Enfield 1917 Rifle Full Production Capacity#
Enfield 1917 Rifle Plus Manufacturing Capacity#

The M1917 Enfield held five rounds of. They weighed nearly 10 pounds, featured 26-inch barrels, and an overall length of 46.3 inches. While many of us may think of bolt action rifles as light hunting rifles, these guns were from that. M1917 Enfields were very robust guns.

The movieвЂ™s climactic scene helped cement the SpringfieldвЂ™s mystique with generations of military firearms collectors, history buffs, and re-enactors. In the process, the former conscientious objector from Tennessee drops 25 Germans with 25 shots, many fired from his trusty 1903 U.S. Click for more infoIn director Howard HawksвЂ™s 1941 film classic, Sergeant York, then-Corporal Alvin York, portrayed by Gary Cooper, single-handedly knocks out more than 30 German machine-gun nests and, with little assistance, captures 132 enemy soldiers. There is light damage to the wood with a small chip missing on the left side next to the receiver. This Model of 1917 Enfield rifle has been sporterized and is in very good condition.

Nice Eddystone rilfe for your collection or to shoot. Weapon of the war and armed more Description: WW1 Eddystone Model 1917 US Military Enfield Rifle 30-06. World War I rifles.13 The Eddystone Model 1917 was the most prolific U.S.

Although some confusion persists about which rifle York carried during the battle, in his diary he wrote: вЂњWe got to France at Le Havre. It seems more likely that York achieved his stunning feat of arms carrying the less-well-known but more widely issued U.S. No import marks.Inspiring as the film was, York probably did not use a Springfield rifle on that October day in 1918 during the Meuse-Argonne offensive.

Army troops in the Spanish-American War were inferior to the 1893 Mauser rifles that the Spanish troops carried, the Army adopted the U.S. Having concluded that the Krag-Jorgensen rifles used by U.S. The Pattern 1917 bayonet cannot be fixed to the Lee-Enfield rifle (because of the.How did York wind up with a British gun? The explanation involves American ingenuity, productive capacity, and lack of preparedness for entry into the Great War.

American troops instantly loved the rifle for its butter-smooth action and tack-driving accuracy.Even so, the Springfield suffered from one serious weakness: limited production. Based on Peter Paul MauserвЂ™s bolt-action rifle design, the Springfield proved short enough for cavalry use and long enough for infantry use, and fired the new 30.06 service cartridge that matched or surpassed the performance of any standard military cartridge in the world. Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Another 160,000 of the old Krags in. Army had 600,000 of its superb Springfield rifles in 1917. Lack of sufficient quantities of war materiel in general and infantry weapons in particular hampered preparations. Army embarked on a 30-fold expansion, growing to roughly four million soldiers in just over a year.Training and equipping so large a force quickly enough to enter the war before Germany overran the French and the British appeared insurmountable even for the United States. When Congress declared war on the Central Powers on April 6 and later implemented military conscription, the U.S. Army mustered roughly 127,500 officers and men, fewer men than PortugalвЂ™s army.

Even if these weapons were suitable for combat, their incompatible parts and calibers created a logistical nightmare.The Army clearly preferred the 1903 Springfields, but only two factories had ever produced the rifle. 303-caliber Canadian Ross rifles that, if improperly assembled, occasionally launched their bolts into the shooterвЂ™s face. For training purposes, the Army purchased 1891 Russian Mosin-Nagant rifles in 7.62 X 54 mm and roughly 20,000.

Enfield 1917 Rifle Full Production Capacity

The Pattern 14: An Aborted Replacement for the British вЂњSmelliesвЂќThe War Department considered issuing contracts to commercial firearms companies to produce the Springfields, but quickly rejected the idea. The United States was fast creating an army without rifles. Unfortunately, much of the arsenalвЂ™s skilled work force had found employment elsewhere, delaying the plantвЂ™s return to full production capacity. As tensions mounted between the United States and Germany, the Rock Island Arsenal reopened two months prior to the American declaration of war. The other facility, the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, also possessed the machinery necessary to produce Springfields, but the War Department had closed the plant in February 1914.

