Heavy rifle, but it soaks up the recoil very nicely...and the fastest firing bolt action rifle there ever was. A 10 round detachable magazine helps that out too, and it's decently powerful. The strength is pretty much between 30-30 Winchester and 303 British, so it's a fine hunting rifle aside from all the history of it!
The soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force were able to fire these rifles so quickly and accurately that German soldiers thought they were under machine gun fire.
Sights are very nice for an open notch and post and well protected. It shoots 5 shots into a group slightly less than 4 inches wide in my less than skilled hands.
Which really ain't so bad. Gotta figure then, at 500 meters, that would be an 18" group...well enough to hit a human sized target, which is what it was made to do.
End result? Fine piece of our history...powerful and accurate battle rifle, looks great on display, effective for hunting...And isn't that bayonet awesome?
5 comments:
Dude, where's the bayonette? All I see is a flag pole!
VERY nice aquisition. I can't honestly say I knew anything about that rifle. Sorry.
Quite a nice collection your building.
Thanks Red!
The old SMLE was a real rifle. Full wood, heavy as hell, but man...Thats a weapon.
The Germans feared it greatly...and the bayonet.
And especially when it was carried by Canadians.
Not only were we generally bigger than the Germans, but we had an aggressiveness that was seldom matched by any force in the First World War. During our last offensive, which was 100 days straight (The French call it "Les cent jours du Canada") our 4 divisions defeated or put to flight 46 divisions of the German army.
That's 1/4 of ALL German troops on the Western front.
When we started WW1, we used a Canadian rifle called the Ross. Straight pull bolt action and deadly accurate, but way too sensitive for the mud and grit of the trenches. They jammed up ALL the time. During some battles, our soldiers were actually seen kicking the bolt open to fire each round while being charged by German troops.
At Second Ypres, they did. All the while holding a urine soaked rag to their faces to neutralize the German chlorine gas.
We were the only group to actually hold the line. France and Britain ran about 5 miles. We threw the Germans back to where they started from.
You know, Joel, I'd love to hear your take on the Ross. I'd want to know what you heard about that moment in time when our troops had a damn good reason to complain.
How the hell did the Ross get approval for the troops?
Luckily, these days, you have the Afghan police forces looking at the C7A2 and going "Couldn't we get some of those?".
Some things do change.
Hehehehe.
is this a smle no1 mk3 or a no1 mk3* how to compared the mk* and mk3? why they put the *? are they different?
is this a smle no1 mk3 or a no1 mk3* how to compared the mk* and mk3? why they put the *? are they different?
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