Was this gun the first British bolt action rifle? With weapons and firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson
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- Опубликовано: 6 авг 2024
- This week Jonathan examines two rifles instrumental in the early development of the concept which would eventually become the famous Lee Enfield. Despite both weapons not progressing past the experimental stage, their early adoption of a bolt-action firing mechanism coupled with a fixed magazine would remain a feature on British military rifles until the 1990s.
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If anyone's wondering, when Jonathan Ferguson sais that the .303 british comes from switzerland, I think he's refering to the work of Eduard Rubin, who was at the time director of the Eidgenössische Munitionsfabrik (federal amunition factory) in Thun, where he conducted - among other things - research on small arms ballistics and deduced that a small, very fast projectile in the 7-8mm range was the way to go. Rubin is also credited with inventing the jacketed bullet and - if memory serves me right - Othais from C&Rsenal once called him the "father of the modern military cartridge".
That's right - we have examples of rifles chambered in the Rubin cartridge and of the cartridge itself. It's pretty wacky.
@@jonathanferguson1211 Jonathan,I particularly liked your presentation, this particular video. Careful choice of words,and you were visibly paying attention to what you said as you said it. Kind of a minimalist approach,no extras,but the content carefully thought through.
Not every person will appreciate. The pacing is less than modern entertainment uses. But then again many in the audience will be accessing their own knowledge base,so I regard that positively.
So well done,I hope you continue to use this careful delivery.
All the best.
@@jonathanferguson1211 I saw you a few weeks ago on the Sean Bean programme about Waterloo, and I /think/ Al Murray's series about the Brits winning every war?
@@julianmhall Meeting Sharpe himself was a career highlight :)
@@jonathanferguson1211 he probably said the same about meeting you, and the privilege of shooting an actual rifle not a prop :) I'd love to see the Sharpe series remade properly following the books and with modern CGI for the scale.
Due to the of the primacy of the Royal Navy during the 19th C and early part of the 20th C, the RN actually fought more land actions than it did naval actions during that period. Most of these were small actions were the Navy acted as what we would today call a rapid reaction force, Naval brigades (shore parties formed from ship's companies) fought during the Indian Mutiny and Boer War. One of my favourite stats is that during the the Opium War the Naval element outnumbered regular British Army troops (of 19000 men 5000 were British Army, 7000 Indian Sepoys, 7000 Royal Navy). Even during the First World War on the Western Front Royal Navy sailors could be found fighting on land aboard RNAS armoured cars and as part of the Royal Navy Division. So it was not be strange or out of place for the Royal Navy to want the best small arms it could lay its hands on.
And many of the terms used to describe bits of AFVs look distinctly nautical e.g. turret and hull.
I would think the “elevating spoon” would be akin to a cartridge elevator you would find in a tube magazine firearm.
I thought immediately of a Lebel I once owned and would say you are right.
Visited about three weeks ago. Arguably the best museum I've been too. So much on display and so well laid out. Good grub too. Picked up your book as well Jonathan. The description of what a Bullpup is must have taken quite some time to put down on paper. As for the Hall of Steel at the museum, jaw dropping!
Did you get into the NFC below?
@@dogsnads5634no. That's prior arrangement in advance to collectors and researchers and the like.
Of course, now we have the Lee Mack. Very sharp shooting, somewhat volatile, and fast action, barely leaves time to breathe. Where we used to talk about a mad minute, now it's just...mad constantly.
That's fascinating. I've seen Lee Metfords before, but never these early British Lees.
The 1879 Remington-Lee actually saw limited adoption by the US Navy, and the 1882 version saw limited adoption by both the US Army/Navy as well
I have one of the Remington-Lee Army trials rifles in .45-70. They made up some 2,200 for testing. The action is a dead ringer for the first one he has here. After the US army declined his arm Lee left the US and went to the UK. BTW I shoot mine and it is a blast and always a crowd shows up to wide eyed "WTH" is that.
I’ve read that later Lee Remington models were available in .303. I don’t know how many, if any, were sold to British, but apparently a small number were sold to the Canadians for some small militia or something.
Elevating spoon sounds like an old British way of saying "magazine follower"
To get a lecture of this quality on youtube you had to rely on Forgotten Weapons,looking forward to many more.
The two channels complement each other nicely.
@@Stevarooni Yes they do.
