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Lee-Metford Mark I/II: The Lee-Metford is a 303 calibre, box magazine fed, bolt action repeating rifle. The bolt action was designed by James Paris Lee of Illion, New York and substantially improved and perfected at Enfield. It utilized
a box magazine system also developed by Lee coupled with a barrel and rifling system invented by William E. Metford. The Lee/Metford/Enfield combination began the long line of successful rifles, continuing into the 1990s. At the
time of it's adoption cartriges used were loaded at with black powder. A smokeless cartridge was introduced in the early 1890s, however it was found that the Metford rifling was unable to tolerate the heat and pressures
developed by the later smokeless propellents. A new rifling pattern was developed by Enfield and this began to replace the Metford with the adoption of the Lee-Enfield in 1895. The period of the Lee-Metford magazine rifle (adopted
in 1888) overlapped the service life of the last of the Martini-Henry's ( Mark IVs). In the late 1880s the British were studying repeating rifles as well as searching for improvements to the Martini-Henry. This led to the adoption,
perhaps prematurely, of the .402 Martini-Enfield in 1886 as an "improved" version. But the soon expected Lee-Metford, in .303 calibre, would have created logistical nightmares and the Martini-Enfields were withdrawn and
the bulk of them converted to Martini-Henry Mark IVs. The most notable feature of the Lee-Metford is it's detachable box magazine which could be loaded, either detached or mounted, initially with up to 8 cartridges and later
with as many as 10 cartridges. The rifle has a two-piece stock, the butt of which is screwed into a receiver ring mounted below the bolt handle and at the back of the trigger guard. There is an indentation on the right side of the
stock just above the magazine to aid in grasping the magazine cut-off located just above it. Generally, a crown, V.R., year of manufacture and mark are found stamped on the right side of the receiver ring. The rifle has both
a safety, on the cocking piece, and a half-cock bolt position. The entire bolthead and bolt body is protected by a dust cover. Rifling is Metford segmental of seven grooves and is comparatively shallow. On the left side of the
forestock is a long range sight (volley sights) in the form of a dial with a revolving pointer extending back, which, when rotated counterclockwise, rotates upward and is used in conjunction with a circular hole in the aperture
sight which is raised to its upward position. The rifle was also fitted with a handguard which covers the barrel between the receiver and sight. The MKII has a ten round double stack magazine, whilst the MKI and MkI* (to which
almost all MK1s were converted) has an eight round single stack magazine. The MKI has a safety mounted to the side of the action like the SMLE, the MKI* has this removed . |
