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Pattern 1914 Enfield
The M1917 American Enfield was the ultimate development of a rifle that originally began as a replacement for the SMLE in British Army service. It is a Mauser-type action with 2 forward locking lugs, an external non-rotating claw extractor, and a staggered-column box magazine contained entirely within the stock. It can be easily identified by the prominent metal "ears" that protect both the front sight and the receiver-mounted rear sight.
Development
During the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the British Army found that the SMLE rifle chambered in .303 was severely outclassed by the M1895 Mauser rifles used by the Boer forces. The high velocity and flat trajectory of the 7x57mm Mauser cartridge proved much more accurate and powerful at long range than the British .303 MKIII cartridge, giving the Boers a decisive advantage in the open veldt of South Africa. Attempts to upgrade the Lee-Enfield design proved unsuccessful due to its rear-mounted locking lugs, and in 1910 the Small Arms Committee issued a requirement for a Mauser-type rifle with front-locking lugs, single-piece stock, and small-caliber cartridge. In 1911 the Royal Small Arms Factory produced a modified cock-on-closing Mauser-type design, which was adopted for testing in 1913 as: Rifle, Magazine, Enfield, .276-inch, colloquially known as the Pattern 13.
Pattern 13
The new rifle featured a Mauser-type action with front locking lugs, claw extractor, and a staggered 5-round box magazine contained within the one-piece stock. The rifle had a 26" barrel, with a protected front sight, and aperture rear sight with flip-up elevation ladder mounted on the receiver bridge, which gave the rifle an extremely long sight radius. It was chambered in a new 7mm cartridge specifically developed for the rifle, the .276 Enfield, which propelled a 165gr bullet at 2,800fps. The design The rifle was not popular with troops, who reported excessive muzzle blast and rifling wear.
Pattern 14
When World War I began, it was determined that it would be impractical to convert the British Army to a new rifle and cartridge, and development of the .276 Enfield was forgotten. Production of the rifle in Britain was also impossible, as all available facilities were cranking out SMLE MkIII's. However, it was decided that the rifle could be re-chambered in .303 without altering the basic design. Thus the design became: Rifle, .303 Pattern 1914. The British government then contracted out production of the Pattern 14 to Winchester Repeating Arms and Remington Arms in the United States. From 1915-1917 1,235,298 rifles were produced by Winchester, Remington, and Remington's subsidiary Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, Pennsylvania.
The Pattern 1914 (P 14) was chambered originally in a high velocity .276 caliber and then changed to .303 British when the experimental caliber proved to be troublesome. Remington and Winchester manufactured the rifle for the British in WW1. After the U.S. joined the Allies it was easy to convert the rifle to 30-06, which was important when the Federal Springfield Armory found it could not produce enough of the 1903 Springfield rifle to meet war demands. When the United States entered the war in 1917, they had approximately 600,000 Springfield rifles ready to go, but with a heavy recruitment rate (4,000,000 enlisted men before the end of the year) and the difficulty of producing 1903 Springfields (an average of 5,000 new rifles a month), the United States opted to mass-produce the Pattern 14 chambered in 30-06 for use overseas, renamed as the US Rifle, Caliber 30, Model 1917, though it was more commonly known as the Enfield 1917 in tribute to its birthplace, or even the P 17. Although United States troops carried both the 1917 Enfield and the 1903 Springfield in World War I, the Enfield was the primary United States service rifle during the war, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin.
Specifications
- Weight: 9 lb. 3 oz. (4.17 kg)
- Length: 3 ft. 10.25 in. (1175 mm)
- Barrel length: 26.0 in (660 mm)
- Cartridge: .30-06 Springfield (7.62x63mm)
- Action: Modified Mauser turn bolt
- Muzzle velocity: 2700 ft/s (823 m/s)
- Feed system: 6-round magazine, 5-round clip fed reloading
The M1917 Enfield rifle and variants can be seen in the following:
Film
- Carried by Laotian troops in The 317th Platoon (1965)
- Posse member in Night of the Living Dead (1968)
- American Solders in Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
- Seen on Col. Robert Neville Charlton Heston in The Omega Man (1971)
- Seen on a Gun Shelf in Dawn of the Dead (1978)
- Hunter in Out of Africa (1986) (Very possible that the rifle is a sporterized Pattern 1914 in .303 British)
- Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in The Untouchables (1987)
- Used by several U.S. Army soldiers in King Kong (2005)
- Used by Nationalist Chinese soldiers in Assembly (Ji jie hao) (2007)
- French soldiers in Days of Glory (2006)
- Richmond's soldiers in Richard III (1995)
- U.S. honor guard soldiers in Spawn (1997)
- Rick Schroder as Major Charles Whittlesey in The Lost Battalion (2001)
- André Vippolis as Pvt. Lipasti in The Lost Battalion (2001)
- Rhys Thomas Miles as Pvt. Bob Yoder in The Lost Battalion (2001)
- Arthur Kremer as Pvt. Abraham Krotoshinsky in The Lost Battalion (2001)
- Daniel Caltagirone as Pvt. Phillip Cepeglia in The Lost Battalion (2001)
- Michael Goldstrom as Pvt. Jacob Rosen in The Lost Battalion (2001)
- US Army soldiers in The Lost Battalion(2001)
Television
- Australian New South Wales Police in Police Rescue (1989-1996)
- American troops in Anzacs (1985)
- Arthur Lowe as Captain George Mainwaring in Dad's Army (1968-1977)
- John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in Dad's Army (1968-1977)
- Clive Dunn as Lance Corporal Jack Jones in Dad's Army (1968-1977)
- James Beck as Private Joe Walker in Dad's Army (1968-1977)
- Ian Lavender as Private Frank Pike in Dad's Army (1968-1977)
- John Laurie as Private James Frazer in Dad's Army (1968-1977)
Anime
Video Games
- Forgotten Hope 2 (2005) (Both M1917 Enfield and scoped Pattern M1914 (P 14) Enfield)
See Also
- Royal Small Arms Factory - A list of weapons produced by RSAF Enfield