Detailed pictures of rare Lee-Burton "Enfield Martini .4-inch Pattern A" rifle

Claven2

Claven2

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So the most unlikely of rifles showed up at the local gunsmithing shop for cleaning/service this week. I happened to be there and was able to take these photos of a rifle 99.9% of us will never see in person or get to hold.

The Lee-Burton-based Enfield Martini .4-inch Pattern A was a pre-smokeless, pre-small bore attempt to improve the Martini-Henry MkIII but reducing the calibre to .402 Enfield, adding an early hopper style magazine and changing the action to a rotating bolt. Officially known as the "Enfield Martini .4-inch Pattern A", it's thought up to 21,372 were manufactured at RSAF Enfield, 1000 of which were used for troop trials at RN base HMS Excellent. It was trialed against a .402 Caliber Enfield-Lee rifle (which was found to be superior and later developed into the Lee-Metford Mk1 in .303 British).

In 1886 the French shocked the world with a new 8mm cartridge and interest in the .402" round rapidly waned. The short-lived Lee-Burton based design was quickly supplanted by the stop-gap "Enfield Martini .4-inch Pattern B", a single-shot long lever Martini single shot in .402 (they were all later converted to .450-577 Martini-Henry) while Britain re-worked the .402 Calibre Enfield-Lee trials rifle into a .311" repeater. Most of the guns based on the Lee-Burton action were later broken down and parts of them used in the production of Enfield Martini .4-inch Pattern B rifles.

References:
ResearchGate.net
https://cartridgecollector.net/cartridge/4-inch-experimental-cartridge/

Hope you all enjoy these rare photos :)

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The rifle is in Ottawa at Gunco and apparently the owner is accepting offers. There are already some serious offers on the rifle from what I understand - enough so that I'm not trying to buy it myself.
 
Very cool, I would really like to see how it operates. I just tried to find a video on it and couldn't find one. Thanks for sharing.
 
hogie said:
Very cool, I would really like to see how it operates. I just tried to find a video on it and couldn't find one. Thanks for sharing.
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These are so rare even gun Jesus hasn’t handled one yet.

The bolt is cocked on close, very much like a Lee enfield. The magazine is gravity feed. In the up position it’s a repeater, ejects out the left of the receiver. When the hopper is pushed down flush with the top of the receiver, it’s a magazine cutoff and runs like a single shot.

There is a button you push to slide the hopper up and down.
 
Claven2 said:
These are so rare even gun Jesus hasn’t handled one yet.

The bolt is cocked on close, very much like a Lee enfield. The magazine is gravity feed. In the up position it’s a repeater, ejects out the left of the receiver. When the hopper is pushed down flush with the top of the receiver, it’s a magazine cutoff and runs like a single shot.

There is a button you push to slide the hopper up and down.
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Thanks for explaining that. Interesting idea, I don't see it working well in actual field use.

This is the thing I like about firearms is how they work. I'm a auto mechanic so I want to know how something works. That's part of the attraction of firearms to me aside from shooting. I enjoy taking them apart and putting back together.

I really think the previous generation before computers were fully involved were far smarter than we are today.
 
Claven2: very cool, but I don't think this rifle has an anything to do with the Enfield Martini "A". Skennerton shows a photo of an identical rifle (pg. 34) and calls it "Improved Lee with Bethel Burton magazine." It was part of the magazine rifle trials story. Something like this should be placed in a major auction, where it could easily go for much more than a mere No. 4T. Even better, it should be donated to a good museum.

milsurpo
 
milsurpo said:
Claven2: very cool, but I don't think this rifle has an anything to do with the Enfield Martini "A". Skennerton shows a photo of an identical rifle (pg. 34) and calls it "Improved Lee with Bethel Burton magazine." It was part of the magazine rifle trials story. Something like this should be placed in a major auction, where it could easily go for much more than a mere No. 4T. Even better, it should be donated to a good museum.

milsurpo
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I don’t think there is a real name for it in the list of changes because it was not adopted. Different references call it different things.

It’s not mine so I get no say over where it goes, but a museum that would just hide it away in their reference collection and not put it on display seems like a terrible idea.

If I owned it, I would shoot it. 100% i would.
 
Claven: There are museums and there are museums. Many of the authors that write the gun books we all enjoy go to a place like the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds to examine, photograph, and describe really rare stuff that otherwise might be impossible to find. Something like this would certainly be wasted in a local museum.
Just to clarify, are you suggesting some 23,000 of this particular type were manufactured?

milsurpo
 
milsurpo said:
Claven: There are museums and there are museums. Many of the authors that write the gun books we all enjoy go to a place like the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds to examine, photograph, and describe really rare stuff that otherwise might be impossible to find. Something like this would certainly be wasted in a local museum.
Just to clarify, are you suggesting some 23,000 of this particular type were manufactured?

milsurpo
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That’s what one of the references I linked to said, but I’m doubtful. I’d be surprised if they actually made more than 1000 of this pattern, which is supposedly what the troop trials used.

To be honest, references on these was hard to come by and were somewhat conflicting.
 
interesting rifle

I don't see the linage to Martini, but certainly more of a pre Lee trials rifle

I seem to remember seeing that sort of ammo hopper on another rifle, not very practical
 
woodchopper said:
interesting rifle

I don't see the linage to Martini, but certainly more of a pre Lee trials rifle

I seem to remember seeing that sort of ammo hopper on another rifle, not very practical
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The receiver is not martini, but the trigger group, barrel, forestock, etc are martini Henry .402 mk4 parts.
 
The Enfield-Martini (all versions) were pure Martini rifles. The first pattern EM was manufactured to the tune of 21,755 which were eventually converted to Martini-Henry Mk IV when the .402" Martini program was kiboshed. The rifle in question is definitely a Magazine Rifle Trials rifle and is probably one of a handful in existence. It's not surprising that some spare Enfield-Martini parts were used in assembling an experimental rifle at this point in time. Even the eternally cursed two-piece Lee-Enfield stock may have originally been part of an effort to use old Martini blanks in storage. The amazing transformation from one-piece Rem-Lee to two-piece Magazine Lee-Metford isn't explained anywhere.

milsurpo
 
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