.303 British Issues?

[7ECA]

the 303 Brit was determined to be obsolete as a military cartridge and a dead end development.

Was it declared obsolete though?

What I've read, is that there were many complaints stemming from the Boer War - where it was found that there was a marked difference in effectiveness between the 7x57mm Mauser round and the various round nose variants of the .303 British cartridge (with the Mk. III, IV, and V hollow point rounds removed from service due to the 1899 Hague Convention - seems they were a little too effective). Troops of the day also felt the SMLE was unfit for combat as well.

So, there's the beginning of research into new arms and a variety of calibre replacements for the .303, but there was also changes made to the .303 - the Spitzer bullet introduced in the Mk. VII variant changed the game entirely. Tactics and training were also seriously revamped - the 1909 Musketry Regulations being the most revolutionary change in doctrine the British Army ever underwent, which included the wholesale adoption of the SMLE as the primary weapon of all troops (rather than a hodgepodge of rifles, long ones for infantry, carbines for cavalry, etc).

The Pattern 1913 rifle, which could have replaced the SMLE early in her life ran into issues with the .276 Enfield cartridge with excessive flash and recoil, overheating and barrel wear. Obviously this didn't stop the Boffins from trying to find solutions to what ailed the .276 Enfield, but the Great War intervened and saw the SMLE kept on.

What I'd be interested in finding out, was whether or not the British ever dabbled with .276 Enfield or any other replacement calibre(s) during the interwar period?

 

[RifleDude]

.....What I'd be interested in finding out, was whether or not the British ever dabbled with .276 Enfield or any other replacement calibre(s) during the interwar period?

There was a depression on after the 1929 stock market crash, so.... no money for anything like that I suspect.

 

[Scrumbag]

There was a depression on after the 1929 stock market crash, so.... no money for anything like that I suspect.

Also after the war, a huge amount of stockpiled Enfields, ammo etc... reduced the incentive to change.

I think what people fail to remember is the Enfield works well with in spec ammo and in spec magazines. It's been a long time since mags were made. I suspect different batches of mags have been mixed with different batches of rifles, these rifles are old and often worn... "in spec" will become rarer and rarer...

 

[woodchopper]

What I'd be interested in finding out, was whether or not the British ever dabbled with .276 Enfield or any other replacement calibre(s) during the interwar period?

from my personal research and readings there was no serious movement between the wars on replacing the 303. After WW2 there was a big push to standardize on a NATO round.

between the wars there was no funding and huge stockpiles, Spanish flue, a global depression, and after the horrors of WWI no one wanted another war.

The only countries that I can think of that were working on new calibers between WW1 and WW2 were the Italians and the Japanese.

Just about everyone entered in to WW2 using the same calibers and cartridges as they used in WW1

 

[7ECA]

Obviously the depression didn't help things, but then again there was also the rather prevalent idea at the time that the Great War was indeed the war to end all wars. Obviously proved not to be the case, but certainly did a number on the Brits and various other nations in the lead up to the Second World War.

Funny isn't it, that the Brits had a cartridge that they felt was a game changer although with issues and then just abandoned it after the War. Seems the complaints from the Boer War in regard to the .303/SMLE were not repeated.

A somewhat related point, in regard to the .303 British is an obsolete calibre argument is the amount of folks who immediately bring up ballistics and how the .308 Win/7.62x51mm is far superior to the .303 British. Obviously the .303 is a much more aged calibre, being first introduced in 1889 as a blackpowder round - but the .308 was introduced in 1952 and the 7.62 NATO in 1954. Far from spring chickens those, and certainly there are newer and more exciting options out there - although I guess the .308/7.62 NATO are now considered the gold standard of the ~.30 calibre range?

 

[old303]

A somewhat related point, in regard to the .303 British is an obsolete calibre argument is the amount of folks who immediately bring up ballistics and how the .308 Win/7.62x51mm is far superior to the .303 British. Obviously the .303 is a much more aged calibre, being first introduced in 1889 as a blackpowder round - but the .308 was introduced in 1952 and the 7.62 NATO in 1954. Far from spring chickens those, and certainly there are newer and more exciting options out there - although I guess the .308/7.62 NATO are now considered the gold standard of the ~.30 calibre range?

