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28-578: W.W Greener wrote in Modern breechloaders: sporting and military in 1871: This rifle is called No.2, to distinguish it from the first Comblain, which is a modification of the Snider principle . The Comblain no 2 has the vertical sliding block and guard lever of the Sharp rifle ; but the arrangement for exploding the cartridge is different. The mechanism of the lock is fixed in the breech block, which consists of

56-644: A change to Enfield barrels and sights adjusted for the flatter trajectory enabled by the smokeless propellant. Replacement of the Lee–Metford rifles took several years to achieve, and they were still in service in some units during the Second Boer War in 1899. Poor sighting-in and quality control at the factory level resulted in British rifles being woefully inaccurate at ranges greater than 400 yards (370 m). Nonetheless, captured Lee–Metford rifles became

84-619: A graphic depiction of its effect in his poem, "The Grave of the Hundred Head": A Snider squibbed in the jungle— Somebody laughed and fled, And the men of the First Shikaris Picked up their Subaltern dead, With a big blue mark in his forehead And the back blown out of his head. The Snider–Enfield was produced in several variants. The most commonly encountered variants were the Rifled Musket or Long Rifle,

112-416: A new type of metal-cased cartridge called a Boxer cartridge after its designer. The breech block housed a diagonally downward sloping firing pin struck with a front-action lock mounted hammer. To operate the weapon, the rifleman cocked the hammer, flipped the block out of the receiver to the right by grasping the left mounted breech block lever, and then pulled the block back to extract the spent case. There

140-811: A reserve arm in many parts of the British Empire into WWII, even being issued to the New Zealand Home Guard and the Australian Volunteer Defence Corps until more modern rifles could be obtained. The Lee–Metford is still in ceremonial use with the Atholl Highlanders . Small numbers of Lee–Metford rifles were built as, or converted to, experimental semi-automatic loading systems, such as the British Howell and South African Reider and

168-687: A rifle. Enthusiasts still use these rifles today, with the number in circulation boosted by the acquisition by Atlanta Cutlery and International Military Antiques of a vast quantity of antique weapons held in the Royal Nepalese Armory in the Lagan Silekhana Palace for over a century. Ammunition is reloaded into either modern production .577 Snider cases, or re-formed 24-gauge brass shotgun shells. Black powder or modern black-powder substitutes are used. The Halifax Citadel Regimental Association does live-fire demonstrations in

196-474: A turnscrew, which arrangement allows the breech block and lock to be taken out for the purpose of cleaning. The breech arrangement is strong and simple. It is used by the Belgian volunteers, and has been severely tested both at Liege and Wimbledon. This article relating to rifles is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Snider%E2%80%93Enfield The British .577 Snider–Enfield

224-706: The British Empire , including Cape Colony , India, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, until its gradual phaseout by the Martini–Henry , beginning in 1871-1880. Volunteer and militia forces continued to use it until the late 1880s. It stayed in service with the Indian Army until the mid-1890s, because between the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and 1905 the British kept the Indian Army one weapon generation behind British units. The Hunza Scouts may have been

252-692: The Halifax Citadel ; they have around 60 of these rifles. In addition, the Fort Henry Guard at Fort Henry, Kingston also uses the various variants of this weapon for their re-enactments. Lee%E2%80%93Metford The Lee–Metford (also known as the Magazine Lee–Metford ) is a British bolt action rifle which combined James Paris Lee 's rear-locking bolt system and detachable magazine with an innovative seven-groove rifled barrel designed by William Ellis Metford . It replaced

280-527: The Martini–Henry as the standard service rifle of the British Empire in 1888, following nine years of development and trials, but remained in service for only a short time until replaced by the Lee–Enfield . Lee's bolt action mechanism was a great improvement over other designs of the day: In addition Lee introduced a superior detachable box magazine to replace the integral magazines in use with most repeaters, and this magazine offered greater capacity than

308-582: The Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) Enfield beginning with the initial pattern, the Mark I. The converted rifles received a new breechblock /receiver assembly, but retained the original iron barrel , furniture, lock , and hammer. The Mark III rifles were newly made. They featured steel barrels which were so marked, flat nosed hammers, and a latch-locking breech block instead of the simple integral block lifting tang. The Snider–Enfield used

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336-440: The British army still used Sniders during that period. Sentries on night duty in camps and cantonments would carry a Snider and buckshot cartridges. Should tribesmen try to get into the camp to steal rifles, the buckshot would give the sentries a better chance of hitting the thief, and unlike a .303 round, would be less likely to wound or kill a comrade should the sentry miss. The Snider was notably powerful. Rudyard Kipling gave

364-532: The SMLE pattern), though the barrel was almost always switched to one with Enfield pattern rifling. The Lee–Metford was produced commercially and used by civilian target shooters until the outbreak of World War I , as it was considered to be inherently more accurate than the Enfield pattern of rifling. In this context, barrels and boltheads could be replaced as frequently as the owner wished, or could afford. It remained

392-565: The Short Rifle, and the Cavalry and Artillery Carbines. The Long Rifle has a 36 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch (93 cm) barrel and three barrel bands. Its total length (without bayonet) is 54 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches (138 cm) in length. It was issued to line infantry and has three-groove rifling with one turn in 78 inches (200 cm). The Short Rifle has a 30.5-inch (77 cm) barrel and two barrel bands with iron furniture. This variant