Jonathan's book on British Bull pups is published by Ian McCollum's Headstamp Publishing. They've collaborated in the past too.
Forgotten Weapons is quality Ian has a measured delivery of well research materials and has been to the Royal Armouries in Leeds on numerous occasions. As mentioned before they complement each other.
How Jonathan get into my cellar,so often is scary.I wish.
Thanks Jonathan and team, it was really fascinating to see and learn about that pair of trial rifles.
I once owned an early Lee that had a small rising block that was operated by the bolt. It was in .45 cal.(maybe .45-70) Timing was tricky! I eventually sold it to Tom Bongalis who had it beautifully restored in his N. Vancouver shop.
Would love to see the Owen Jones as a comparison
The Guardian would have copyright on that rifle...🤣
Probably cry and storm off.
Jonathan has got to be the happiest guy in England, taking care of a collection like that
with the discussion on the ammunitions put forward for the trials, do you think we could get a video like this for ammunition development in the late 1800s through to the end of WWI?
That would indeed be interesting.
Would be really interested in this topic.
Really interesting prototype rifles. I wonder if there are many instances of alternate services, such as Navy, Air Force etc. instigating investigation or adoption of radically new small arms. In this case the British Navy is behind the initial investigation of the magazine fed Lee action. Another more modern example, the US Air Force is first to adopt the Armalite designed M16. On the surface it would seem that perhaps the alternate services are freer to take the risk of adopting radically new designs since the numbers of small arms are much smaller and the relative importance of rifles, pistols, etc. is reduced.
It was fairly common for Navy and marines (infantry stationed aboard ship, at the time) to be more keen on new rapid fire guns and new calibers than the land infantry. Reasons, in the day of gunboat diplomacy, being that they were more likely to find themselves outnumbered where firepower might be very useful. Also they can keep adequate supplies of ammunition as ballast in the ship, they're not carrying all their ammo for a campaign on foot on shoestring logistics so an unusual new caliber metallic cartridge is less of a problem.
He’s really good with explaining how all the weapons work
Excellent. more please!
Could the “elevating spoon” be the magazine follower?
I believe it's probably a pivoting cartridge elevator, sort of like in a Lebel, which is somewhat spoon shaped
@@richcatclipsofficial5098 that would be also my guess
It's for stirring our tea, silly.
Sounds more like a cartridge lifter or elevator, as others have already mentioned. The hopper magazine probably needed the cartridge to be lifted up into a position where the bolt could feed it into the chamber, and the Krag-Jørgensen way of doing that was already patented. So you'd need an arrangement similar to what is common with tube magazines, a mechanical elevator device.
This channel keeps getting better. Well done sir.
Thank goodness for the people that saved these firearms and all the documentation of the development.
Incredible to see from how far we have come.
17:48 Are there any other rifles that had their magazine cutoff set up this way?
20:16 Could the guessing game be extended to this channel's community tab, please?
"Thanks for watching everyone" No thank you Jonathan for giving the good ear feel
Is it me, or is the volume on this video really low? I have to turn my speakers and RUclips all the way up.
If anyone was wondering why its "Royal" Navy and just "British" Army. The Army lost its "Royal" status and warrants when Cromwell led them to side with Parliament in the English Civil War. Though some land force units retain their individual Royal names, the general Army does not ( units like the Royal Fusiliers and "Royal Highlanders" as well as the Household Calvary, in example ).
Interesting how often the RN was ahead of the curve. HMS Warrior, Dreadnought, the aircraft carrrier, or a bit smaller the Webley 455 semi automatic and Lanchester (well it helps if there's plenty of brass and hardwood to polish).
The RN was also the first navy to put the modern (internal-combustion-engine electric) submarine into service, the Holland 1.
@@jerry2357 And also demonstrated that with a bit of thought and engineering you CAN make air launched torpedoes run successfully in a shallow mud bottomed harbour. An unfortunate precedent given the present time of year.
Considering what you can achieve with one carrier and about 20 obsolete biplanes (scratch 3 x battle wagons plus the fleet oil depot) I've always though the IJN was positively wasteful (no offence intended).
They were a bog customer forearly Maxim's too, and other MG's. And guided weapons....although the RE got there first...
The Royal Navy also did early development of the tank.
@@clarivsmedia8697 Thanks, the good old Landship. And apparently brought the first armoured cars to the Western Front. As you know much AFV terminology was borrowed from the Navy - turret, deck, hull etc.
