Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgottenweapons dot com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm here today at the Rock Island Auction Company
taking a look at some of the guns that they're going to be selling in their upcoming September of 2017 firearms auction.
Today we're looking at what I would argue is the best sniping rifle of World War I.
although it just barely got in at the very end of the war, kind of like the MP 18.
Now this is a Pattern of 1914 Mk. 1 W, or WF or WT.
We'll get to the distinctions between those two a little later on.
So it's a Pattern of 1914 rifle which is very much different than the No. 1 Mk. III SMLE
that the British used in very large numbers during the war.
In 1915, when Trench warfare really was getting going, the Germans had a distinct
superiority in terms of sniping. They had better equipment. They had better trained guys, and just
doctrinally they were more willing to engage in it.
This left the British a bit unhappy,
and the British set about developing their own sniper program and by the middle of 1916,
they had done so very effectively,
and arguably by that point, the British had the upper hand and the Germans would never really get it back.
The British started doing a number of things really well: They were working in two-man groups--sniper and spotter teams--a
technique that we would continue to use to this day. They equipped their teams with actual telescopes,
or spotting scopes, instead of just field binoculars--the Germans tended to just use binoculars--The British
observational equipment was more effective, it made it easier for them to spot targets
but,
the British didn't really have... well, they didn't at all! - have a sniper's rifle in inventory at the beginning of the war.
So, when they decided that they wanted to pursue sniping on a an
institutional scale, they had to come up with the gear. And so what they initially did in 1915 was [they] purchased almost
3,000 telescopic sights off the commercial market. These comprised a wide variety of different brands and makes and models and
magnifications...
Just... They bought up literally almost everything they could find in the British Isles to mount on rifles.
And then they proceeded to develop a mount--or a series of mounts--there are a bunch of different variations
for the No1 MkIII SMLE Lee-Enfield rifle and
unfortunately, someone in a position of authority had the bright idea to offset the scope to the left of the bore. now
Now, theoretically I'd
assume the idea--the rationale--for this was so that you could continue to use stripper-clips and load the rifles quickly. However,
for a sniper that's not really that important of a thing
You'll see for example, the Germans center-mounted scopes on their Mausers despite the fact that that prevented them from using
prevented them from using stripper -clips. It didn't matter. A sniper can just load a couple rounds at a time and
having the scopes offset created a lot of problems for the actual snipers. On the one hand, you know that
at a just very fundamental level, if the scope is not centered over the bore you're going to have a variation in your windage as
the range changes.
So, the most common thing apparently for British snipers with those scopes to do, was to actually
zero the rifles with a couple inches of offset, so that they knew they would hit,
say, two inches to the left at any given range, and then they could just hold off.
The alternative to that is if you zero it so that you actually hit directly on target at one specific range
you're going to hit to the left at any shorter range,
and you're going to hit to the right at any greater range. And that makes for all sorts of range estimation issues.
One of the other problems that was the result of these side mounted scopes is something pretty specific to WWI.
Although actually, in a weird way, it kind of applies to some of today's
competition shooting even.
And that is they have these steel loophole plates that, they call them basically protective shields, with a
little, small hole in the middle that you could observe or shoot through. Well,
the hole was the size of the front end of a rifle, and
if you had an SMLE with a side mounted scope if you put the muzzle through the hole
your scope was set off to the side and all you got was a very up-close view of the steel plate that you're hiding behind.
So they had to work around that.
Now, by 1918 a lot of these issues had been realized.
In fact, before 1918 the British had set up sniping schools. They were starting to really get some institutional expertise and
they finally in--actually in 1917--
came up with a specific rifle design for the snipers. [and] It was based on the Pattern 1914.
This was deemed to be a much better rifle than the SMLE for sniping for a couple reasons.
It had front locking lugs, the SMLE has rear locking lugs, which were considered more reliable. Front lugs are more accurate.
The receiver of the SMLE was considered too flimsy or too
flexible when it came to mounting a scope because it hadn't been designed with that in mind and
"cludging" a scope mount on the side wasn't
that great of a solution and the barrel was deemed to be too lightweight to make for an appropriate, effective sniping rifle.
