page_title: Pattern 1914 Enfield
section_title: Design details
hierarchical_section_title: Pattern 1914 Enfield / Design details
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Army in the Normandy Campaign 1944 Snipers training at a sniper school in a French village, 27 July 1944.
context_page_description: The Rifle, .303 Pattern 1914 was a British service rifle of the First World War period. A bolt action weapon with an integral 5-round magazine, it was principally contract manufactured by companies in the United States. It served as a sniper rifle and as second line and reserve issue until being declared obsolete in 1947. The Pattern 1914 Enfield was the successor to the Pattern 1913 Enfield experimental rifle and the predecessor of the U.S. Rifle M1917 Enfield.
context_section_description: Adapting the design to fire the standard .303 British round led to the Rifle, .303 Pattern 1914 (P14), a design fed from a five-round internal box magazine. With its prominent sight protection ears on the receiver, "dog-leg" bolt handle and "pot-belly" magazine, it was distinctive in appearance. The action was essentially a Mauser design with some Lee–Enfield features and optimised for rapid fire, with the action cocking on closing, a feature highly valued by the British Army with its emphasis on riflemen highly trained for rapid fire, but less valued in other armies, such as the US or Germany, where cock-on-opening designs such as the M1903 Springfield and Gewehr 98 were preferred. Cock-on-opening actions became more difficult to operate when heated by rapid fire as the effort to open the bolt had to overcome the striker spring to cock the action as well as unsticking the fired case from the chamber. The P14 was an advanced design for the time, and was said to be the most advanced service rifle of World War I.
  The Pattern 1914 Enfield had a large, strong bolt action made from nickel-steel, and the bolt travel is long, as it was designed for the dimensionally large and powerful .276 Enfield cartridge. The bolt action had a Model 98 Mauser type claw extractor and two forward lugs; there was also a rear safety lug formed by the base of the bolt handle sitting in a recess in the receiver. Much faster and smoother to operate than a Model 98 Mauser, the bolt was well-supported throughout its travel and the camming action on opening and closing the bolt facilitated ease and speed of operation. The unusual 'dog-leg' shaped bolt handle is low profile and places the bolt knob just rearwards of the trigger close to the firer's hand, again facilitating rapid cycling and fire. Like the Lee–Enfield, the safety falls under the firer's thumb and can be operated silently.
  Due to the original Pattern 1913 Enfield action being designed around the high-powered .276 Enfield experimental cartridge with a larger diameter case than the .303 British, the internal box magazine capacity for the smaller diameter .303 British was six rounds, although the employed stripper clips held only five cartridges. The Pattern 1914 Enfield like the Mauser Gewehr 98 had no magazine cut-off mechanism, which when engaged permits the feeding and extraction of single cartridges only while keeping the cartridges in the magazine in reserve.
  The rifle was designed with an iron sight line consisting of rear receiver aperture battle sight calibrated for .303 British Mk VII ball ammunition at 300 yd (274 m) with an additional ladder aperture sight that could be flipped up and was calibrated for 200–1,000 yd (183–914 m) in 100 yd (91 m) increments and 1,000–1,650 yd (914–1,509 m) in 50 yd (46 m) increments. The ladder aperture sight moves vertically on a slide, and hence was not able to correct for wind drift. The rear sight element was protected by sturdy "ears" and proved to be faster and more accurate than the typical mid-barrel sight offered by Mauser, Enfield or the Buffington battle sight of the 1903 Springfield. The front sighting element consisted of a wing guards protected front post, and was adjusted laterally and locked into position during assembly at the arsenal. The Pattern 1914 Enfield rear sight element was situated on an elongated receiver bridge, which added weight to the action, as well as lengthening the bolt. There were also volley-fire sights similar to those on the Short Magazine Lee–Enfield fitted to the left side of the weapon for use up to 2,600 yd (2,377 m), though these were of little use and were usually deleted when the weapon was refurbished.
  The advanced aperture sights with their long sight radius contributed to a well-deserved reputation for accuracy, and WW1 snipers considered it to be more accurate than the standard Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III infantry rifle.
  Compared to the Lee–Enfield the Pattern 1914 Enfield was more accurate, more durable; however, it was heavier – the Lee—Enfield Mk III weighed 8 lb 10 oz (3.91 kg) empty – a
caption: British sniper training in France 1944
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