pronematch.com

by Hap Rocketto

Each one of the major allied powers of the 20th century has its iconic bolt action rifle. The United States fielded the Springfield 1903 and the Germans had the Mauser 98 family of rifles. The Mosin–Nagant armed both Czarist and Soviet troops and, as a little known fact, did limited service with the United States Army as the U.S. Rifle, 7.62mm, Model of 1916. The British carried the iconic Lee-Enfield into the far flung corners of the Empire.

The Lee-Enfield’s compound name, a common British fetish for both members of the aristocracy and various firearms, is derived from the name of the rifle’s bolt system designer and the factory in which he did the design work, James Paris Lee and the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield. The Sten Gun, named for Major Reginald V. Shepherd and Harold Turpin, and EN for Enfield, and the Bren Gun, a a modified version of Czechoslovak design developed in Brno and built at Enfield, are but a few more examples.

The Lee Enfield made its official debut as a replacement for the Lee-Metford, upon which it is based, in 1895. The turn bolt rifle is unique among bolt action military rifles in that it cocks upon closing and features a ten round detachable box magazine. The cartridges can be loaded into the magazine either individually or by use of a five round charger clips.

Around 17 million Lee-Enfields were produced between 1895 and 1957 in factories that circled the globe; Great Britain, Australia, Canada, British and Independent India, Pakistan, and the United States. The most fascinating manufacturing sites are still in existence today in the many small forges and workshops that ply their trade along the Pakistani/Afghan border’s Khyber Pass. Known as “Khyber Pass Copies” these hand built rifles are easily distinguished from the genuine article as the markings are rife with spelling errors, reversed letters, and often carry incorrect royal ciphers. They work, but their shoddy and sub standard level of workmanship and materials often make them equally dangerous to the predator as the prey.

The Lee-Enfield, in any one of its many Marks, was the standard issue infantry rifle of the British Army, and many Commonwealth nations, from the Second Boer War through Korea and onto the Malayan Emergency, the Suez Canal Crisis, and the Mau Mau Uprising.

Although replaced by the Fabrique Nationale d’Herstal L1A1 Self Loading Rifle in the mid 1950s it could be found in the Royal Army supply system for another decade. It can still be found as an issued rifle on the sub-continent of India with both the Indian and Bangladesh Police, making it the longest-serving military bolt-action rifle in history.

The most common variation, the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield, is known affectionately to generations of Tommies, Diggers, Kiwis and Canucks as the “Smelly,” based on its initials SMLE, or simply after its cartridge, the .303.

The .303 British cartridge was first developed as a Boxer primed black powder round and adopted in December of 1889 as “Cartridge, Powder, Mark I.” Two years later it was improved when the black powder was replaced by a new smokeless powder. The new propellant consisted of nitroglycerine, guncotton, and petroleum jelly mixed into a paste. It was then extruded into spaghetti-like rods which were cut off to appropriate length for various types of ammunition. The diameter of the rods could also be adjusted, making it readily adaptable to both small arms and artillery ammunition. The new gunpowder was a refinement of Alfred Noble’s unstable propellant “Ballistite” and was initially called “cord powder” for its appearance. It soon became a victim of the earlier mentioned British penchant for double barreled names and quickly was known as “Cordite.”

The first two marks of .303 featured a round nose 215-grain, copper-nickel full metal jacketed bullet over a lead core. By the time the cartridge was retired from active service with the British it had been produced in ball, tracer, incendiary, blank, bulleted blank, rifle grenade, short range practice, armor piercing, explosive, high explosive, dummy, drill, observing, and line throwing varieties.
Very few commercial rifles were ever chambered for the .303 and so most rifles and/or actions in civilian hands are military in origin. This requires the owner to use either hard to find military surplus ammunition or reload. Reloading offers the best source of ammunition but requires the handloader to work around the notoriously loose chamber required on such a rifle. It is a popular hunting and competition cartridge in many of the Commonwealth nations.

Perhaps the most famous popular culture reference to the .303 was made in the movie Breaker Morant. Harry “Breaker” Morant served in the British Army’s Bushveldt Carbineers during the Second Boer War and was court marshaled for the murder of a civilian and several Boer prisoners of war.

When asked by the court what rule of war authorized his actions he replied “Rule 303,” referring to the Lee Enfield .303 rifle, meaning that was all the authority he needed. Morant was found guilty and about 6AM on February 27, 1902, was executed by a firing squad from the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders wielding Lee Enfield .303 rifles.

And, on that note, ends Hap’s Corner number 303.

by Hap Rocketto

It was a bright spring morning and the usual suspects had, as is our habit, gathered at Mel’s Diner on Route 163 for Friday breakfast prior to a morning of smallbore shooting.

