Lee-Enfield Rifle

The Lee-Enfield is a British bolt-action, magazine-fed service rifle that combined James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt and detachable box magazine with rifling developed at the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield, adopted by the British Army in 1895 and, in its improved Short Magazine Lee-Enfield form from 1907, becoming the standard British and Commonwealth infantry rifle through both World Wars. Its ten-round magazine and smooth bolt action gave trained soldiers an unusually high rate of aimed fire compared with other bolt-action rifles of the period, and British troops of the First World War were drilled to achieve what became known as the mad minute, firing fifteen or more aimed rounds in sixty seconds. Well over 17 million Lee-Enfields were produced across variants and decades of production, and the rifle remained in official or reserve service with various Commonwealth and other armed forces for much of the twentieth century.