On the other hand, the Pattern 1914 rifle addressed a lot of these issues. This rifle had originally been designed for a
substantially more powerful cartridge. The .276" Enfield cartridge
priorly in
1913, and so it was kind of over-built for .303". This meant the receiver was well suited to mounting a scope on because it
was already heavier than it needed to be. The barrels on these rifles were heavier than those of the SMLE,
and just in general it was a more accurate and higher-quality rifle,
particularly the ones made by Winchester.
I should point out all of the p\Pattern 1914 guns were made under contract in the United States by a couple different companies
Eddystone, Remington, and Winchester. The British particularly liked the Winchester production, and when I said that this is a
1914 MkI "W," that W specifically indicates that it was Winchester production. When this rifle was
originally developed for the snipers what's interesting is it didn't actually use a scope.
The initial version of the precision sniper's rifle based on the 1914 Pattern
actually had a fine adjust peep sight. The British really liked the aperture sight on this Pattern
1914 rifle. The only problem with it, and the reason why it was rejected as a precision rifle earlier in the war
was that the elevation
adjustment options were too coarse. It just had--you had adjustments for hundreds of yards--
and that was it. What they developed on this was a finely adjustable sight that actually had one m.o.a.
increments in a really cool little mechanism that I'll show you in just a moment.
Later on that was adopted in November of 1917. In
April of 1918, this 1918 Pattern scope was formally adopted and the British government ordered
2,000 of these complete, scoped, sniper rifle packages to be built.
However, by November [1918] when the war ended, only just a few of these had actually made it into frontline combat use. So I
would say it's definitely the best setup sniper rifle of the war. The P 1914 or in U.S. service, the Model of 1917
rifle is the best bolt-action rifle of WWI. This scope is
durable... it fits. Well, it just kind of does everything right in a way that a lot of the hodgepodge
commercial scope setups for that were used earlier in the war really didn't.
However, just barely in use at the end of the war. Now that being said, this did serve as the standard British sniper rifle
after the war. In the early 1920s when the British went through and kind of assessed
their needs for sniper rifles and what they had in inventory,
they realized that they had a bunch of these that were
standardized and effective and very nice, and then they had just a wild mix of components and mounting types of
SMLEs. So what they ended up doing in the 1920s was
scrapping the SMLE snipers ... you know, tearing them down, putting the rifles back into service, surplussing the scopes, and
standardizing on this Pattern of gun going forward. They decided they needed about 3,000 of them, so that's what they kept in inventory.
Those brass fittings just look really awesome, don't they? A couple things we can look at here on the side:
We have the rifle's serial number right here, W241879
typically on a
1914 or
1917 rifle that would be located on the top of the receiver.
But of course, the top of the receiver on this one has a big old scope mount bolted to it.
So the serial number was remarked here on the side where it would be visible.
That same serial number is of course also on the bolt handle there.
When the right was assembled by BSA that number was also marked on the scope.
There's your broad arrow British property mark as well as proof mark on the side of the receiver.
The scope Mount that was chosen for this is a detachable type. That was actually very common during WWI.
It was pretty typical for guys - for snipers--to carry the scopes
in a separate pouch or carrying case to protect them, and then you'd mount the scope when you needed it.
To remove this we're going to flip this lever 180 degrees open and then the scope lifts out the back and
has two claws in the front that fit into this mount. So the scope comes off very nice and easily.
We'll take a closer look at the scope in just a moment.
But first, I want to show you the rear sight because this is the fine
adjust rear sight that was first adopted by the British in 1917 as a sniper's weapon.
This little knob is your fine elevation adjustment, and you can see that there are three little lines marked on it.
Rotating one line's width, or 1/3rd of a revolution, is a one minute of angle change.
And that was--that was very specifically and very deliberately done, and that's one of the few instances of a really kind of a modern
amount... a modern level of precision in a WWI-era
sniper rifle. It was much more common to have a bullet drop compensator built into the scope so that you'd have adjustments only by
raw range. The British recognized that finding fine adjustment like this really didn't matter.
And so that's what they developed for a precision iron sighted rifle. Really pretty cool.
To put this in context,
when accepted into military service this rifle and scope
combination was expected to be mechanically capable of one and a half minute of angle.
