Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we're going to take a quick look
at the evolution of the rear sight on the Number 4 Mark I British Lee-Enfield rifle.
So I have a selection of Number 4 Enfields here out of the batch
that Inter Ordnance has imported out of Ethiopia,
and they will make a fine set with which to show you this change in development.
So, this is one of the main improvements, in my mind, of the Number 4 over the Number 1 Mark III rifles.
This aperture sight I think is fantastic.
You have a nice big ghost ring style of aperture, which is calibrated for 400 yards,
(yards indeed, the British didn't switch to metric until after World War Two),
so 400 yards, and then if you want to make a precise shot
you can flip the whole assembly up, and you have this micrometer adjustable,
much smaller diameter precision aperture.
This micrometer is in 50 yard increments from 200 all the way out to 1,300 yards.
It's a fantastic sight.
And it is an integral part of what makes the Number 4 Mark I a really nice rifle.
Now, in 1941 as these rifles were being adopted, this was the standard rear sight.
And it was used in all production, and it continued to be used going into 1942. But,
by 1942 this had turned into ... a choke point in production,
especially for American production at Savage.
This was the limiting factor. There were rifles that were ready to be assembled,
they had all the parts except rear sights.
And basically across the dominion it was impossible to supply rear sights as fast as the rest of the rifles.
So the British government ... decided to look for a way to simplify the rear sight
to allow rifles to go through production and be produced with something that was still usable,
even if it wasn't quite as nice as this.
And so in 1942 we got the Mark II rear sight.
It is the same axis pin, attaches in the same way,
but instead of having this adjustable long range leaf, it just has two fixed apertures.
So, where the original was 400, this is now set for 300, and this one for 600, those are again yards.
And by the way, interestingly, the short range one, 300, is calibrated for having the bayonet fixed on the rifle,
where the 600 is calibrated for having the bayonet removed.
Because presumably you wouldn't be taking a precise long range shot at 600
if there are guys close enough that you might need to stab them with the bayonet.
So, this is the Mark II rear sight that started appearing in 1942,
and would ... continue to be used on rifles into 1943.
However, this was not a permanent solution, it wasn't intended to be.
This was only supposed to be a stop-gap of,
"What can we produce really quickly ... to maximise rifle production?
While ... in a separate engineering lab we've got someone developing a simplified rear sight
that does allow for long range adjustment."
And in the late fall of 1942 they got that simplified rear sight.
Well, more complex, simplified rear sight.
And that took the form of the Mark III sight, developed by BSA.
It looks the same, basically, as the original Mark I, and it has the same basic set of functions.
You've got your short range, this is in fact a 400 ... yards battle sight,
combined with a smaller, precise aperture, that can be adjusted from 200,
if you want to make a precise shot up close, out to 1,300 yards.
The difference with this sight however is that all the parts are stamped construction.
So, you can see that the battle aperture here is the same part, it's the same stamping,
as this top leaf, just the battle sight's been bent up.
The slider adjustment is its own stamped part,
even the little squeeze button there, the lever, that's a stamped part.
And this became the wartime standard rear sight that would be used from '43 until '45.
Interestingly, after the war ended, they continued Number 4 rifle production after the war,
and they went back to the Mark I, all milled, rear sight.
In addition, once these became available ... and I should mention, there was also a Mark IV sight
that is almost identical to this, ... it's got a new spring design for this little squeeze lever.
And the lever itself is curved slightly inwards so it's less likely to snag on things.
The Mark IV is just a slight improvement, simplification, an iteration on the Mark III sight there.
Now, once the Mark III became available they were available to troops in the field, to armourers in the field,
and a significant number of rifles that were originally issued with this Mark II L flip sight
were upgraded in the field to use this new model.
So ... just because the rifle has this doesn't mean that it was originally shipped with it.
That's relevant if you are trying to confirm like that your rifle is in the proper configuration.
If you look at the dates, these weren't developed until '43, but you will find them on 1942 rifles
that were originally shipped with these, but then later updated.
There is one other little detail here that I want to take a moment to explain, and that is
the marking on the Mark III rear sight there.
This one's a little faded, but you can see it's stamped "Mk II". And that's not a mistake.
The reason I think is quite bureaucratic.
The idea was what they're stamping Mark II is the leaf itself, this long piece.
And so you had the first one that was milled and that was the Mark I.
The L flip sight doesn't have one of these parts, so there was nothing to have any designation.
And so when we got to the third iteration of the sight,
it was actually the second iteration of a long leaf like this,
and thus the leaf itself is being stamped Mark II.
Why they thought that that was relevant or necessary, I have no idea. But that is the
... rather roundabout explanation of why your Mark III rear sight is actually stamped Mark II.
There was, as I said, the Mark IV sight. That is, of course, stamped Mark III - for the same reason.
So, there is today's little mini-lesson on the development or the evolution of the Number 4 Enfield rear sight.
And it's a cool thing to take look at, from the original nice milled,
to the temporary emergency sight,
to the simplified and more economical to produce stamped version.
It's not that common to find this sort of part evolution on an Allied country's rifle,
we see it much more on German and especially Japanese rifles.
So, hopefully you guys enjoyed this little look.
Thanks for watching.
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