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I enjoyed this video and thought I would share it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cQlkysHjwY AK-47 The only Communist Idea that Liberals don't like. | ||
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I saw that episode on TV, one of a the very few things worth watching on the box. Frank "I don't know what there is about buffalo that frightens me so.....He looks like he hates you personally. He looks like you owe him money." - Robert Ruark, Horn of the Hunter, 1953 NRA Life, SAF Life, CRPA Life, DRSS lite | |||
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Fine rifle that the M98 is, and possibly the best sporter, I suspect the humble Smelly made a better rifle for general warfare. The slick cock-on-closing, 60-degree back-locking bolt, 10-shot magazine, handier safety, a full-wood muzzle that stopped it being pushed so far into the mud, all made the ugly old SMLE a better combat arm. Mauser's superior distribution probably had something to do with them selling to nearly every country not in the British Empire. The P14/M17 Enfields were, of course, military improvements on the Mauser but, except for sniper use, inferior to the older Enfield, which was the simplest, fastest shooter until self-loaders came in. | |||
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A good summary of the smelly but forgetting one thing, it also had a massive rear stock retaining bolt and thick brass butt plate which gave it an unbreakable ability to smash heads in at one end while shooting or bayoneting with the other. A truly great battle rifle if ever there was one. | |||
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Nah The SMLE was a left over design from the days of black powder. The empire was too poor to switch to a better design until after everyone else had autoloaders. The rear locking bolt leaves the chamber open to mud necessitating those canvas covers. The Brits had to make the chambers ridiculously oversize to make sure they would function. The magazine was not flexible enough to use an updated cartridge. That would have made little difference though since the action is too springy and flimsy for a more modern high pressure cartridge. Don't kid yourself about bayonets and buttstocks. The way to kill someone is with firepower and bullets.
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You may be right about the bolt/mud thing, SR4759, but at least it was happening somewhere you might see it. You'd think the bayonet-style lock-up of the Mauser would just keep pushing mud out of the way but I know a rude bugger who, if you ever show him one, somehow pokes a finger in to see if the lug recess is clean - so he may not agree. Yes, the SMLE design was left over and out of date, its survival to WWII and beyond largely a social response to disgust of war after the first one. Yet, like the people who rose to the occasion when needed, it worked. True, the cartridge was not the P13's 7mm magnum or even the .30/06, but modern warfare did not pan out the way turn-of-the century designers had expected. Speed of fire turned out to be much more important than extreme ranging for most purposes, and that can be seen in the eventual move to the .308 and .223. So, as you say, firepower is the way to go - if you can carry, deliver and afford it. Someone once asserted that the US fired a ton of bullets in WWII for every enemy soldier killed, but I find that a little hard to believe. The rim of the .303 did have a handy obturation aspect in the Enfield and the action could, for one shot, take a higher pressure than the Mauser - though the latter has a safer way of telling you the game is up. | |||
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I remember reading somewhere (and I wish I could remember exactly where) that of the standard rifles used by the US (1903 Sprg although I read they had more P17s), the BE (LE No1 Mk III although they had some P14s) and the Germans in WWI, the US fought with a target rifle, the Germans with a hunting rifle and the BE with a battle rifle. The old LE's were pretty decent battle rifles - difficult to jam up, headspace easy to adjust at the QM stores 10 rounds in the magazine ..... Having said all that I think they may well be collector's pieces, but I don't want one. -- Promise me, when I die, don't let my wife sell my guns for what I told I her I paid for them. | |||
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What? Not correct. Britain had intended to didtch the SMLE in 1913 with the introduction into service of the Mauser inspired .276 rinless calibre Pattern '13 (aka in 30-06 the US's Model of 1917). But as WWI began in 1914 the Pattern '13 and its cartridge was abandoned to be then re-born as the Pattern '14 in .303 calibre and made at Eddystone and Winchester. As it was too late to change the civilian and military factories over once war had begun. But yes, Britain did plan to ditch the SMLe in favour of a Mauser design as it had learnt the lessons of its "last" war the Boer War and thought that these would apply to a war in Europe also. They were to be shown to be wrong. Subsequently WWI was to prove that the SMLE was supererior for actual war use than the long Mauser used by Germany. Even Hitler shortened the Gewehr 98 to give the Kar 98K with its shorter barrel. The continued use of the SMLE wasn't economy it was just that with ist shorter throw and ten round magazine it worked better than anyone else's bolt action design...despite the throwback rimmed .303 round. Rather it was the impoverished USA that bastardised the ten shot .276 Garand to give the eight shot Garand in .30-06 as it couldn't afford to ditch it stocks of .30-06 ammunition. The Garand would have been a better combat rifle as a ten shot .276 than an eight shot .30-06 as all other things being equal at practical combat ranges magazine capacity is paramount. Lastly how exactly does mud get into the breech or locking lugs of an SMLE when the action is closed? It's big flaw however was the nosecap that added weight in the wrong place and at the same time anchored the bayonet NOT to the strongest part..the barrel...but to a nosecap that could and did break off if the bayonet was used too aggressively. As was a known problem thus the change to the design on the No4 to a barrel mounted bayonet. | |||
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My country gal's just a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still. | |||
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Thanks for posting that link. Paul Smith SCI Life Member NRA Life Member DSC Member Life Member of the "I Can't Wait to Get Back to Africa" Club DRSS I had the privilege to fire E. Hemingway's WR .577NE, E. Keith's WR .470NE, & F. Jamieson's WJJ .500 Jeffery I strongly recommend avoidance of "The Zambezi Safari & Travel Co., Ltd." and "Pisces Sportfishing-Cabo San Lucas" "A failed policy of national defense is its own punishment" Otto von Bismarck | |||
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Yes, it's a great link and I'm sorry to have take the conversation away from it. And in case I didn't make it clear, I love Mausers - and have sporterised two military ones in .30/06. I love the '06, too, (had three of them) the only calibre above .22 I've ever gone back to. As to SMLEs; never had or wanted one, though I've considered making a double rifle with the barrels. | |||
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