Lee Enfield Bolt

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FarmerMike

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I've been trying to buy a Lee Enfield for a while and have noticed a difference in some of the bolts. Of course, all of the bolts are bent down, but some bolts are bent back in the middle of the bolt, and some bend down, and are then straight. I'll show you guys in these pictures. And information on the bent bolt version would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :) Top picture is of the bent, bottom is of the straight.
 

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The top picture is a Lee Enfield 1914 or 1917, with the dog leg bolt handle.

The bottom picture is a Lee Enfield #1.

I like the bottom one better. It is the pure form Enfield design.

I have both BTW.

-TL
 
The top rifle is an Enfield rifle, not a Lee-Enfield.

The Lee-Enfield rifle was designed by James Paris Lee, an American, and the design was adopted by the British as a service rifle in 1888 as the Lee-Metford rifle, then the designation was changed to the Lee-Enfield rifle when the design of the barrel's rifling was changed in 1895.

The Enfield rifle was designed by the Enfield armory in 1910, adopted for trials in 1913, and accepted into service in 1914. It is essentially a Mauser copy. Unfortunately, there was a smallish dispute that erupted on the European continent about that time, and the primary contractor could not meet demand so the British went to war with what they had, the Lee-Enfield rifle mentioned above. The Enfield rifle was never adopted as a general-issue rifle after the war due to many influential people thinking there was no more need for new weapons after the war to end all wars.
 
I trust others will correct me if wrong, but I've never heard of the Pattern 1914 Enfield being designated as Lee Enfield, or called a variation of the Short Magazine Lee Enfield. When the Pattern 14 was adopted and went into production, James Paris Lee had been dead for 10 years. The Pattern 14 is modified mauser design and very different from the Lee Enfield. About the only thing that I can figure out that the SMLE and the P14 have in common is that they both cock on closing.

Oh I forgot, they're both chambered for the .303 british cartridge. But even that may not be technically true. The P 14 was a modification of the Pattern 13, which was developed for a new 7 mm, rimless cartridge (the .276). Unfortunately the exigencies of WWI put an end to that new cartridge, and the british then chambered the new rifle for the 303 british.
 
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Well, I stand corrected! I am not very knowledgeable on this particular rifle. Thank you for the information! So I'm guessing the "dog leg" bolt was an earlier design...correct?
 
I too stand corrected. The pattern 1914 or 1917 is enfield but not Lee enfield.

The dog leg actually came later.

-TL
 
No, the "dog-leg" bolt belongs to the British Pattern 14 or US M1917 Enfield rifle, not the Lee-Enfield.
 
No. As Scorch said, the Lee Enfield #1 (not the Lee Metford) was adopted in the 1890's. The Pattern 1914 was adopted in 1914, and the .30-06, US Model (model, not pattern) 1917 was adopted by the US in 1917.

Of course those are adoption dates by the military and not the manufacturing date of any particular rifle. My Canadian, Longbranch Arsenal, SMLE #4 was manufactured in the 1940's. My P14 was made by Winchester, but has a Remington bolt. Obviously, it is not totally original.
 
Well what I meant to say was this, "So the dog leg bolt was an earlier design on the ENFIELD(not Lee Enfield)" Early in my mind being before WWII. But I understand now. Thanks everybody for all of your help! Any more interesting information about this rifle is welcome!
 
no. the lee enfield(and lee metford) design remained the same essentially from the 1800s through the WWII and beyond. the Pattern 14 was a design that was supposed to replace the lee enfield shortly before WWI because somebody decided that Brittain needed a rifle similar to the mauser(since that's what virtually everyone else was using at the time). the pattern 14 was based off a number of different design features incorporating mauser type bolt and magazine styles but upgrading sights, using a dog leg bolt handle to increase rate of fire(notice that the bolt knob falls directly above and behind the trigger where most mausers do not) and of course, using the existing 303 british cartridge. the Pattern 14 was kindof dead on arrival. great Britain was already engaged in fighting WWI by the time the P14 was ready for service. the P14 was actually made by US arms companies and few were actually paid for and delivered. the model 1917 was a solution for the low number of available service rifles for US troops which was essentially a P14, rechambered to 30-06(few minor differences, but cosmetically the same). after the brits made it through WWI with just their enfield number 1 rifles, they decided to just stick with what works and modified the design into the number 4 and 5 rifles.
 
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The confusion comes from mix 'n match naming of 2 totally different rifles.
The "Enfield" in both "Lee-Enfield" & "American Enfield" (P14, M1917 rifles), comes from the place that initiated the design of both, "The Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield Lock" in England.

British practice was to hyphenate the designer & the factory to create the name. Thus Lee-Enfield, Brno Enfield (BREN) & so on.