"Elevating spoon" sounds like a magazine follower to Me . Thanks Jonathan , as ever always Interesting .
Thanks 🙂😎👍
The Lebel Mle 1886 wasn't 'just around the corner' in 1882.
It was very much a rush job, after Poudre B was developed in 1884
Might have been a drawn out and in some ways excruciating experience, especially watching continental foes adopting small bore smokeless rifles whilst British trials continued but patience - or impatience - was finally well rewarded with a rifle that more or less served for 70 years (103 if you count the 7.62mm sniper variant). Very interesting and informative video as always.
And not only long serving but the SMLE and variants was one hell of a good rifle.
@@noele6588 What's a few years between friends?
You forgot to mention that J.P. Lee became a naturalized American citizen and then he started building his rifle to house his innovative magazine. It was Remington that made the first rifle for him to shop around and get sales.
Interesting fact . The Royal Navy was the first service to see action in WW1 equipped with both Long Lees and SMLEs and what looks like Lee Metfords in some photos at Antwerp in 1914 . The expedition forces , named after great sea captains , in their blues and puttees , failed to secure Antwerp against the overwhelming German forces , units having run out of ammunition. Some were captured many escaped to Ostend and other coastal ports to the south to be evacuated , or friendly territory . But the system had now really been tested in combat and proven more than capable .
The action was superb , the position and shape of the bolt allows the magazine to be emptied and fired in seconds by a trained individual by using the middle finger to pull the trigger and forefinger and thumb to rack the bolt . 30-40 rpm is easy to achieve . The lock up mechanism is an improvement over the Mauser front lugs as it permits easier extraction of a stuck cartridge and easier cleaning of a fouled chamber , both essential in warfare . This all adds up to a better rifle than the Mauser IMHO , and proven so in the trenches of WW1 .
In countries such as Britain & France, people would be suprised how many infantry weapons were either adopted or seriously considered by those countries' navy before the respective army equivilents were considered.
The US Navy adopted a James Paris Lee design as the M1895, in 6mm Lee Navy. It was a rather excellent straight pull design.
nice new vid
Is that a Leader above your left shoulder John? The Leader T2 being an indigenous Australian Assault Rifle that competed against the KAL (a local Bullpup adaption of the FAL), the Colt M16, the Steyr AUG & the Armtech C60R (a bullpup later known as the Bushmaster M17S); in Australian Army trials to find a replacement for the SLR ( what the FAL was know as in Commenwealth service). The Steyr won
why are you asking us jonathan?! youre the expert!
Any chance to see the Gardener and Greene rifles that were trialled against these?
The Gardner is a Mechanicall Machinegun (like the Gatling). It is sometimes called the Best MMG of all.
But that would be a cool video too.
@@carloshenriquezimmer7543 He also entered a rifle into the Trials, you can see a picture of it in C&Rsenal's video on the Long Lee, that was dropped because of his focusing work on his machine gun. The Royal Armouries site doesn't have a picture and a single sentence on the design and I'm curious to know more but can't travel to Leeds to visit the collection in person.
“Elevating spoon”was it the side mounted long range sight?
I’m intrigued as to why you keep certain weapons, how many of etc??? Do you aim for one of everything, one of each Mark/model???
They often go for weapons with interesting stories or specific relevance to history. They often have various versions of the same weapon but they may be a specific thing special about it. They'll have one on display in the museum and then have the others in the stores at the back, ready for any possible exhibits or for research.
It's not quite one of everything, but certainly one of every broad type has been the goal since at least the 1960s when the Pattern Room collection was greatly expanded with the intent of creating a technical and historical reference collection. It's now both this and a museum collection, so things with specific object history and other relevance.
Would I be correct in guessing that .45 Gardener uses a drawn cartridge case rather than a rolled one like .45 Boxer?
before the metford!
Talk to me about effective barrel cooling from a self cooling MG? I am a huge fan of the MG3 but it can only manage 200 rounds.
We were using the Cadet Enfield for at least drill in 2004 in the Sea Cadets and Marine Cadets
Thanks again Jonathan, thought the Lee Metford was the first.
Interesting, when I joined the Army in '68 we had the •303 Lee Enfield, a 100 year old rifle design, when I retired in '93 we'd had the SLR and had adopted SA80 neither of which was as good in my personal opinion.
praise it/blaze it brothers
An "elevating spoon" is Mumbo Jumbo when he's chuffed to bits. Sorry to hear he was broken.