420-540: The Snider–Enfield until the end of the nineteenth century. In trials, the Snider Pattern 1853 conversions proved both more accurate than the original Pattern 1853s and much faster firing; a trained soldier could fire ten aimed rounds per minute with the breech-loader, compared with only three rounds per minute with the muzzle-loading weapon. From 1866 onwards, the Enfield rifles were converted in large numbers at

448-665: The best-known of which was the Charlton Automatic Rifle , designed by a New Zealander, Philip Charlton in 1941 to act as a substitute for the Bren and Lewis gun light machine guns which were in chronically short supply at the time. During the Second World War, the majority of New Zealand's land forces were deployed in North Africa. When Japan entered the war in 1941, New Zealand found itself lacking

476-422: The competing Mannlicher design. Metford's polygonal rifling was adopted to reduce fouling from powder residue building up in the barrel, and to make cleaning easier. The magazines were also chained to the weapon to prevent it missing as it was expensive at the time. In spite of its many advantageous features, the Lee–Metford was something of an anachronism, due to its use of a black powder –loaded cartridge. By

504-718: The last to use it in action (in the carbine version), in the Chitral campaign of 1895. The Indian units received the Martini–Henry when the British adopted the Lee–Metford . The Ijeshas used large numbers of Snider–Enfields against Ibadan during the 16-year-long Yoruba Civil War (1877 to 1893). Frank Richards , who served on the Northwest Frontier between 1902 and 1908, records in Old Soldier Sahib that

532-859: The light machine guns that would be required for local defence should the Japanese invade, and so the New Zealand Government funded the development of self-loading conversions for the Lee–Metford rifle. The end result was the Charlton Automatic Rifle (based on the obsolete MLE), which was issued to Home Guard units in NZ from 1942. Over 1,500 conversions were made, including a handful in Australia by Electrolux using Lithgow SMLE Mk III* rifles. The two Charlton designs differed markedly in external appearance (amongst other things,

560-407: The ordinary main-spring acting upon a tumbler by a swivel. The tumbler and striker are made in one piece; the scear and trigger are also in one piece . By depressing the lever the breech block is brought down, the cartridge-case extracted and the rifle is cocked. A fresh cartridge being inserted, and the lever returned, the rifle is ready for firing. The hinge screw can be removed without the aid of

588-628: The primary weapon for the Boers too when their Mauser ammunition ran out. The British considered an entirely new rifle, the Pattern 1913 Enfield , based upon a modified Mauser design, but its development was cut short by the First World War and the eminently adaptable Lee–Enfield served for another half century. In British service the Lee–Metford was also upgraded to the standards of later rifle patterns (e.g. to charger loading and Short Rifle,

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616-778: The same rifling as the Short Rifle and Cavalry Carbine. The Snider was the subject of substantial imitation, in both approved and questionable forms, including the Nepalese Snider, which was a nearly exact copy, the Dutch Snider, Danish Naval Snider, and the "unauthorised" adaptations of the French Tabatière and Russian Krnka. There were also "Trade Pattern" Snider–Enfields, being Snider–Enfields made for private purchase by various English gun-makers. These were often intended for sale to members of volunteer military units, or simply to anyone who might wish to purchase

644-409: The shortfalls brought about by the use of black powder, the Lee–Metford went through several revisions during its short service life, with the principal changes being to the magazine (from eight-round single stack to ten-round staggered), sights, and safety. Starting in 1895, the Lee–Metford started to be phased out in favor of the mechanically-similar Lee–Enfield for the reasons outlined above, involving

672-413: The time of the rifle's introduction, rifle design had moved on to using small-calibre smokeless powder cartridges, which allowed bullets to be propelled at much higher velocities without as much smoke or residue. The .303 ammunition designed for the rifle was in fact originally intended to be loaded with a smokeless propellant, but as a result of protracted development, selection of a smokeless propellant

700-470: Was a breech-loading rifle . The American inventor, Jacob Snider created this firearm action , and the Snider–Enfield was one of the most widely used of the Snider varieties. The British Army adopted it in 1866 as a conversion system for its ubiquitous Pattern 1853 Enfield muzzle-loading rifles , and used it until 1880 when the Martini–Henry rifle began to supersede it. The British Indian Army used

728-482: Was delayed, forcing the British to rely on black powder in the interim. By the time Cordite cartridges were available, it was found that they were wholly unsuited for use with the shallow Metford rifling, which would wear out and render barrels unusable after approximately 6,000 rounds, compared to the 10,000 rounds that the deeper, square-cut Enfield rifling pattern rifles could deliver. The Lee rifles fitted with Enfield barrels became known as Lee Enfields. Regardless of

756-412: Was issued to sergeants of line infantry and rifle units. It has five-groove rifling with one turn in 48 inches (120 cm). The Cavalry Carbine is half stocked and has only one barrel band. It has a 19 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch (50 cm) barrel, with the same rifling as the Short Rifle. The Artillery Carbine has a 21 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch (54 cm) barrel with a full stock and two barrel bands, and

784-531: Was no ejector, so the firer turned the rifle to the right and upside-down to allow the case to drop out. The Snider first saw action with the British/Indian Army at the battle of Magdala (Aroghee) in Ethiopia on 10 April 1868, against the forces of Tewodros II of Ethiopia ; during the battle the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot alone fired 10,200 rounds. The Snider–Enfield served throughout

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