And that means the .308 is older now than the .303 was when the .308 replaced it. Granted, the earlier era had a lot more evolution happening and any further iterations toward an ideal .30 cartridge would be much more subtle, so there'd be less reason to replace .308 with a slightly more refined .30 cartridge especially when .223 is the main military focus.

 

[Eaglelord17]

If all rimmed ammunition is obsolete, then there's a lot of uninformed people out there shooting many a calibre that 'ought to be resigned to the dustbin of history.

Quick list of some rimmed cartridges:

• .38 Special
• 7.62x54R
• .30-30 Winchester
• .38 S&W
• .357 Mag.

I'm starting to think tokguy is on the right track, this is a case of people buying into the hysteria rather than actually experiencing issues themselves.


Wandering zero on the Jungle Carbine - funny how that came about as the UK was looking to adopt the FAL/SLR, and troops actually liked the No.4/No.5, odd...

As an aside, when do we tell all the rimfire enthusiasts that they need to stop using that obsolete junk?

Its interesting how this always turns into a rifle debate not the caliber.

Again obsolete doesn't mean ineffective. My K31 shoots pretty damn accurately and effectively, but it doesn't mean its what I would want to carry into a battlefield. Technology changes and there is advantages and disadvantages to everything.

The cartridges you listed are mostly revolver cartridges where there tends to be a definite plus to having a rim simply due to how the firearm works. That being said the moon clip based revolvers seem to be getting pretty popular for competitions and such now, so even those are starting to lose a bit of popularity.

For a rifle, a rim is just a added hassle, for not much if any real benefit to the manufacturers. You now have to engineer and design some sort of system to try and keep the rims from locking, and the only one I have found which 100% works is the Mannlicher clip system, everything else there is the possibility of it, no matter how small. It reduces magazine capacity in a equal length magazine (for example the P14 and M17, one has 5rds of .303 the other 6rds of .30-06), and makes the magazine harder to design.

The main advantage in a rimmed cartridge over a rimless one is the fact that you don't need to have as high tolerances as it headspaces off the rim not the shoulder.

Funny isn't it, that the Brits had a cartridge that they felt was a game changer although with issues and then just abandoned it after the War. Seems the complaints from the Boer War in regard to the .303/SMLE were not repeated.

SMLE didn't exist in the Boer War. Another big issue with the Long Lees in the Boer War was the sights were off on the rifles, and its pretty hard to shoot accurately at 600m+ when your sights are off...

 

[gyates93]

Funny isn't it, that the Brits had a cartridge that they felt was a game changer although with issues and then just abandoned it after the War. Seems the complaints from the Boer War in regard to the .303/SMLE were not repeated.

I think this can be attributed to the development of the MKVII (Spitzer) ammunition. This coupled with smokeless cordite and nitrocellulose powder is what brought the .303 British round into the 20th century and made it a usable round to carry the British Empire through two World Wars and Korea. The 174 grain .303 MKVII load is a very adequate rifle round but I agree it was doomed to be replaced with something NATO standard, shorter, and easier to use in self-loading rifles.

I also believe that rim-jams are a non-issue with proper ammunition in service conditions - you'll see that service ammunition has a relieved edge on the base of the rim to allow the rims to slide over one another and a good strike to the bolt handle will accomplish this nicely. SAAMI spec commercial ammunition will be more troublesome here but can be dealt with by loading rounds with more care into the magazine or loading chargers asymmetrically.