There IS a 'safety' on early Lee rifles - they have a 'half-cock' safety behind the 'full-cock' sear notch which also locks the bolt closed. This persisted down thru the SMLE No.3 and I think also the No.4. This is addition to a separate flip safety on the bolt in some models and the left side safety on later models. The Australian Colonies tried to order about 50,000 .40 caliber Lee rifles between the end of the trials and the introduction of the .303 round, but there were no British manufacturers set up to make Lee rifles so they could not get any takers.
OK Bruce, pretend I said "applied safety" ;)
Used the 303 as cadet in the 80,s then the SA80 up to the LA2
Jonathan Ferguson was in Delta? Mind blown.
If I may, a couple of quick questions please? First is where is (if fitted?) the magazine release on these rifles? Second is I have a vague memory of hearing/reading that the first British magazine rifles had small chains linked to the magazine because the patronising highest ranks thought they couldn't be trusted not to loose the mag? (does that explain the small ring in front of SMLE magazines..?)
Me again - don't worry about the mag chain, Ian has just "shown me" one on his L-M/L-E carbine video along with a six round mag I've never heard of! (did you ask him to use his "powers" to show me..?)
Just a little note, Portugal adopted a Kropatchek magazine rifle (plus carbine and musketoon) in 8 mm Guedes, a modern small bore reasonably high velocity round, albeit still in black powder, a year before the Lebel was adopted by France. The Lebel copied the Kropatchek magazine system. The big step forward was adopting smokeless powder, with its higher chamber pressures. The Portuguese Kropatchek was flawed by having its locking lugs on one side only and not being strong enough to be later converted to smokeless powder.
Great video shedding more light on the rather complicated beginnings of the Lee Enfield. However your editor seems to have a very SA80 gun-designer's attitude to his trade, the second camera clearly wasn't set up correctly and, despite the top of your head being cut off, they still decided to intersperse some footage from it into the video.
"Sir I think we've got the machining tolerances slightly wrong."
"Will it still fit?"
"Sort of..."
"What are you worrying about then? Stick it in!"
Jonathan's background props are always better than Ian's background props!
Just look at that room, man I'd pass out just setting foot in there
@John Doe I think I know that feeling, or at least one similar. As a teenager c.1960 I went to the Imperial War Museum and came across a series of wall display units that appeared to show the entire history of the Lee-Enfield rifle, told in rifles !! The thing I learnt on the spot was that I knew very little about them before that !!
What is that grey/steel coloured rifle in the background to his right?
Looks like a leader t2
the MAK-1647
Its a Sterling SAR-87. It competed against the SA-80 for the British Army
U should review guns from golden eye
Maybe the magazine cut-off was originally on the left to make it harder for a panicking soldier to release it without an order. If he had had to change posture, it would have been easier for his officer or NCO to spot.
The US Navy adopted the 1879 Lee bolt action and the 1885 update in .45-70. So the USA did not reject Lee’s early bolt actions.
The US Army did reject the Lee-Remington. The USN orders were comparatively small fry.
Wasn't there a Remington Lee bolt action in .45-70???
What are the names of the two gun?
"Experimenta-Lee"
One word summary
ARX-160 Lecture please? I see it next to you...
What assault rifle is the one next to Jonathan, on his left side? I recognize the ARX160 but not the other one. Kinda SIG looking but am probably wrong.
Been asking about this, I honestly dunno. Would love it if someone knew.
Same question for me.
@@Retrosicotte it looks similar to a rifle I once used, the SIG SG 510. It's similar but not identical though
I thought it looked German, but was thinking heckler
The stock does not look quite right but best guess would be the Australian leader dynamics t2 but does not look quite right, though might be an early/prototype version. Alternatively to hedge my bet so to speak the carrying handle and lower bare a resemblance to the Sterling SAR 87. The problem is if anyone is going to have some strange prototype or early version its going to be the Royal Armouries so ID is difficult.
James P Lee became known for his invention in UK,though he came up with it in the US. Same as Borchardt did in his way also.
As we all know, if someone spends any time in the US and does something that anyone cares about in their life, they automatically become a possession of the US, if they like it or not. It's tradition. God bless America.
