Pattern 1913 Enfield
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| Rifle, Pattern 1913 | |
|---|---|
| Type | Service rifle |
| Place of origin | UK |
| Service history | |
| Used by | UK |
| Wars | Did not enter service |
| Production history | |
| Designed | c.1913 |
| Number built | ~1200 |
| Variants | Pattern 1914, Model of 1917(US) |
| Specifications | |
| Cartridge | .276 inch (7.0 mm) |
| Caliber | .276 inch (7.0 mm) |
| Action | Modified Mauser turn bolt |
| Rate of fire | Manual, as determined by skill of operator |
| Feed system | 5 round, clip fed reloading |
The Pattern 1913 Enfield (P13) was an experimental rifle developed by the British Army ordnance department in the early part of the 20th century to serve as a replacement for the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE).
[edit] History
During the Second Boer War the British were faced with forces equipped with the Mauser Model 1895, in 7 x 57 mm caliber. This smaller, high-velocity round prompted the War Department to develop their own "magnum" round in 1910, using a .276 calibre rimless cartridge patterned after that of the Canadian Ross rifle. A modified Mauser-pattern rifle, the P13, was designed to use it, although the outbreak of World War I led to the abandonment of the effort to introduce a smaller caliber rimless cartridge for purely practical reasons. Adapting the same rifle (with largely cosmetic alterations aside from chamber and extractor redesign) to fire the standard .303 British round led to the Pattern 14 Rifle (P14), a competent design fed from a five-round internal magazine. Effective mass production in Britain during WWI was impossible, and so the P14 became a de facto afterthought. Thus the SMLE remained the standard British rifle during WWI and beyond.
The lack of industrial capacity led the British government to contract with US commercial arms manufacturers: Winchester Repeating Arms Company, Remington Arms and Eddystone (a non-governmental arms manufacturer owned by Remington Arms) who produced the P14 in .303 for the British Army before the United States entered the war in 1917. When the US entered the war, the P14 was modified and standardized by the US Ordnance Department and went into production at the same factories as had produced the P14, production of that rifle having ceased, as the Model of 1917, commonly M1917 Enfield, chambered for the standard US 30-06 cartridge and enjoyed some success as a complement for the Springfield M1903 rifles which were America's official standard issue, soon far surpassing the Springfield in total production and breadth of issue.
Some P13s survived as target rifles in the UK, often having been "sporterized" (removal of wooden handguards and shortening of the stock). Very few were produced, and so very few survive.
