Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, I am here today at the Rock Island
Auction Company taking a look at some of the guns
that they are going to be selling in their upcoming
February of 2017 Regional Auction.
And today I have something that's not even a gun,
although you might technically call it a needle fire rifle.
Which is totally not what it is.
This is a Swift training rifle.
This was introduced in 1940 or 1941, I've been unable to tell exactly,
in the UK as a training device, as the name suggests.
Now, most of the time we expect training rifles to be
dummy rifles to teach general handling and parade sorts of things.
Or something like a sub-calibre rifle, a .22 rimfire version of the military rifle,
so that you can practice shooting without as much noise and recoil.
Well, the Swift rifle actually kind of falls in between those two.
What it actually does is poke a little needle about an
inch out of the muzzle when you pull the trigger.
This was paired with a target stand,
and the rifle was actually held so the muzzle was just like an inch away from a paper target.
And this paper target would be about yea big.
And they had a couple of different types of targets, some were just plain silhouettes
like you might expect on a standard training range.
And some of them were actual drawn landscapes with little enemy soldiers hiding in them.
And the idea of this is that this rifle replicates the weight
and the function of a standard Enfield bolt-action rifle.
And when you pull the trigger, wherever your sight picture is lined up
you'll get a little hole poked in your paper target.
And this allows you to train marksmanship.
So on paper this seems like a pretty good idea.
It's got a bunch of neat features to it, it's a cool device.
So a couple things: it's got a safety like a Lee-Enfield, cool, OK.
Sight picture, it's got a rear aperture like a Lee-Enfield, cool.
... I should say, this ... physically looks like a Pattern of 1914 Enfield,
It was used interchangeably for the 1914 Lee-Enfield and the Number 4 Mark I Lee-Enfield.
Anyway, it's got a bolt that you have to operate in order to re-cock the system.
And in a clever little bit, if you don't pull the bolt all the way back, it won't re-cock.
This is to, in theory, prevent people from one of the potential problems of a bolt-action rifle
which is short stroking it, so you don't quite eject the last round,
or you don't quite load the next round. It's a problem.
Then it has a spring-loaded butt plate back here.
The idea there was this actually acts as a safety, not for the sake of safety,
but to force trainees to get in the habit of pulling the rifle back up against their shoulder.
That's another habit of novice or brand-new shooters is thinking,
"Well, if I hold the gun a little bit away from my shoulder, the recoil won't hurt as much."
When in fact it makes it hurt a lot more,
and it does horrible things to your actual shooting ability.
So, you want to pull the rifle tight in against your shoulder.
And this forced trainees to do that, again on paper seems pretty cool.
The sight picture on these is actually pretty good.
The length is obviously the same as a proper rifle, and the weight is the same as a proper rifle.
So they did a good job replicating it.
The problem was the army soldiers, the officers, who ... were presented with these and
basically, "Check it out, here is our great new training tool,"
found this to be far more of a prank and joke than an actual training tool.
To them the whole idea was pretty ludicrous, and they're not necessarily wrong.
On paper this seems like a really good way to teach
some of the basic fundamentals of marksmanship
without having to have any noise at all, without any expenditure of ammunition.
And it's something you can do in any room, you could do this in your living room, easily.
You need a space about the size of this table, frankly,
and you can set up a "training range" with a Swift training rifle.
However the question is, does this actually give you any useful training material?
Does this actually help people when they transition from this to actual rifles?
And while I haven't seen any data on the question, the officers in the British Army
were pretty much unanimously of the opinion that this didn't do anything worthwhile.
In fact what this was really good for was a hilarious prank where you could
shoot your friend in the bum with that little needle that sticks out the end of the gun.
Hopefully they didn't transmit too much hepatitis B
or anything with these things while playing jokes on each other,
but that seems to have been more the utility of this rifle than actual training.
So let's take a closer look at a few of these details,
because while, well, it may not have worked the way it was intended,
it really is a cool idea, and it appeals to the nerdy side of me.
So we'll start with this plaque on the side, which does identify it as a
Swift Rifle Company, Swift training rifle, right there. Serial number is 654 on this one.
