Must have some pretty tough tourists over there in Cairo.

Egypt Holiday

The start of our holiday in Egypt had arrived. ... The Security and Tourist Police were evident in all parts of the City. Their machine pistols are old and ... www.egypt.cwc.net/ - 7k - <NOBR>Cached - Similar pages</NOBR>

I kinda figure that, Roumanian Ak probably as good or better than Russian ones.

I don't thing the Romanians had the same foundry skills as the Russians and the Czechs, the WW2 Pz38(t) was very widely used by the Nazis.

 

The Czechs had great foundry skills. One of Hitler's main targets in Czechoslovakia was the huge Skoda works. When they built the London Eye, they needed to construct the hub in one cast. There was only one place on earth they could go and that was Czechoslovakia.

Enfield Rifle musket

 

Big player in both the Crimean and Civil wars

 

English Enfield pattern muskets were both the most widely issued and well liked of all the imported arms used by both sides in the War for Southern Independence. Greener and Pritchett developed the expanding ball rifle musket to an unheard-of performance level while working at Enfield Lock, England in the early 1850's. This work led directly to the P-53 Rifle Musket and its later variants. Introduced in 1853, it was arguably the best infantry weapon of the time.

 

 

 The new Confederate government lost no time in dispatching an agent to Europe. The person selected was West Point educated, Massachusetts born, Caleb Huse. The choice could not have been better. His instructions were to quickly obtain serviceable weapons wherever he could find them and secure a supply of the most modern small arms, i.e. Enfields. In order to facilitate this work, he was provided with a tremendously favorable letter of credit from Fraser, Trenholm & Company of Liverpool, part of the Trenholm banking empire. (This institution's rather colorful president, John Trenholm, of Charleston, South Carolina, was one of the inspirations for Margaret Mitchell's Rhett Butler.)

 

 As much as the South wanted to get weapons from Enfield Lock, the English equivalent of Springfield Armory, this was not to be. In order for the British government to supply arms, they would have to give up their neutrality and recognize the Confederate government, which was not about to happen, at least not so early in the war. The Brits could however assist in obtaining a contract with one of their leading suppliers. This contract stipulated the delivery of machine made, parts interchangeable, three band Enfield Rifle Muskets. The parts interchangeable clause was the key. It required the highest quality work. It also allowed for easy repair in the field, especially given that the Confederate Quartermaster's Department would not be returning weapons to England for repairs.

 

For several years U.S. armories had been making guns so alike that parts from Springfield would fit Harpers Ferry guns. However, Enfield pattern arms that were not specifically required to meet the British government gauges were usually not parts interchangeable

 

Huse however was anything but gullible. While he would purchase them, if the price was right, his aim was the Number 1 Enfield in quantity.

 

Late in 1863, the US government suddenly canceled all their contracts with English makers, most of which were in Birmingham. The South took advantage of this. They quickly contracted with the "Birmingham Small Arms Trade" association for large quantities of "Number 2, Hand Made" Enfields. These were nowhere near the quality of London Armoury's muskets, but their addition to the Southern arms supply was most fortuitous.

The guns produced on Huse's London Armoury contract were of the highest quality. Interestingly, just before the outbreak of the war, the company had taken delivery of the latest stock making equipment from the Ames Manufacturing Company in Massachusetts. The rest of their equipment was equally up to date. Parts were gauged with English government gauges and fit up to the best military standards.

 

 

Earlier pic of the Enfield seems to have red x'd itself. here's another

 

 

Were they Muskets or rifled.

Rifled. fired an ogival bullet like a minie only better. Hence the drop in calibre from .753 to .577

 

 

Typical ogival bullet, the explosion drove the skirts into the rifling. Minie tried it with iron cups which often punched through the bullet leaving its walls stuck in the rifling.

 

We used a boxwood plug to stop distortion in transit, but again found it unecessary.

Round grooves are cannelures, filled with wax to lubricate the bullet. And cause Indian Mutinies.

Fascinating info Flash

Thank you Major. Those are 500 grain (about 1.25 oz) bullets chugging along at about 1200 fps. An SLR bullet is 170 gr moving at 2800 fps. So if your maths is right, the muzzle striking energy measured in ft lbs is about 30% higher for your Enfield.

 

But because of poorer streamlining the SLR's will be greater at modern  battle ranges. But then you've got the mushrooming of the unjacketed Enfield bullet.

So what happened to these fine accurate muzzle loading Enfields? loose powder (even if contained in a paper cartridge) and separate percussion cap ( about the size of one of the objects falling off T-dog's scalp, very hard to handle in battle) had been state of the art in 1853, but 10 years later, had been overtaken by the self-contained cartridge.

 

At first cased in cardboard, then brass. No-one could draw a brass case longer than 1 ", so they were brass foil. (Which is why the first Winchester and Henries' rounds were pistol calibre and size.)

 

An American Jacob Snider invented a breech block loading mechanism for the Enfield.

 

You flipped it open

 

 

 

Slid the round (left hand one in next pic) into the chamber

 

And shut the cover

 

Note hammer nose on RHS and firing pin base. On the left you can see the

catch you press in before flipping the unit to the right  This ejected the fired

cartridge case

 

Note the ammunition, the LH one is .577 Snider and the centre 2 are .450/577 Martini

one being foil wrapped and the other the later drawn cartridge case.

 

 

The ingenuity in small arms design over the centuries is amazing

Yes. Also when you consider the need to cut very strong metals very accurately to achieve gas seals.