Would the British have ditched the Enfield for a Mauser type rifle?

[bruceflinch]

The design of the Enfield action & magazine is superior than the K-98. There are many reasons that the K-98 system became the sporting standard. The 1903 is a K-98 clone, a lot of commercial Mausers were made by many countries. The K-98 action is a more traditional rifle & is easier to sporterize. The K-98 can look very nice in a pretty chunk of wood.

I don't think the potential for "sporterizing" was ever a factor in any Military choice for a rifle.

[brianinca]

>>>
The design of the Enfield action & magazine is superior than the K-98
>>>

Not quite sure how to parse that, but it doesn't work very well in any sense.

The FRENCH invented smokeless powder for small arms, the 1886 Lebel was THE revolution in small-bore smokeless powder infantry rifles. The Mauser brought stripper clip loading to the party, a major improvement for sustained fire. The spitzer bullet design changed the ballistic rules for small arms.

The SMLE has a detachable box magazine that was never used so. It was a 10 rd stripper clip fed fixed magazine rifle, for British doctrinal purposes. The supposed advantages of a DBM never applied, that's just an AR mindset applied anachronistically.

The Mauser 98 action was substantially stronger, using the inferior metallurgy of time, than the SMLE or the Krag or any number of other rifle actions. When the high pressure/high velocity small bore rifle cartridges began appearing, the design strength limitations of the existing rifle actions became apparent.

The US had the Krags that broke with higher pressure loads - time for a Mauser 98 action. The UK had the SMLE's that broke with higher pressure loads - time for a Mauser 98 action. The 1903 Springfield, the P13/P14/M1917 rifles were all Mauser 98 derived. Shucks, the Japanese Type 38 was substantially a Mauser 98, steal from the best!

The Russians went their own way with the M-N and that design and caliber did very well by them. The 762x54R is certainly ballistically superior to 303 Brit.

After WWI and the massive investment in R&D the British did with firearms propellant, the SMLE got ballistically close enough to status quo at safe pressure levels and they knew how to make the SMLE in-house. The P14 had been farmed out to the US, which is why the M1917 came to be.

Both the P14 and M1917 were relegated to war reserve status, while the out of date SMLE and M1903 were retained as front line weapons. The later variants of both took 20+ years to incorporate the significantly superior peep sights of the P14/M1917, the No 4 series for the UK and the M1903A3 for the US.

With modern metallurgy, the Indians successfully produced 762 NATO variants of the No 1 Mk III in the Ishapore 2A/2A1 series. The SMLE action was good enough with better materials, and again, they knew how to make it.

I don't know that the UK would have gotten stuck paying patent license fees to Mauser as the US did over the 1903 Springfield, but it's possible that was an additional impetus not to keep the P14 design in production. The US had the money to pay the fees, the UK sure didn't right after the war was over.

The reason the UK kept the SMLE was Not Invented Here syndrome, along with a big dose of organizational inertia.

Regards,
Brian in CA

[SKSer45]

Well here is my two cents.

Einfield was nothing new or extraordinary during those days (pre ww1). Mauser set the table for designs and the world ate it up. Americans saw that during the Spanish-American war and realized the Mauser was a formidable foe and better than their Krags.

When WW1 The Brits brought the SMLE and struck fear into the Germans. 10 round mag, smooth action, etc.. and the Germans thought they were getting shot at by machine guns not bolt action rifles.

Now if the SMLE fell flat on its face I think the Britts would have wised up and switched over to Mauser Bolts (ie Springfield 03s, etc...) however the good old einfield proved battle tested and worthy.

I do agree with some of you saying the Mauser is a better and stronger design/build. As much as I am a mauser freak still think the SMLE is a better rifle due to its cycle, and slightly better accuracy (debatable). Then there is the .303 vs 8mm. All I can say is I wouldn't want to get hit by either lol.

Now you know why we should have a Bolt-action Tournament lol