 

[sail32]

The British and the US Pedersens used different clips.

https://www.milsurps.com/content.php?r=199-The-Vickers-Pedersen-(Part-Two)

 

[woodchopper]

now the suggestion of the ideal 30 caliber cartridge is an interesting one that I have not really given much thought

All of the literature that I have read focuses on the ideal caliber and then the development of the cartridge to achieve the desired velocity. More so on the British side, Americans seem to just grab something close enough to what they want and make some minor adjustments. The post WW2 trials are interesting reading along with the 70's NATO trials. Recent stuff mostly seems to steer towards caseless as the future but nothing is robust enough or is offering a significant advantage over the current choices to make any change worth the cost.

 

[tokguy]

Hmm...if rim lock is such a horror, lets introduce our next guest...Mr Dragunov! Come on in and sit down...prepare to defend yourself against the panel, who are going to tell you how ineffective and inferior you are against better designs.
You were born in the USSR in 1963, you are a child of the 2nd ( some would say an even match at the time) greatest military force in the world, correct?
Sporting a 10 rd staggered box magazine...hmmm? That rings a bell...did a certain Mr Lee Enfield have an overnight stay when your Papa was away...say 10 months before you were born?
Oh, you still seemed to find work in various locales, even fielded by various untrained amateurs? How can this be? Must be false!
Can we see your Resume' sir?

Vietnam War[1]
The Troubles
Cambodian–Vietnamese War
Sino-Vietnamese War[2]
Soviet–Afghan War[3]
Nagorno-Karabakh War[4]
Salvadoran Civil War
1982 Lebanon War
Lebanese Civil War
Iran–Iraq War
Gulf War
Somali Civil War
Operation Restore Hope
Burundian Civil War
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)[5]
Iraq War
Yugoslav Wars[6]
First Chechen War
Second Chechen War
Cambodian–Thai border dispute
2008 South Ossetia War
Kargil War
2011 Libyan Civil War
Northern Mali conflict[7]
Syrian Civil War[8]
Boko Haram insurgency
Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)
War in Donbass
Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)[9]
Saudi–Yemeni border conflict (2015–present)
Source; Wikipeda

Yep, I'd be trolling in this post...my bad.

 

[bdft]

Was it declared obsolete though?

What I've read, is that there were many complaints stemming from the Boer War - where it was found that there was a marked difference in effectiveness between the 7x57mm Mauser round and the various round nose variants of the .303 British cartridge (with the Mk. III, IV, and V hollow point rounds removed from service due to the 1899 Hague Convention - seems they were a little too effective). Troops of the day also felt the SMLE was unfit for combat as well.

So, there's the beginning of research into new arms and a variety of calibre replacements for the .303, but there was also changes made to the .303 - the Spitzer bullet introduced in the Mk. VII variant changed the game entirely. Tactics and training were also seriously revamped - the 1909 Musketry Regulations being the most revolutionary change in doctrine the British Army ever underwent, which included the wholesale adoption of the SMLE as the primary weapon of all troops (rather than a hodgepodge of rifles, long ones for infantry, carbines for cavalry, etc).

The Pattern 1913 rifle, which could have replaced the SMLE early in her life ran into issues with the .276 Enfield cartridge with excessive flash and recoil, overheating and barrel wear. Obviously this didn't stop the Boffins from trying to find solutions to what ailed the .276 Enfield, but the Great War intervened and saw the SMLE kept on.

What I'd be interested in finding out, was whether or not the British ever dabbled with .276 Enfield or any other replacement calibre(s) during the interwar period?

The British touted the effectiveness of the 7x57 as a means to cloud the issue of the failures of lower class British troops that had never held a rifle (or road a horse) before lead by arrogant upper class generals that were still fighting the "Wogs" and the Crimean War. Their view of "the Dutchmen" as a bunch of ignorant farmers didn't help. The Boers had huge strategic and tactical problems but they had been riding and shooting since they could walk. Blaming the rifle and calibre was an easy way for London to explain away the few victories the Boers had. If the Boer War had taken place in the '20's against experienced, war hardened British WW1 veterans it would have lasted about 20 minutes, regardless of the rifles used.

All that being said, the 303 can be a real PITA to shoot accurately due to the wide variety and quality of the rifles. Reloading is the only way to do it practically.