Meaning a one and a half inch group at 100 yards.
Now the snipers themselves in actual practical fire were expected to be able to make a three minute of angle group.
So a three inch group at 100 yards.
That's a level of accuracy that a lot of people today would just scoff at,
however,
shooting a 3-inch
at a hundred yards from field conditions with a World War I rifle is a lot more difficult, and I think a lot of people
give it credit for. [Sic, than I think a lot of people give it credit for]. I think it's valuable to recognize that that's what the standard of sniping was in World War I. [A 4-moa "rifleman's standard" could hit a 20-in. wide target at 500-yds, ex.]
You may also look at that and go "well geez if they're shooting a three minute of angle group at 300 yards
That's a nine inch group at 400 yards
You're not really capable of, say, making a headshot" and that's quite true.
There are a number of documented British sniper
discussion or writing down the history of the sniping program in the in the war, and they talked about the rifles basically being used at
300 yards and in for precise shots, and that we're talking about
you know, shooting fleeting targets in the trenches that were visible [only briefly],
shooting at enemy loopholes, that sort of thing. Really within 300 is where they were shooting. The scopes were actually zeroed at 200 yards,
which is a range that really kind of makes perfect sense. That's even where we zero a lot of rifles to this day.
Looking at the scope
this is an oldest pattern of scope adopted as a model of 1918. It offers three power magnification.
It is not windage zero-able, but that has to be done a windage adjustable,
it would be zeroed at the factory, and then it is elevation adjustable based on this dial mechanism.
So this also gives you a BDC.
You can adjust this out to a thousand meters
and this also allows you to zero the scope to wherever it needs to be and then you can loosen the screws and
reposition the BDC dial so that it is at least reasonably accurate.
Now being one of the rifles that was assembled in the 30s this scope has a BSA
[Birmingham Small Arms] crossed rifles logo on it. The wartime production ones would not have this and they would have a marking to be something like
"assembled or manufactured by the Charismatic prism company." We do have a model of 1918 mark on the back end of the tube, there.
This whole assembly including the mounts weighs in at under a pound at fifteen and a half ounces--
so a little under half a kilogram.
Not that heavy actually, which is a good thing because the pattern 1914 rifle was a pretty heavy rifle to begin with.
Lastly this "f f" in a circle is a mark indicating
use by or possession by the Irish Free State, which is also indicative of this rifle being one of the ones manufactured in the 1930s.
Which makes sense.
Finding a completely kitted out and proper WWI-era sniper rifle is a challenging proposition.
Having one that is---knowing the provenance of this batch that were built after the war
And then we know that they were all surplussed into the
U.S.really does explain
how a rifle in such nice condition
can be still extant today.
Now the scope here is...
well, it has its limitations. This is obviously a WWI-vintage scope
or, a WWI-vintage design. You can see the crosshair
there is a heavy vertical post and a fine horizontal post. This scope has a pretty pretty short eye relief
so you'd have to have your your head very close to the scope see through it properly. It also has a very small eye box,
which means
you have to have your head in just the right place in
order to properly see through the scope and if you wobble very much at all as I kind of am with the camera here
you start to lose
part of the sight picture.
All that being said, this is still a fantastic setup for World War I, and
I think any sniper in the war on either side would have been quite happy to have access to one of these rifles.
Having shot a 1917 as as well as a bunch of SMLEs and No.4 Enfields
I totally agree with the opinion of Julian Hatcher that this was the best bolt-action rifle of WWI, and
with this scope setup. I think it's it's a pretty clear
clear victor for the title of "best sniper rifle of World War I" if
we accept it being a WWI sniper rifle, since it was just barely adopted by the end of the war.
This particular one is in really nice
shape which is largely explained by the fact that it's a post-war built done and not one that actually had to go through the war and
then another hundred years of service life before arriving here on this table.
So if you would like an example of the primo sniper rifle pattern of World War one if not
actually from World War One,
take a look at the description text below you'll find a link there to Rock Island's catalog page on this rifle
That will have their pictures and their description and their price estimates, and if you decide you like it
You can place bid on there on the telephone or on their website or come here and participate live in the auction. Thanks for watching