Canadian Rangers to carry Winchesters after 60 years of bearing Enfield rifles

[newcastle]

The Moisin is the only other rifle I can think of, apart from regressing to the SMLE which would be good in this situation of ice and muck and dirt.

[Peter Laidler]

Surely, if they don't clean their trusty old Enfields, then mosin's will quickly suffer the same fate. Reading into the thread elsewhere, I'm not sure that you'd want to set them loose with thousands of rounds of Mosin ammo either! Think of the Caribou flocks

[Alan de Enfield]

Extracts from : http://pubs.drdc.gc.ca/inbasket/Pera..._174_Final.pdf

Are these guys talking about the same Enfield No4 that we know ?

Table 1: Frequency of Broken Lee Enfield Components
Lee Enfield Component Frequency Count (n=74)
Magazine 40
Iron Sight 26
Forestock 14
Sling Swivel 14
Barrel 12
Others 9
Buttstock 8
Receiver/Action 8
Sling 4

So - how can they 'break' 12 barrels and 8 actions ?

Best Features Percent (n=115)
Durable, Rugged 47.0%
Reliable, Dependable 36.5%
Sights 24.3%
Accuracy 16.5%
Magazine (capacity,detachable) 16.5%
Ease of Repair/Cleaning 14.8%
Bolt Action, Speed of Cycling 13.9%
Calibre, Range 13.0%
Weight 11.3%
Ease of Use 10.4%
Compatibility with Cold Weather 5.2%


Worst Features Percent (n=113)
Weight 70.8%
Age, Availability of Parts 30.1%
Sights (durability, no scope mount 23.0%
Magazine (insertion, release) 22.1%
Length (too long, sizes not available) 13.3%
Reliable, Dependable (jamming) 13.3%
Accuracy 10.6%
Wood Stock (adds to maintenance, 2 pieces) 8.8%
Calibre (too powerful, rimmed cartridge) 8.0%
Bolt Action (pressure needed to load, stiff) 5.3%


Only 5.2% say that one of the Enfields strengths is its compatability to the cold - wait till they try some of these modern 'plastic-fantastic' things !!!

"Length too long" if thats refering to the Butt then even the Canadian manuals state that different butt sizes are available - maybe they are just not getting into the 'field'

"Too powerful" but they are proposing to replace it with 7.62 NATO - as far as I know there is not a lot of difference between 303 and 7.62 NATO

Accuracy - nothing to say to that one !!!

[Rumpelhardt]

If it comes down to ether the Winchester model 70 and the Remington 700 I hope they chose the M70 for their sakes. While the 700 is a good rifle the ones I've had where less than reliable on occasion. The Model 70 I have has been rock solid since 1984.

[Claven2]

The 700 trigger mechanism would not do well in the cold if any oil gets into it. The Model 70 is also a poor choice IMHO. The main reasons are the 5 round limit, the 3 piece bottom metal and cast extractor that sometimes breaks "snapping over" a rim. The statement of requirements clearly states 10 round detachable mag.

I doubt either rifle will get chosen, to be honest. If I were them, I would look long and hard at having AIA build some of their full wood modern Enfields with a few modifications to make them more rugged and just issue that. Maybe with a modern synthetic stock made of carbon polyamid or something similar not much affected by cold that is light.

[Rumpelhardt]

Sounds like a job for Accuracy International

[chofo]

I agree with Claven... the AIA LE would be the most cost-effective replacement. NO development costs to us taxpayers... off-the-shelf technology.
A standard NATO calibre, optics-ready, an action that has proven itself for the last 100 years or so, and since they will be new production, why not shorten and lighten them up a bit? Keep the full stock configuration, but why not something synthetic? For an order of say, 20,000 rifles, I'm sure we could negotiate a decent price.
The real advantage would be a non-existant transition to the "new" weapon... feels just like the old rifle, and the ballistics almost identical.
Now, to wean them off keeping them in the bottom of the canoe!

[browningautorifle]

I think the bottom of the canoe thing is inherant. I had a model 64 that suffered just such a fate. I can't imagine funding something as foolish as "development" of such a replacement.

[Claven2]

The CF actually DID consider (briefly) the AIA Enfield. There was a paper floating around some time ago where they conducted an "evaluation" of it and discarded it as unsuitable. IMHO "the study" was a total joke. The paper was written to justify why they should not issue a 7.62 Lee Enfield and was not at all objective. As I recall, they did not even trial one - they "examined" one and decided to conduct no trials describing the arms as "commercial grade" and not rugged enough to compare to a "military Enfield".

It was a pretty harsh sentencing of the AIA considering they did not torture test it, field test it, or even disassemble one that I know of.

At the end of the day, the AIA is just a No.4 with a beefier receiver, remington-type ejector, and a chrome lined bore. I have no doubt it would have held it's own against a .303 military No.4 rifle.

[Maple_Leaf_Eh]

I've seen a number of internal DND documents on the Ranger Rifle. My old unit has a national mission for mapping, and our surveyors go north most summers. Bears, walruses, musk ox will attack humans. When I read the first documents, yes I too said, 'AIA here we come.' However, subsequently the technical examinations found its many strengths and weaknesses. Part sourcing and lifecycle worries being more important than meets the eye. It is a good facsimilie of a No.4 in 7.62x51, but not a military grade firearm. Back to the drawing board.

Someone wondered about the rank of the Technical Authority. Some jobs are just too important to be left to officers! The Canadian way is that all trades circulate between staff, garrison and support positions throughout their careers. Good guys get identified along the way for senior appointments, where being an RSM used to be the pinnacle of a career, there are now many more places for Chief Warrant Officers. In the Army, one recent policy is to select competant NCOs for the Army Technical Warrant Officer program. Gunners, grunts, thumperheads, signallers, mechanics, and weapons technicians. Send a reasonably young Warrant or Master Warrant Officer to military college to learn engineering and project management, then focus his later postings on jobs where skill in those areas will be required. Similarly, Sergeants and Warrants can be commissioned at 2Lts or Lts. Sometimes the weapons technician who just finished up running the project desk goes back to his old shop in a staff job, and gets to sign off on the next level of paperwork.

I found some of the conclusions in the Human Factors report a bit odd. But magazines come out and they go get lost. Small arms handling drills for FN C1 and C7 require magazines out for Unloads and storage. I suspect cross-contamination.

There are something like 65 Ranger Patrols in the smallest of isolated communities in just about every province. Their Regular Force staff do visit each patrol during the year, but if a rifle cannot be repaired during one such short trip, it gets tagged and pretty well ignored or robbed for parts. Never a desireable situation, but for fly-in villages sometimes that is the reality. Yes, every patrol has its good and bad points. But these are ordinary rural people without access to, what most of us would call military training. Their job is to be a visible demonstration of national sovereignty and they get a rifle, 200 rds of ammo, a bright red sweatshirt, ball hat and yes (!) a pair of combat boots. Pretty cheap investment all around. On a truly large sense of economy, is maintaining a marginally disposable rifle as costly as pulling volunteer community minded dads, uncles and cousins out of tiny villages and putting them through boot camp, going to improve things? Heck, some of them don't even speak English, French or Innuktitut?

Questions?