[ CLLE Mark I Naval ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we're taking a look at
kind of a weird British Enfield conversion.
This is a Charger Loading Lee-Enfield Mark I,
or CLLE Mark I.
And what's weird about this is it actually post-dates the Mark I* version.
... These were done, as far as I can tell, specifically for the British Navy,
and they were done in 1911 and 1912.
The Mark VII ammunition ...
(all of the different marks for different things are going to get a little confusing here, so stick with me),
Mark VII ammunition, which was the spitzer, low weight, high velocity,
really the final iteration of .303 British ammunition, this was adopted in 1910.
The Navy still had a lot of Long Lee rifles.
Because naval use was one of the places where the Long Lee had been kind of pushed to
as the Short Magazine Lee-Enfields were ... brought into standard Army service.
The Navy had less need of the most modern equipment when it came to small arms.
Anyway, the Navy has lots of Long Lee rifles,
but they want to be able to use the modern Mark VII ammunition in them.
So they arrange for a conversion to adjust the sights to use the new ammunition,
and also to add charger bridges so that they can use the stripper clips
that this new ammunition is often packaged in.
The Long Lee as originally produced didn't use stripper clips,
so you had to reload the magazine one round at a time manually.
So again, what makes this weird is that this sort of conversion, adding charger bridges,
started in 1907 as the Mark I* for Army and other use.
But the Navy, and this is a poorly documented conversion in the British List of Changes,
no one appears to have been able to find when it was actually authorised.
They only found references to it kind of retroactively.
So with that as an introduction, let's take a look at exactly what they did to the rifles.
Because they did an extra special thing to the charger bridges here
that they didn't do on any of the other conversions.
If we start by looking at the right side of the receiver socket,
we'll see the original manufacturing information on this rifle.
It was made by BSA, it was an 1894 production gun.
And it would have been a Lee-Metford Mark II, or Magazine Rifle Mark II, originally.
Switching over to the other side tells us that in 1910
LSA (London Small Arms) converted this into a Charger Loading Lee-Enfield Mark I.
Now the most significant change, the one that gives this rifle its designation,
is the addition of the charger bridge here over the receiver.
And that allows the rifle to use stripper clips, which
... in its original Lee-Metford configuration it would not have been able to do.
However, at the same time they also had to remove the dust cover.
As originally built, the Lee-Metfords and the Long Lee-Enfields had this full-length dust cover
over the bolt, and that is not compatible with the use of a charger bridge.
So the dust cover had to come off, as did the two lugs that held it on.
And of course you can see that that is gone here.
The safety is retained, the safety out on the cocking piece.
So there is no safety over here, where you would expect it on a modern Lee-Enfield.
And then you'll notice that there is a notch here in the charger bridge.
That notch is required to ensure a clean line of vision through the sights,
because these are a little bit lower than on the standard
Charger Loading Lee-Enfield replacement sights.
You'll notice there's a little "HV" stamp there, that is for high velocity,
and that indicates that this is a new rear sight leaf
that is calibrated for the Mark VII high-velocity modern ammunition.
And if you look at the original Lee-Enfield here,
this goes up to 17 on this side, and right at the very top it has an 1,800 yard mark.
On the high-velocity guns the trajectory is a bit flatter,
and so we actually go up to 19 over here.
And along with the original style of rear sight,
they kept the original front sight without any modification.
Because they didn't change the style of the rear, they didn't have to change the height
or anything here, and so they just left them alone.
And this is in significant contrast to the much more common
land service Charger Loading Lee-Enfield conversions,
where they put a whole new style of windage-adjustable rear sight on,
and a whole new style of front sight, including protective wings.
The Navy did not opt to do any of that.
As you might suspect, not a lot of these rifles exist any more,
so it's really cool to be able to take a look at this one.
It really is kind of this weird offshoot of what is otherwise
a relatively standard and understandable update pattern.
So if you haven't seen it already, I would recommend that you take a look at my video
on the regular ... Charger Loading Lee-Enfield conversions,
because those are the more common ones.
And they're ... better rifles, they made a bunch of additional updates
they didn't do on these, and had a better end product as a result.
But this remains a really cool example of what the British Navy was doing,
probably as a sort of stop gap measure, just before the outbreak of World War One.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.