BOTR: Mad minute series: Lee-Enfield No.4
- Thread starter diopter
- Start date
Interesting but at the relatively slow pace he's firing at I don't think the middle finger trigger pull adds anything. I've seen videos where the middle finger is used to basically automatically pull the trigger as the bolt closes. With the lengthy pause between shots here he might as well use the index finger. For max speed the challenge is to hold on the target while pulling the trigger as the bolt closes, without pause. I know I can't do it very well. Edit- heres a link showing a guy using the middle finger technique. As he says, he's probably not hitting anything but sure is fast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiajgOeKOKU
milsurpo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiajgOeKOKU
milsurpo
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I've played around with mad minutes with most of my Milsurp rifles(who hasn't?!?!?). While the Lee Enfield bolt is damn fast, I've found that the main thing that shaves time off of all rifles is smooth reloads. Mannlicher style clips can be damn fast, but I usually have one or two little feeding issues(likely because the clips were used hundreds of times, instead of being used once and disposed of). I find Enfield clips kind of clunky compared to Mauser style ones. Mosin's are pretty awful. Swiss K31 clips are pretty decent, and the straight pull bolt is fast.
Putting any bolt action up against a self loader is a great lesson in the vast improvement in firepower this represented. The M1 in particular mated with those extremely durable and reliable en-bloc clips is fantastic.
And BOTR is correct, from the prone position this is quite a fatiguing exercise. A mad 5 minutes would be damn difficult, no way you could maintain that 1 minute rate of fire.
Putting any bolt action up against a self loader is a great lesson in the vast improvement in firepower this represented. The M1 in particular mated with those extremely durable and reliable en-bloc clips is fantastic.
And BOTR is correct, from the prone position this is quite a fatiguing exercise. A mad 5 minutes would be damn difficult, no way you could maintain that 1 minute rate of fire.
There is such a thing as suppressive fire in a military context.
The Mad Minute was to improve the marksmanship level of the soldiers on hitting a target(s) at distance in rapid fire sequence with reloads.
From Wiki:
The Mad Minute was a pre-World War I bolt-rifle speed shooting exercise used by British Army riflemen, using the Lee–Enfield service rifle. The exercise (Practice number 22, Rapid Fire, ‘The Musketry Regulations, Part I, 1909) required the rifleman to fire 15 rounds at a “Second Class Figure” target at 300 yards. The practice was described as; “Lying. Rifle to be loaded and 4 rounds in the magazine before the target appears. Loading to be from the pouch or bandolier by 5 rounds afterwards. One minute allowed”. The practice was only one of the exercises from the annual classification shoot which was used to grade a soldier as a marksman, first-class or second-class shot, depending on the scores he had achieved. The rapid aimed fire of the ‘Mad Minute’ was accomplished by used a 'palming' method where the rifleman used the palm of his hand to work the bolt, and not his thumb and fore finger, while maintaining his cheek weld and line of sight.
The “Second Class Figure Target” was 48" square (approximately 1.2 x 1.2 meters), with 24” inner (61 cm) and 36” magpie (92 cm) circles. The aiming mark was a 12” x 12” (30 x 30 cm) silhouette figure that represented the outline of the head of a man aiming a rifle from a trench. Points were scored by a hit anywhere on the target. Although a 12” target is often mentioned in connection with the Mad Minute practice, this seems to have been an error originating in Ian Hogg’s book, ‘The Encyclopedia of Weaponry’. No other source mentions a 12" target. Thus according to the myth the target size would have been a 1.11 mil circle (3.82 moa), while in reality the target size was a 4.5 mil square (15.3 moa) making the area counting scoring hits over 15 times bigger.
From Wiki:
The Mad Minute was a pre-World War I bolt-rifle speed shooting exercise used by British Army riflemen, using the Lee–Enfield service rifle. The exercise (Practice number 22, Rapid Fire, ‘The Musketry Regulations, Part I, 1909) required the rifleman to fire 15 rounds at a “Second Class Figure” target at 300 yards. The practice was described as; “Lying. Rifle to be loaded and 4 rounds in the magazine before the target appears. Loading to be from the pouch or bandolier by 5 rounds afterwards. One minute allowed”. The practice was only one of the exercises from the annual classification shoot which was used to grade a soldier as a marksman, first-class or second-class shot, depending on the scores he had achieved. The rapid aimed fire of the ‘Mad Minute’ was accomplished by used a 'palming' method where the rifleman used the palm of his hand to work the bolt, and not his thumb and fore finger, while maintaining his cheek weld and line of sight.
The “Second Class Figure Target” was 48" square (approximately 1.2 x 1.2 meters), with 24” inner (61 cm) and 36” magpie (92 cm) circles. The aiming mark was a 12” x 12” (30 x 30 cm) silhouette figure that represented the outline of the head of a man aiming a rifle from a trench. Points were scored by a hit anywhere on the target. Although a 12” target is often mentioned in connection with the Mad Minute practice, this seems to have been an error originating in Ian Hogg’s book, ‘The Encyclopedia of Weaponry’. No other source mentions a 12" target. Thus according to the myth the target size would have been a 1.11 mil circle (3.82 moa), while in reality the target size was a 4.5 mil square (15.3 moa) making the area counting scoring hits over 15 times bigger.
Canadian troops in Korea were still cranking away with their trusty No4s at human wave assaults by the Chinese and had to be issued extra BRENs to beef up their firepower.
