Enfiled mad minute

Hey,

Great idea for a post.:D

The guy shooting seams to not fully grasp the butt and only pull the trigger with his middle finger keeping the thumb and index on the bolt handle. Interesting technique. I tried it last night dry and it was kind of hard. I bet it would take a few rounds down range to master it.

Cam
 
Last edited:
Thanks Cam. Let's say it was divine inspiration;)

I noticed that about his technique, too. Condsidering the mad minute record is 35 shots, the guy in the vids was hardly even moving, although the jam certainly handicapped him by a few shots. It makes one wonder what acceptable accuracy is for the minute. MOcharginggerman? Or 3 inch grouping? I also wonder if they did anything to improve thier performance, like greasing up thier chargers to make loading easier...Can't wait to start practicing myself, when I get near a real enfield again. We'll have to try it out in the fall, eh Cam?
 
if I recall correctly it was an 8" bull at 100yds

but I wait to be corrected :)


edit :redface: :redface: :redface:

Yup :redface: I stand corrected, but I'm not surprised :rolleyes:

should of known 12" at 300, makes more sense now.

8" would of been at 200yds which is what the battle sights are zeroed for
 
Last edited:
Got this from a google search.
The 'mad minute' was an aspect of British army rifle training which dated from just before World War One. It grew from the advent of the magazine-fed, bolt action Lee Metford and Lee Enfield rifles and was a means of polishing the soldiers' rapid fire skills. Rapid fire had been stressed by Britain's armed forces since the days of the longbow (most notably at the Battle of Agincourt), and even with the advent of the expensive, complex machine-gun, soldiers were often required to face down large amounts of hostile tribesmen, whilst armed only with rifles. Until the 1800s, even the fastest musketeer could manage three or four rounds a minute, whilst the breech-loading, single-shot, one-piece brass cartridge-firing Martini Henry of the Zulu wars upped this to the low teens. The magazine and repeating bolt action of the Lee Enfield, adopted at the very dawn of the 20th century, allowed for an unprecedented volume of fire.

During the 'mad minute' British riflemen were required to hit a target 300 metres away, with at least fifteen rounds fired in sixty seconds; one round every four seconds. An modern-day, semi-trained guerrilla soldier with an assault rifle can easily top that, although not with the same accuracy, but the Lee-Enfield was a bolt action rifle, requiring the soldier to rotate and cycle a bolt with his hand between each shot. The rifle fired the powerful .303 cartridge, which had a hefty recoil, and the magazine could only hold ten rounds, requiring at least one reload during the minute.

Reloading a bolt action rifle of the time involved sliding bullets from stripper clips down into the magazine from above. The Lee Enfield required two five-round clips, and debate still rages as to the best method for ensuring high-speed fire; polishing the clip guides, flipping the bolt with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand whilst firing with the middle finger, or even reloading with the Lee-Enfield's detachable magazine (not usually recommended due to manufacturing imperfections which could cause each magazine to be of a slightly different size).

The mad minute turned out to be extremely useful in the early stages of the Great War, when the lightly-armed British Expeditionary Force was on the defensive; the BEF's soldiers could put up a tremendous, murderous volume of fire against advancing close-formation German troops, many of whom reported that they were facing machine-guns. As the war progressed and the British Army went on the assault, the soldiers who had trained for years with their rifles were mown down in minutes by automatic fire and shrapnel. This was a continuation of the lesson taught ever since ultra-elite medieval knights found themselves at the mercy of farmers with muskets; from the vantage point of the 1910s, it must have seemed as if the twentieth century would end with illiterate child soldiers blowing up tanks with H.G. Wells-style death rays.

The upper limits of aimed fire in the mad minute were 30-35 rounds per minute, slightly more than one round every two seconds, including the time taken to cycle the bolt and stuff four clips into the rifle. The mad minute has since come to refer to any period of continuous, minute-long firing, usually by an entire platoon or infantry squad; it was common in Vietnam as a means of raking forests and bushes for hidden NVA soldiers, and has been used to test automatic cannon, zero guns, or simply as a way to let off steam and make a lot of noise.
Click to expand...

And the record holder, a Sgt Snoxall.
The fast-operating Lee bolt action and large magazine capacity (ten rounds, compared to the five of most Mauser derivatives) enabled a trained rifleman to fire between 20 to 30 aimed rounds a minute, making the Lee-Enfield the fastest military bolt action rifle of the day. The current world record for aimed bolt action fire was set in 1914 by a musketry instructor in the British Army- one Sgt. Snoxall- who placed 38 rounds into a 12" target at 300 yards in one minute. Some straight-pull bolt-action rifles were thought faster, but lacked the simplicity, reliability, and generous magazine capacity of the Lee design.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Soft-point hunting ammo (like Ingman) can cause a "jam" exactly like the one in the video. If you want to do a "mad minute", use FMJ ammo.
The technique used by the rifleman in the video is not new...
 
I was taught the bolt in the thumb and index finger slap the trigger with the middle finger by a relation that was in Korea with the RCRs. If you think it is fast from prone try it from the shoulder! If you have the right LOP and can muster the courage not to take your face off the stock target reaquistion is as fast as any rifle before or since.

Everyone should learn to shoot the SMLE well at the same time an appreciation for the fact that the bayonet is never going out of style in combat should be instilled!
 
I was taught the thumb-forefinger method of firing by a Ranger from 1 CRPG I think it was years ago...my personal best was 16 rounds prone from a dry gun (loaded 10, fired 10, loaded 5, fired 5, loaded 5, fired 1) in 1 minute at 200 meters onto a Figure 11 Target, all 16 shots hit.

NS
 
Anybody know what the ww1 period standards for the mad minute (which as I understand every soldier had to be able to perform) and the "proper" technique as per period documents ?
 
I don't think there was a set standard. Remeber the Mad minute was to lay down as much rounds down range as possible. The highest amount achieved was around 35. I would expect that during a German assualt when the adrenaline was pumping it could be even higher.

When the Germans first ran into the British at Mons, in 1914, they thought that the British were using MG's on them when in reality it was just accurate, fast rifle fire such as the mad minute.

I think the only thing that would have counted was hiting the German and not a grouping or amount of rounds fired. Firing 20 in one minute and hitting 20 is better than firing 30 and hitting only 20.

Ollie- Yes we will have to try this. The SMLE count might be up to three for me in the next couple of weeks so we will have lots to shoot.

Cam
 
My dad told me that part of musketry training in ww2 involved basic Morse code and relay firing in that with a bunch of riflemen lined up firing sequentially would mimic an mg but not give a fix on the firing point. He shot Bren for most of it so we never pushed the subject.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom