In our continuing series on the development of the British Lee Enfield rifles, we are looking at the CLLE conversions today. In 1907 the British adopted a new universal short rifle (the SMLE) that used charger (aka stripper) clips. Previous models of the Lee in British service had to be loaded on...

In the aftermath of the Boer War, the British military needed to address critical issues of practical marksmanship with its troops. The Long Lee rifles it had deployed to South Africa suffered significant problems in making real-world hits on the battlefield. In addition to investing in better mu...

When the British adopted a new high-velocity spitzer bullet for the .303 cartridge, they had to update their rifles to use it. Specifically, the sights had to be recalibrated for the flatter trajectory of the new MkVII ammunition. In addition, the sight picture was changed form a barleycorn front...

When the SMLE was adopted by the British, it was to be the new universal rifle for all branches of service, including the Royal Navy. This suited the Navy just fine; they like the features of the new design. However, the Army quickly moved to update their rifles for the new MkVII Spitzer ammuniti...

In 1907, the British adopted the final major pattern in the evolution of the Short, Magazine, Lee Enfield. Designated the ShtLE MkIII (Short Lee Enfield) at the time, it would be retroactively renamed Rifle No1 MkIII in the 1920s. This new design was simpler and more durable than its predecessors...

The British entered World War One with a technically excellent rifle, with lots of bells and whistles. By 1916, the war was taking a previously unimaginable toll on the industrial capacity of the Empire and rifle production had to be economized. This led to the adoption of the MkIII* pattern of t...

When the British began developing a shortened version of the No4 Lee Enfield in 1943 (which would become the No5 MkI "Jungle Carbine"), the development process included work with some rather older rifles. What we have here is a 1922 production No1 MkV rifle cut down as a trials prototype for the ...

In the years after World War One, the British military wanted a new machine gun, and they wanted it to replace both the Lewis and the Vickers. Through the 1920s the British would tinker with most of the light machine guns that became available, but it was not until the early 1930s that a serious ...

The British lost some 90% of their stock of Bren light machine guns in the disastrous Dunkirk evacuation, and in the following months rushed to rearm. Part of this program was a two-tiered simplification of the Bren design. First was a MkI Modified Bren (which was not marked any differently than ...

When the British military transitioned form the .303 British cartridge to 7.62mm NATO in the 1950s, it replaced the Enfield rifles with the new L1A1 SLR (the FAL) but retained the Bren gun as a support weapon. The Bren was updated to use 7.62mm, in a process more complicated than most people woul...

Patented in 1868 by Colonel G.H. Money and Mr. M. Walker, this rifle was one of the 10 finalists in the British breechloading rifle trials of 1868. It is a simple falling block system with an internal hammer. In the second set of trials, it proved to be middle of the pack in rapidity of fire (20...

How does one keep a flintlock action reliable in wet, riany weather? Well, let’s have a look at a flintlock shotgun designed specifically to be waterproof! This is a Joseph Manton shotgun from about 1815. Manton was not the only smith making this sort of waterproof action, but his is a fine example…

There were probably less than a hundred of these Pryse-Patent break-action .577 revolvers made in total, and this one has managed to maintain an excellent nickel finish. Pushing approximately a 400 grain bullet at about 725 fps, these 5-shot revolvers were made as last-ditch “stopping” guns in ca...

The Boys Anti-Tank Rifle was adopted by the British military in 1937, and remained in production until 1943 when it was replaced by the PIAT. During that time more than 114,000 were made, both in the UK and in Canada. Canadian engineers at the John Inglis company devised a number of improvements ...

The L2A3 Sterling submachine gun was a staple of British and small arms after World War Two, until the L85 rifle was adopted. Designed by George Patchett during the war and produced by Sterling, it is a simple and economical tubular open-bolt, simple blowback gun. It uses a very compact folding s...

The first handguns issued by the North West Mounted Police (which would later become the modern RCMP) were 330 Adams revolvers, requisitioned by the new police service in March 1874, and shipped over from England. Upon their receipt in July of that year, the Mounties were dismayed to find thoroug...

The Sten Mk4 was developed experimentally in 1943 for use by British paratroops. It used a remarkably awful folding stock along with a shortened receiver and barrel to make a very compact package - albeit one that must have been very uncomfortable to shoot. Several different models were made, wit...

Yesterday we looked at the mechanics and the history of the Sten Mk4(S), and today we have it out at the range! The very short barrel and its porting reduce the velocity of standard 115gr 9mm ammunition below the speed of sound, and so the gun is very quiet. To my surprise, the complete lack of c...

Hiram Maxim’s hired shop supervisor was a man named Louis Silverman. He was a skilled engineer, who was treated rather poorly by Maxim, and whose contributions were systematically understated. One of the most interesting projects Silverman partook in was the design of a self-loading pistol in 18...

Once Lee-Metford rifle production was in place, the British began working on a carbine version of the same action for their cavalry. In 1893 a trial run of 100 carbines were made, and today we are looking at serial number 32 of that batch. These carbines differ in several ways from the ultimately...

I am excited to have a chance today to take a trip to the range with a proper, factory L85A1 rifle (it's in the United States as a post-1986 dealer sample). I had a chance a while back to shoot one of these in the U.K., but I only had 10 cartridges to work with at that time. Today, I have several...

The Vickers company developed several versions of the Vickers machine gun for aircraft use during the 1920s and 1930s, but they also worked on armored vehicle versions of the gun in the 1930s. Between 1930 and 1936 these were adopted by the British military as the Mk IV through Mk VII guns, but t...

The stalwart No1 MkIII "Smelly" served the United Kingdom well during the First World War, but by the 1920s it was growing obsolescent. The war had revealed a number of shortcomings of the design, and in the interwar years the British developed a replacement. The main issues that the new rifle wo...

Accuracy International's L96A1 was a stunning success in British military trials, and became the basis for one of the most respected line of precision rifles in the world. However, it very nearly was abandoned almost as soon as the first rifles were delivered to the British military in 1986. Prod...