So the Swift rifle was designed to mimic the Model of 1914 Enfield,
although it was used for training on the Number 4s as well, because they're pretty similar.
The manual safety is right here.
On the Number 4 same kind of safety, but it would be on the other side.
So this is fire, that's safe, and in the safe position obviously it doesn't fire.
So we'll put that in the fire position.
Then to cock the action, just like regular rifle I'm going to go ahead and open it.
And you do have to pull it all the way back.
So right here it's going to hit a little trip, I need it all the way open,
now it will actually function.
When I close the bolt it gets to here, and then we're going to cock the spring.
Because just like a real Enfield, it's a cock on close action.
The buttstock here has this spring-loaded safety mechanism.
There's a hole in the stock here, this one actually has a retaining pin,
so that you can push this in, put in the pin,
and lock it in the fireable position should you want to do so.
Here's the rear sight, it is zeroable for windage.
Because it is, of course, very important that you actually zero these rifles.
You want to make sure that the needle is hitting the same place that the sights are pointing at.
So you would loosen this little hex nut.
You've got a screw there, and that just allows you to wind this sight left and right as necessary.
Now the front sight is actually located on the band here,
because of course we've got all of the moving components up front.
So there's the front sight.
And then the working bits are all inside this metal shroud.
There is a view inside, we basically have a track with that needle riding in the track.
Let's take a look from the front.
So it's a little hard to see, but right there is our needle.
Right there.
There you go, now you can see it.
That is going to spring forward and up on a little track,
and poke a hole in the sheet of paper when you pull the trigger.
So it's a little hard to show you the actual sight picture here, what with
focal length issues and all.
But you can see our front sight blade there on the middle band.
There's nothing sticking up inside that front housing.
And then we've got our rear aperture here,
so you're going to line that up like so.
Take your shot, and then see what happens on the paper.
Alright, so we're going to go ahead and demonstrate this, I've got a piece of paper here.
I have to hold it kind of steady, or else it'll just push the paper around.
But if my assistant would pull the trigger.
And there we have our nice fake gunshot.
Now you do have to be within a very specific distance of the paper target in order to hit it.
As you can see, that needle doesn't come out very far.
That's what this hook on the bottom of the rifle is for.
This was actually connected to a bent steel rod
that came out here and connected to your target frame.
It would allow you to move the gun around freely, and it didn't hold the gun steady,
but it did limit exactly where the muzzle could be
so that you would be close enough to always get a nice hole in the paper target
when you pulled the trigger.
So there's the needle actually stuck all the way out.
You can see that it's actually ... it's quite a needle there.
You don't want to get shot with that thing when you're not expecting it,
which was probably the primary use of this thing.
But it's just brazed onto this little guide, runs on a track,
and it's going to run in and out of the muzzle once when you pull the trigger.
[ Note - this should have a second parallel needle, ... That ... allowed the instructor to see if the trainee was holding the rifle vertical ... ]
So there were several different versions of the Swift rifles, ... the design evolved a bit.
But this Model B really does showcase the idea of the whole project.
And this particular one's in pretty darn good condition.
It certainly seems to work very well. I've dry fired it a number of times on pieces of paper
and it does exactly what it's supposed to.
And, while it may not have worked as the developers intended,
I think it's really cool to look at the intent of this,
and how it was designed to meet that intent.
Whether it turned out to be practical or not.
So a cool addition. You know, I can certainly see myself setting up a little A-frame
and making some paper targets, and playing with this thing right at home. I think it'd be a lot of fun.
If you'd like to try it out yourself, check out the description text below.
You'll find a link there to Rock Island's catalogue page for this guy.
It is batched with a number of actual rifles all as a single lot package.
So if you want to take a look at the other guns, and all the pictures
and the estimated prices and all that sort of thing, take a look at that link.
You can place a bid right there online if you're interested in buying it yourself.
Thanks for watching.
[ Targets and other images from: Rifleman.co.uk. They have a great article on the Swift trainers ... - the link is in the description text below. ]