The British based their experimental rifle on the Mauser action, just as the Americans had, and developed a high-velocity, high-pressure. Germany had long used the rimless 7.92mm in its service rifles, and the American adoption of its rimless 30.06 inspired Great Britain to consider replacing the SMLE with a stronger bolt-action rifle chambered for a more modern, more powerful cartridge. 303-caliber, rimmed, smokeless cartridge that had served the Royal Army as standard issue since the 1880s. Affectionately nicknamed вЂњsmelliesвЂќ by British troops, the Mark III Lee Enfields, first issued in 1907, were chambered for the. In 1913, Great Britain had begun experimenting with a weapon to replace the Short Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) rifles issued to their army. A better option appeared when fully equipped factories with trained workers became available at exactly the right moment, though not for producing Springfields.

For the time being, the old вЂњsmelliesвЂќ would have to do, but the British government doubted its ability to produce these in sufficient numbers. 276-caliber cartridge posed problems of rapid barrel erosion, exceptionally loud report, and bright muzzle flash. Adopting a new infantry rifle and cartridge seemed an impractical use of Great BritainвЂ™s limited resources. Britain faced the same problem the United States would confront three years later, expanding its small peacetime army, equipping it, and deploying it on the battlefield in time to defeat Germany. World War I-era arms, left to right, include the 12-gauge shotgun with bayonet attached, American Enfield, and Springfield rifles.The Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock produced 1,000 of the new rifles for tests, but abandoned the project when Britain entered the Great War.

Enfield 1917 Rifle Plus Manufacturing Capacity

Despite rising production costs and delays occasioned by on-site British quality inspectors, the U.S. The Pattern 14s differed little from their experimental predecessors aside from their. To this end, Great Britain turned to the United StatesвЂ™ surplus manufacturing capacity.The British government issued contracts for the production of the new rifle, designated the Pattern 1914, at three American plants: Winchester Repeating Arms of New Haven, Connecticut Remington Arms Company at Ilion, New York and RemingtonвЂ™s plant at Eddy-stone, Pennsylvania.

American production of the Pattern 14 became unnecessary, and the British government canceled the American contracts. More importantly, BritainвЂ™s accelerated SMLE production satisfied the Royal ArmyвЂ™s needs. 303 cartridge proved perfectly adequate for modern warfare, and the standard Mark III Enfield not only functioned reliably but also held twice as many rounds in its detachable box magazine as GermanyвЂ™s 1898 Mauser.

Now the United States found itself with three fully operational factories capable of producing a modern infantry rifle and seeking a buyer for their goods. 303-caliber British model. The Ordnance Department had already considered adopting the Pattern 14 as an alternate infantry rifle to supplement the Springfield, but did not want a rifle in the. Rifle Model 1917The cancelation could not have come at a better time for the United States.

The only real difficulty involved parts interchangeability. 276 cartridge in mind, the Pattern 14 boasted an exceptionally strong action perfectly capable of accommodating the high-pressure American cartridge. American soldiers, armed with Model 1917 Enfield rifles, attack during the Second Battle of the Marne, in July 1918.Modifying the Pattern 14 to fire the 30.06 cartridge proved simple enough. With one brilliant administrative decision, the Ordnance Department solved the ArmyвЂ™s rifle shortageвЂ”or so it seemed. The otherwise identical rifles would be chambered for the 30.06 cartridge and the new rifle adopted as the U.S. Rather than retool commercial firms and train a workforce to manufacture Springfields, a lengthy task at best, the Ordnance Department decided to purchase American-made Pattern 14s with one key modification.

Although the initial runs of 1917 rifles from Winchester suffered from this problem, the rifles eventually enjoyed 95 percent interchangeability, a satisfactory rate during wartime.By February 1918, the three plants combined produced over 7,000 of the 1917 Enfield rifles daily for the princely sum of $26 per copy, half of what the P-14s had cost to produce. This threatened delivery schedules and complicated repair, but desperate for weapons, the War Department issued contracts for the new rifleвЂ™s production.