The Lee-Enfield is one design, made by James Paris Lee, & the "American Enfield" is a different Mauser copy. I don't know of a single interchangeable part the only commonality was the location of the factory, so if you want a dog-leg bolt handle in .303 get a P-14, not any Lee-Enfield.
 
also keep in mind that there are a number of different lee designs.

the Lee Metford(all photos from wikipedia)
1920px-Lee-Metford_Mk_II_-_AM.032034.jpg

the Lee-Enfield number 1
1920px-Short_Magazine_Lee-Enfield_Mk_1_%281903%29_-_UK_-_cal_303_British_-_Arm%C3%A9museum.jpg

the number 4
Lee-Enfield_No_4_Mk_I_%281943%29_-_AM.032027.jpg

and the number 5
Jungle_Carbine.jpg


that pattern 14s and M1917s are misnomers, Enfield had nothing to do with the production of these rifles, that is why they were called the Pattern 14 rifles and US Rifle 30Cal Model of 1917.
 
AS you seem to prefer the "American Enfield" design there is a bit more information you might find useful.

The P-14 (pattern 1914) Enfield is chambered for .303 British.

The M17 (US M1917 ) is chambered for the more common 30-06 round.

*edited to appease perfectionists who have difficulty reading*
Both the P-14 & the M 17 have the same bolt dogleg, although the bolt bodies are different lengths. Both of the "American Enfield" models look similar except in minor detail differences caused by the cartridges being differently dimensioned.
 
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hey Scorch the Lee Enfield was developed a By scotsman, James paris Lee , who emigrated to Canada then to the USA , the cartridge and rifling was developed by a fellow , William Ellis Metford , in a town near London called , Enfield ...Just the facts ma'am just the facts :-)
 
Please reduce the size of your pictures. A 1920 x 807 will take forever to load this page for a member on dial up.
As mentioned, the top rifle isn't a Lee anything. It's a Pattern 14 or Pattern 17 depending on the chambering. The former being .303 British, the latter .30-06. Totally different bolts.
The other picture is of a No. 1 Mk III Lee-Enfield. It is not the same thing as a No. 4 Rifle other than the chambering.
If you need a bolt for a No. 1, you will also need a full set of headspace gauges(about $25 each) and a handful of bolt heads(about $30 each, complete.). You CANNOT just install a bolt. Whether it's bent or not is irrelevant.
 
people still use dialup?

the OP is not looking for bolt O heir, he is looking for an enfield and noticed there were different styles of bolts based on the colloquialisms and misnomers which he has heard in reference to two different rifle families.


I own a M1917(sometimes called the american enfield or pattern 17 rifle) they are great guns. whether it is better than a lee-enfield type rifle is debatable. my first military surplus rifle was a Savage made number 4, it started what will likely turn out to be a life long love affair with milsurps. I got great deals on 303 british ammo so I will likely have a couple decades worth of shooting and then several decades of reloading after that so ammo availability is not a concern for me(although 303 brit is pretty common in every corner of the world). the lee-enfield and other based designs use 10 round detachable magazines while the P14 has a 5 round magazine and the 1917 has a 6 round magazine. the Lee enfield is lighter, and shorter than the P14/m1917 rifles making it better suited to hunting and such. but if you compare the enfield number 1 to the P14 and M1917, they have much better sights than the number 1.

both rifles are cock on close which is an odd concept for many shooters to get used to who have never used it. all modern rifles, and most military surplus rifles use a cock on open action where the act of lifting the bolt handle for cycling cocks the firing pin. with cock on close rifles, the firing pin is cocked manually by the shooter by closing the bolt, so the last inch or so of forward motion has spring loaded resistance while the firing pin spring is being compressed and the pin is being cocked. the brits liked it and thought that it helped increase the inherent rate of fire, whether it's true or not I'm not about to get into but after shooting enfields for a long time I just love COC actions, Arisakas, Enfields, swedish mausers, M1917s, they're like Pokemon... gotta catch 'em all.
 
I like coc too. I believe it does help higher rate of fire. However it doesn't make any real difference the way I shoot. I don't do rapid fire; ammunition is too expensive.

-TL
 
The British always held that there were two major advantages to cock on closing.

First, much more of the energy applied to the bolt handle worked towards extracting the cartridge from the chamber. Not normally an issue, but if the case were damaged, or the chamber dirty, or the round was an overpressure, it could make it easier to get the round cleared.

Second, the sight picture was better maintained because far less force was needed to lift the bolt handle. When the cocking stroke was made, however, it was applied in a straight line (not rotationally as in a Mauser), meaning it was far easier to maintain the shooting position and the sight picture.

I've grown quite fond of cock on closing actions, having owned a Lee Enfield and an Arisaka.

But, I'm not so sure that C.O.C did all that much to help rate of fire as compared to the overall design of the Lee Enfield, specifically the rear locking bolts and the extremely smooth action that resulted from that.
 
Agreed.
A part of it was the ergonomics of the design (although I don't think the term had been invented as such yet).
The positioning of the bolt handle is different from the Mauser design & that allows the hand to naturally assume a more versatile position in relation to the trigger.
The dogleg of the P-14 & M1917 was actually created to move the relationship between the bolt knob & trigger to where it was on the Lee Enfield action.
 
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