Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we're going to take a look
at another element in the evolution of
the British service Lee-Enfield rifle.
Specifically today we're looking at the
Charger Loading Lee-Enfield.
This is in effect a modernisation of the original Long Lee-Enfield and Long Lee-Metford rifles.
And this took place starting in 1908 because in 1907 the British introduced
the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mark III.
What would eventually become known as the "smelly", the SMLE, the Number 1 Mark III rifle.
And the fundamental improvement that this rifle brought
was a fixed charger bridge for using stripper clips.
Well, the original Long Lee rifles had no way to use stripper clips,
they just hadn't been introduced at that point.
And this was something that in order to make use of the many
hundreds of thousands of Long Lee rifles that had been manufactured
and were still in stock, remember they ... started making Long Lees in 1889.
This is 1907, it's been less than 20 years, these aren't really that old of rifles
and it would be a real shame to just abandon them.
But it would also be really expensive to try and rebuild them into SMLEs.
Like, everything except the receiver kind of has to be changed.
And even the receiver has to be changed to add the charger bridge.
So what they decided to do instead was make a number of discrete improvements
to bring the rifles up to a modern standard,
where they could use the modern ammunition and the modern loading stripper clips.
And then these rifles could actually see quite a lot of useful service.
So let's take a closer look, and I'll show you all the little details that they did update.
The first place to look on these rifles is going to be the right side of the receiver socket,
because that's where we're going to find the original markings that were on the gun.
So this was originally made in 1901 by BSA,
and it was a Lee-Enfield Mark I* rifle.
On the opposite side
we will find the information about the conversion.
So the conversion was done by Enfield.
This is actually an extremely early one, one of the very first, this was done in 1907.
And it was converted into a ... Charger Loader Lee-Enfield Mark I*.
I'll have a separate video on this CLLE Mark I, that's kind of a weird different thing.
So these effectively are Mark I*.
Now the most substantial modification, the one
that gives this rifle its name, is the charger bridge.
So this was introduced on ... what would be effectively a Number 1 Mark III rifle,
it's a solid bridge that was added over the receiver.
Now this one, being a very early 1907 conversion,
has the very early version of the charger bridge, which is all square.
Shortly after they introduced these,
they actually reprofiled that charger bridge to cut a slant on it here.
... The SMLEs were being used by the cavalry,
and they found that the square edge would catch on a saddle bucket.
So they reprofiled it for the current production rifles,
but because the same parts that they were using for the ... brand new rifles
were also being used for the conversions,
that meant that these new profile charger bridges came into use for the conversions.
So we now have a charger bridge.
But in order to do that they had to substantially modify the bolt.
Here is what the original Lee-Enfield Mark I* looked like.
It had no charger bridge, but it had this big ol' dust cover along the bolt,
along with a couple of lugs to hold the dust cover in place.
So the dust cover was removed, the lugs were removed,
and the charger bridge put in their place.
Notice that the safety remained unchanged,
so the CLLEs still have the safety on the cocking piece.
The rear sights were also changed, and changed substantially.
The original Long Lees had this leaf sight
that was adjustable for elevation only, no windage.
And they wanted to both fix that and update it for the modern ammunition.
So this is the new sight that was used.
We have a tensioning screw here, and if we loosen that
we can then adjust the windage of the rear sight.
Which is nice to be able to properly zero the guns, as well as
perform proper long-range marksmanship with them.
... (Tighten that down so it won't move.)
In addition the graduations for ranges were updated.
Now when this was originally done they were updated for Mark VI ammunition.
A lot of those ... they went back and updated them again
for Mark VII ammunition a few years later when Mark VII was introduced and became standard.
Naturally if they're going to update the rear sight,
they're probably also going to update the front sight.
And they did a couple of things here.
They added a pair of front sight protector wings.
Note that these are just clamped on.
There's a screw that runs through them, right there, so that the wings could be removed.
Certainly that made them easier to install.
And they also changed out the front sight to ... basically the same front sight blade
that was being used on the new production Mark III rifles at the time.
So in addition to being windage zeroable, because this can be drifted back and forth,
this is also a nice, square, front sight post.
As a reminder, here's the front sight from an original Long Lee,
it is not windage adjustable, and it is a barleycorn style of front sight, so a tapered post.
So with these new sights you got the same sight picture that ...
troops were getting on the brand new rifles. And that also helped in training.
New magazines were also used that no longer had any fittings
for being chained to the front of the receiver,
and updated to the most modern pattern of magazine.
In some cases, some of these were older Metford guns
that potentially still had 8 round magazines,
in which case there was really substantial modification required
to fit the new, wider magazine
and adapt the handguard and the trigger guard
and all of those components to match them.
Now in addition to the Charger Loader Lee-Enfield Mark I*,
there was also the Charger Loader Lee-Metford Mark II.
And you can see that this was originally converted as a Metford Mark II.
These guns are essentially identical to the [Enfield] I*s.
Having been converted from Metford rifles
... there were some different original parts that were used.
Some of the Metfords still had Metford barrels.
When they got towards the end of this conversion process
at the beginning of World War One, ... frankly, they ran out of barrels.
And the difference between Metford and Enfield rifling
just didn't make a difference for this conversion.
It didn't affect the zero, it didn't affect the sights, didn't affect the magazine.
Sure, it would have had a ... reduced barrel life,
but with this sort of conversion they weren't necessarily expecting to do a lot
of shooting with them, and ... the Metford rifling just didn't matter.
Now it appears that when these rifles were actually being issued out for use,
which would have been at the beginning of World War One,
they went back in and over-stamped them.
And basically they re-stamped them
to have the exact same designation as the Charger Loader Lee-Enfields.
So what they've done here is what originally said Roman numeral II,
they've stamped out one of the digits and added a star, so II becomes I*.
They ... crossed out the "M" and added the "E",
so this is now a ... Charger Loaded Lee-Enfield I*,
identical to the previous rifle we looked at.
One other thing that I want to point out here.
You will find markings on a lot of these rifles up on the top side of the left receiver socket.
Those are refurbished dates: when the guns were rebuilt.
So it's not uncommon to find more than one there, just for reference.
I should also point out that when the rear sights were replaced
the volley sight dials were also recalibrated,
and they will be marked "CL" for charger loader.
... This one's pretty faint, but that's what it says right down there.
So the volley sights are properly calibrated as well.
Most of these conversions were done in 1909 and 1910, but they did start in 1908,
and they did continue until 1913 or 1914.
And at least 300,000 of these rifles were so converted.
They would see use for many decades after that, obviously they had some use in World War One.
A lot of countries in World War One would
bring back and kind of update some of their older service rifles
so that ... basically they could free up rifles to go to the fighting front.
The British did that, and then they continued to do it
all the way through to the end of World War Two with these guys.
They would see use as reserve rifles,
they are sometimes called the "Territorial Model" because of that reserve and territorial issue.
They were also used as training rifles, because why not?
Wear and tear on this is better than wear and tear on a brand new modern rifle.
So they are an interesting - potentially fairly confusing - version of the rifle.
And hopefully you guys learned something today and enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.