Young Nash Neubauer, in an intelligent move that belies the fact that he shoots high power-rather well I might add as he is Distinguished and Presidents Hundred, had arranged his college class schedule to facilitate his attendance at our weekly egg eating and Eley expending extravaganza.

As we worked away at our breakfast the conversation drifted towards smallbore ammunition, its cost, availability, quality, and testing.

Nash made a contribution from his experience, “Getting good ammunition is much easier when you shoot high power. You ask around a bit, refer to a reloading manual, try out a few loads, and when you have a tight shooting combination you just stick with it. Smallbore is a really different breed of cat, how do you guys do it?”

Ernie Mellor began to discuss the magical and mysterious method of smallbore ammunition selection. He spoke of Eley and how its machines crank out quality smallbore cartridges by the millions. “They have to test it to determine quality before they label it” he told Nash.

His fork, suspended in midair half way between his mouth and plate, dripped a yellow stalactite of egg yolk as the kid was astonished enough to stop chewing and exclaim, “You mean they have all that stuff piled up without labels?”

In a flash I was transported to the start of the second semester of the 1967-68 academic year, the short lull made it a most carefree time at college. A few days of quiet and conviviality lay in front of us before the hard work and responsibilities of the second semester began. As it happened, Moe Montford, Chuck Spence, John Marzalek, Paul Carpenter, Bill Kaseberg, Jack Strobel, my roommate Craig Duncan, and I were in the midst of celebrating my 21^st birthday as we lolled about in my dorm room at Westminster College. In celebration of my majority the guys had just given me a handsome glass bottomed pewter tankard with my name engraved on the front and theirs on the back.

It had not been an easy first semester for me. It was my first time away from home for any extended period of time. I had struggled to meet the academic standards of this strange new world while trying to find my place within a hormone driven group of young men who had already been living together for two years in the small dormitory.

The low point was October 12^th, the last day of the 1967 World Series. Westminster is located in Fulton, Missouri, some 150 miles from Busch Stadium, home of the Saint Louis Cardinals and 1300 miles from the friendly confines of the Red Sox’s Fenway Park. The Sox had forced a seventh game the day before and when the “Impossible Dream” team lost the next day I was alone amid all of the cheering and joy that surrounded me. I felt never felt as dejected and totally isolated as I did at that moment. Things got better academically and socially and I soon was just another one of the guys.

The high point was the birthday celebration thrown by my new found friends that marked my total acceptance. To christen my new mug Moe produced, with a prestidigitator’s flourish, a bottle filled with a tawny colored fluid which he decanted into my tankard. I asked what it was and he replied that it was a bottle of bourbon rye, or scotch; he couldn’t remember which, from his family’s grocery store.

Awash in a wave of comradeship I picked up the mug and foolishly proceeded, at the insistence of my pals, to chug the contents. I did not possess a sophisticated liquor connoisseur’s palate but the last time I had tasted any liquid as smooth, mellow, and with a silky finish like Mrs. Montford’s bourbon was when I had siphoned a few gallons of gas out of The Old Man’s car and had gotten an unexpected mouthful.

Gagging and gasping for breath I asked Moe what kind of hooch his family sold. Moe said it was a propriety brand produced by some back country distillery in the rural Boot Heel region of Missouri. The store received weekly shipments in unmarked cardboard boxes containing 24 unlabeled bottles filled with either a tan or clear liquid.

Mother Montford served the customers through a slotted glass panel like you might find in a movie house ticket booth. The customer would approach the counter and request a bottle of scotch, bourbon, rye, gin, or vodka.

Mrs. Montford would then fill the order by reaching under the counter. Keeping her hands out sight of the customer at all times, she would grab a bottle of the appropriate colored liquid, pull the backing off of a self adhesive label proclaiming the contents to be either scotch, bourbon, rye, gin, or vodka, stick said label on the bottle, place it into a brown paper sack, collect the money, and send the happy customer on his way.

At the Eley factory ammunition comes off of the production line and is tested. If it falls within the tightest parameters it emerges from the factory with a red Tenex label that notes the year it was made, the machine on which it was produced, the individual lot number and the muzzle velocity. A slightly wider grouping results in a black Match label with a similar appropriate label. Other labels are reserved for the lots that don’t meet the top two standards, not that it is bad ammunition-it is just not the best.

There is nothing magical or mysterious about Eley’s ammunition classification system. I suspect that Eley simply hired Mrs. Montford who moved on from selling cheap booze to the citizens of Saint Louis to selling expensive ammunition to the shooters of the world.