And the Northern Imperial Chinese Army adopted the Rem.-Lee 1883, with Diss Magazine, in Both .43 Spanish And .45/70, and in use in 1900 Boxer Rebellion ( Taku Forts, Tientsin).
Doc AV
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looks like 2 meters long each one... , but this ones looks really a good conditions.
Question: Why do some countries such as the USA retain older designs for ceremonial purposes but UK forces insist on using the latest? I dislike the SA80 - indeed all bullpup designs - when used for ceremonies such as Trooping The Colour. The drills were designed for longer weapons and IMHO don't suit the shorter design.
Because the Guards are combat soldiers not just ceremonial troops.
The Army does not want them to drill with a different rifle than they will fight with, to minimise re-training.
This are some big guns. Even he looks small.
Does anyone know where I can buy the shirt Jonathon is wearing?
Try Etsy. HKA3.
@@jonathanferguson1211 Thank you so much for the reply! Your videos are great!
The magazine cut off was pretty useless militarily. But I do like it on the range. Somthing about loading one shot at a time improves accuracy at least for me. Not that you need a mag cut off to load one round at a time in an Enfield.
The magazine cut off was useful when firing rifle grenades in WW1 & WW2.
@kevinoliver3083 not really it was just as easy to push the loaded rounds down with your thumb as you load the blank into the chamber. But in most cases, the guys with grenade cups on their Mrk3s would load the whole mag with blanks and be using the launcher as a primary weapon as part of the squad. Those ww1 grenade cups were not very quick to detach. The magazine cut-off was pretty much abandoned at the start of ww1. They stopped training for its use before the war, and while some rifles had them intact, they stopped producing rifles with mag cut offs early on in the war. And except for some Mrk 3 enfields in ww2 service that still had the cutoff intact non of the standard issue mrk4 rifles granad launching or otherwise had a cut off.
This entire video is just Jonathan acting like an eager kid telling their parents about their favorite toy
but can you make it a belt fed?
I'd like to see the Owen Jones
I don't actually think it's that ostentatious of Jonathon, as the keeper of Arms and Artillery, to retrospectively accurately name a rifle. Seems perfectly reasonable!
Well Tecnically the modern British bullpup Rifle is still an Enfield
Yes, although many were made at Nottingham and the design authority is now HK.
whats that funky rifle to the right of jonathan?
It literally looks like the BETA model of the SMLE No.1
I kind of think the reason why the navy is the first to test new things when is comes to small arms is that. when the navy thinks is time to dust of the rifles and use them in angree. Is when they are ni a bit of a pickle. with a few of them and a lot that realy disslikes them. Not like the army that fights in big units.
I would sleep there with a gallon of ballistol and pull throughs.
And you think I don't?
Don’t know if you’ll get to read and answer this question but have you got an Enfield Enforcer in your collection ?
the camera angle makes the rifles seem humongous compared to Johnathan
My WAG is the SAR 80 from Singapore, or a variant thereof.
Hmmm
not a fan of the new bouncing camera tbh ... but it was still interesting although I did find it distracting and annoying to get regular chin down side shots of neither you or the gun.
I love your presenting style and past videos just feel you don't need the gimmick as you can hold attention looking strait on or talking over shots of the weapons you share with us
just voicing my opinion
and not intended to offend
best wishes
History people: fascinating.
Gamers: what's that on the rack?
Look at that wet dream in the background. Oh my...
Who came here from Gamespot?
welcome!
You spelled armories wrong
And you punctuated it badly, so we're even.
No, “armouries” is the correct spelling in English.
@@jerry2357 Funnily enough, both spellings were listed in dictionaries as late as the 19th century, and 17th-18th century documents used both even on the same page. It was only in the later 19th century that British English standardised on the U spelling and American on the no-U.
700th like!
:)
Oh yes we did. The biggest government
you name the rifle Lee Henry. It's not a proper British rifle until you slap a few marks and stars on them....
Your game stuff was getting a bit stale. I can't wait for more stuff like this!
Hey, like an aging rock band, I'll keep doing it as long as the fans and record company want me to :)
is it true that police and military personel that are incompetent are punished by being assigned to protect those humans that abused me as a kid?
You forgot to mention that J.P. Lee became a naturalized American citizen and then he started building his rifle to house his innovative magazine. It was Remington that made the first rifle for him to shop around and get sales.
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