unverifiable examples to base opinions on.

(Click PIC to Enlarge)

Terry has requested that if anyone has any questions on his current series of articles, comments or additions for inclusion in his articles under the "Collectors Comments and Feedback" section of the MKL article, or ideas for future topics, that they please leave feedback for him in the appropriate announcement thread.

Regards,
Badger

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Peter Laidler]

FANTASTIC article and just the sort we need. Here's a few thoughts for what they're worth.

It should be remembered that the optimum barrel length for an accurate .303" barrel was what you got with the lighter but heavily damped SMLE and a not so heavily damped, but heavier No4. Shortening the barrel through experimentation lead to the next most accurate length being the 18" or so. We didn't just adopt this length on the basis that '...it looks good...' but because it was the next best compromise and thus took it for the No5 rifle.....albeit at a cost of a wild muzzle flash. In my considered opinion, we also looked at THIS 18" second best/best compromise length because we could configure the muzzle end of the SMLE to something already on the drawing board and still firmly in the minds of the design and drawing office.

And that idea was the design of the nose-cap and fittings where the BAND, outer (think No4 rifle lower band here.....) can remain longitudinally unchanged and forms the rear end of the nose-cap and eliminates the need for a sling loop on the nose cap. It eliminates the need for extensive wood machining at the rear of the now squared-off nose cap AND BEST OF ALL, by accident of design, the barrel remains at the best optimum length of 18".

And where did they get this simplified muzzle idea from? Simple, it was already planned for the No1 Mk5.

The 18" SMLE barrel length does EVERYTHING that a design engineers wants. It has kept the idea simple. As an engineer, I am only too aware of the old maxim that far from being cheap, a modification is really expensive because it means that you've already got it wrong the first time and you're just doing the same job again, properly (...OK, I don't mean upgrading here.....). So on that basis, I would suspect any SMLE barrel shortened to anything than the 18" or so length. Someone said 'keep it simple stupid...' so they did!

[Nigel]

In the Imperial War Museum Review No.6, pages 4-15 is an article by Bryn Hammond - Professionals and specialists: military mining on the Western Front. It describes combat underground and a cut-down version of the .303 rifle is mentioned. Note 54 refers: A rifle of this type is illustrated in the Visit Diary of First Army Controller of Mines. PRO WO158-137. So if someone fancies a visit to Kew to find out more...!

[EDINOH]

I also have one of these. Mine is GRI 1945, matching numbers on bolt, receiver, barrel, rear sight, and nosecap. Nosecap is the square ear version, and number font is slightly different. I am thinking mine was done here. It is Springfield Sporter import marked. All metal is parkerized type finish. Barrel is 20 inches. The front handguard is cutdown and reshaped to original, not spliced. Wood is in excellent shape, and is the India dark mahogany with the Ishy screw hole filled in. No Navy Arms or Santa Fe marks. No factory marks on wood. I took it to the range, and kick was not much worse than a full size SMLE. At 50 yards accuracy was the same as a normal SMLE, but shot about 8 inches high with rear sight set on 100yds.

[jmoore]

I think I mentioned before that the one I built (the thread had something to do w/ the taper under the fore sight band ) shoots flat base ammo fine, but puts boat tailed 174-180gr bullets though the 100yd target as perpendicular to the paper as can be, whilst maintaining a reasonable group. 200yds- no hits! (still OK w/ flatbase though)