Fortunately abundant and well planned artillery and mortar support often combined to save the day.
We should have gone to Garands for the infantry over there, even though there would have been some ammo supply complications with the BRENs. As it was we didn't see a semi-auto infantry rifle until the FNs showed up on general issue in the 1960 timeframe.
I remember some of the troops longing for No4s in the 1960s when they were detailed for a Quarter Guard armed with the FN and only knew the arms drill for the LE. One of the old sweats kept asking, "why can't we use .303s?".
Fortunately abundant and well planned artillery and mortar support often combined to save the day.We should have gone to Garands for the infantry over there, even though there would have been some ammo supply complications with the BRENs. As it was we didn't see a semi-auto infantry rifle until the FNs showed up on general issue in the 1960 timeframe.
I remember some of the troops longing for No4s in the 1960s when they were detailed for a Quarter Guard armed with the FN and only knew the arms drill for the LE. One of the old sweats kept asking, "why can't we use .303s?".
Agreed. You might as well be shooting blanks. It is no use going like a bat-out-of-hell if you can not hit anything. If you can not down the enemy before he gets close to you, (the basic premise for the "mad minute") you are going to end up with a Hun bayonet in your anatomy.
I have spent a lot of time polishing chargers to make them smoother and feed better, and the blued chargers are a lot smoother feeding than the parkerized ones.
I also had a VERY GOOD teacher. He had once been an Instructor at the School of Musketry, at Hythe.
PURPLE. Just saw your post.
Actually there was a movement toward arming Canada's troops with the M1 Garand, back in the early 1950s. Then Korea happened.
There were a couple of articles in the DCRA magazine about testing the M1 for accuracy, because it was going to become our standard rifle, and be issued to replace the Lee Enfield.
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The history of the Garand in Canadian service remains a bit murky, but we do know the following;
- Canadian members of the First Special Service Force used standard US small arms in training and in service during WW2
- The 6th Cdn Division, which was raised and trained to participate in the invasion of Japan, was equipped with standard issue US small arms to facilitate logistics and interoperability.
- Garands were sometimes acquired and used unofficially by Cdn troops in Korea. (related to me by several Korean war vets who also reported that the M1 Carbine was more widely used there)
- Garands and BARs were used by RCAF base defence personnel in Europe in the early NATO years. (I knew a former RCAF MP who served in Europe and told me this)
- The Cdn Army did publish a training manual on the Garand in the early 1950s
- There was a stock of Garands and parts held in 25 COD and 202 Wksp Montreal in the 1950s. (A now deceased friend who trained as a RCEME officer at 202 Wksp told me this. The same man assisted in the importation of the Danish surplus Garands back in the 1990s and also reported that some of the Danish spares were still in Cdn Ordnance packaging). I also have an original copy of the US Army 1947 TM on the Garand which bears the markings of 25 COD Montreal.
We were committed to adopting the FN rifle in the early/mid 1950s which overtook any plans to adopt the Garand as a replacement for the No4 LE post WW2.
bdft
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
It's called suppressing fire. At extended ranges it was called plunging fire. When the wogs were coming at you en masse and the Nordefelds were back in camp. Accuracy was a secondary consideration.
bdft
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Do you have a little more info on that book? I googled it and found nothing about Lee Enfields.
its a chicken before the egg question re the mad minute
do you practice your accuracy first then speed or speed first then accuracy ?? . either way in my humble opinion , the faster you shoot , the less accurate your gonna be . The slower you shoot , the more accurate your gonna be
The young guy in the video was in a safe controlled environment , and having a great day at the range . That's not a waste .Its a start . We all gotta start somewhere .
When I do the mad minute , I,ll usually pound thru a few clips like that to refresh myself then settle into a smoother pattern
do you practice your accuracy first then speed or speed first then accuracy ?? . either way in my humble opinion , the faster you shoot , the less accurate your gonna be . The slower you shoot , the more accurate your gonna be
The young guy in the video was in a safe controlled environment , and having a great day at the range . That's not a waste .Its a start . We all gotta start somewhere .
When I do the mad minute , I,ll usually pound thru a few clips like that to refresh myself then settle into a smoother pattern
Canadian troops in Korea were still cranking away with their trusty No4s at human wave assaults by the Chinese and had to be issued extra BRENs to beef up their firepower.
We should have gone to Garands for the infantry over there, even though there would have been some ammo supply complications with the BRENs. As it was we didn't see a semi-auto infantry rifle until the FNs showed up on general issue in the 1960 timeframe.
I remember some of the troops longing for No4s in the 1960s when they were detailed for a Quarter Guard armed with the FN and only knew the arms drill for the LE. One of the old sweats kept asking, "why can't we use .303s?".
Another good rifle, that was available for use in Korea, that never gets much notice is the Belgium FN 49, this rifle was chambered in 30-06, and was well made, and the nice feature to be able to top up the magazine, with 2 five round stripper clips, something that is difficult to do with the M1 , but by then the Brits had designed the .280 , or 7mm, cartridge, which showed much potential, and had also designed and put into limited production , the EM 2 rifle,or Rifle No.9, available in select fire , the rest is history, as the, politics and US pressure to dump the 7mm cartridge , their reason been, it was under powered , and wanted a NATO standard larger caliber rifle cartridge, and thats how we got the 7.62 mm
