Lee Speed .303 Br.
- Thread starter bootman
- Start date
- Location
- WMU248 near Edmonton
wrong forum, should be in the milsurp forum
Rifleite was a commercial smokeless powder of the period around the Great War and a few years earlier, back into the dim, dark past of smokeless history.
A LEE-SPEED rifle was a COMMERCIAL Lee-Metford Mark II. Military rifles would not be marked as such and they would be DATED. The Royal Signet (VR and Crown), factory name (Enfield, BSA&M, BSA or LSA) would be marked on the right side of the Butt Socket, with the DATE of manufacture below that and "II" or "II*" under that. Commercial rifles were under no such strictures, but Mr. Speed demanded that the bolt-heads be marked so as to mark his contribution to the rifle, which was mostly the improved bolt-head.
MOST LEE-SPEED rifles were manufactured to military specs, including the full stock, the 30.2-inch barrel, the patented Metford rifling, the Bayonet Bar on the Front Band, the Strapped Buttplate and all the rest. They were sold in large numbers to Volunteer, Yeomanry, Territorial and other regiments which were forming or had been formed. Defence was very popular in the days before the Great War and the Government did not have the money to equip everyone who wanted to take part. The result was that many local regiments had to equip themselves, and this is where the Lee-Speeds came in, being that they were of official pattern... and available commercially for the equivalent of about $2000 apiece in today's steel-paper-plastic "money".
RIFLING in ALL of them should have been the Metford Segmental rifling. This was a prize-winning form of segmental rifling which was extremely accurate and permitted very quick and easy cleaning of barrels, whether fired with Black or Smokeless powder. At the time the Lee-Speed appeared, Black Powder still was being loaded in military .303 ammunition so this ease of cleaning was important. What became apparant later, though, was that the super-hot Cordite Mark I-loaded .303 ammunition would tear the guts out of a precision-made Metford barrel in jig time.
PROPERLY SPEAKING, a Lee-Speed should have no Safety apart from the half-#### on the Bolt. But a bolt-mounted Safety appeared in 1895 and quite a few Lee-Speeds were fitted with them, some as factory stock, others as retrofits. This is the popular and positive "flag" safety which you also see on the early (Long) Lee-Enfield rifles.
LSA is London Small Arms, which was a small place, more an assembly and fitting shop than anything else. The actual parts were made by all the important London gunmakers: Holland and Holland, Gibbs, Rigby and all the others. Each shop specialised in one or a few parts for the rifles, the varous shops all sharing a single set of (extremely expensive) Army gauges and teaching their apprentices the dos and don'ts of gunmaking on cheap, fixed-price Army rifles.
Think about PRICES and VALUES and some of this makes more sense. An Army rifle sold for a little over 5 Pounds. Four Pounds was the value of an ounce of Gold, which is over $1800 today. The price of an Army rifle was close to $2000 in today's debased money.... or about the price of a top-of-the-line M-16 clone, so nothing much has really changed. The apprentices learned their trades on the 5-Pound Army rifles before they were allowed to work on the 100-Pound shotguns.
So the vast Majority of Lee-Speeds were military rifles. But there were ALSO factory Lee-Speed SPORTERS in grades from "plain and ordinary" to "plain spectacular". And they ALL cost serious money. They were emphatically NOT junk, then or now.
Value, and a whole bunch of other things, depend on precisely what you have, as well as its condition.
You really need to post some photos of the rifle, friend.
I can only tell you about the rifle. There are other people on here, every day, who can tell you the value and make connections which I cannot.
Post a set of good photos and let them tell you "the rest of the story".
Hope this helps.
.
A LEE-SPEED rifle was a COMMERCIAL Lee-Metford Mark II. Military rifles would not be marked as such and they would be DATED. The Royal Signet (VR and Crown), factory name (Enfield, BSA&M, BSA or LSA) would be marked on the right side of the Butt Socket, with the DATE of manufacture below that and "II" or "II*" under that. Commercial rifles were under no such strictures, but Mr. Speed demanded that the bolt-heads be marked so as to mark his contribution to the rifle, which was mostly the improved bolt-head.
MOST LEE-SPEED rifles were manufactured to military specs, including the full stock, the 30.2-inch barrel, the patented Metford rifling, the Bayonet Bar on the Front Band, the Strapped Buttplate and all the rest. They were sold in large numbers to Volunteer, Yeomanry, Territorial and other regiments which were forming or had been formed. Defence was very popular in the days before the Great War and the Government did not have the money to equip everyone who wanted to take part. The result was that many local regiments had to equip themselves, and this is where the Lee-Speeds came in, being that they were of official pattern... and available commercially for the equivalent of about $2000 apiece in today's steel-paper-plastic "money".
RIFLING in ALL of them should have been the Metford Segmental rifling. This was a prize-winning form of segmental rifling which was extremely accurate and permitted very quick and easy cleaning of barrels, whether fired with Black or Smokeless powder. At the time the Lee-Speed appeared, Black Powder still was being loaded in military .303 ammunition so this ease of cleaning was important. What became apparant later, though, was that the super-hot Cordite Mark I-loaded .303 ammunition would tear the guts out of a precision-made Metford barrel in jig time.
PROPERLY SPEAKING, a Lee-Speed should have no Safety apart from the half-#### on the Bolt. But a bolt-mounted Safety appeared in 1895 and quite a few Lee-Speeds were fitted with them, some as factory stock, others as retrofits. This is the popular and positive "flag" safety which you also see on the early (Long) Lee-Enfield rifles.
LSA is London Small Arms, which was a small place, more an assembly and fitting shop than anything else. The actual parts were made by all the important London gunmakers: Holland and Holland, Gibbs, Rigby and all the others. Each shop specialised in one or a few parts for the rifles, the varous shops all sharing a single set of (extremely expensive) Army gauges and teaching their apprentices the dos and don'ts of gunmaking on cheap, fixed-price Army rifles.
Think about PRICES and VALUES and some of this makes more sense. An Army rifle sold for a little over 5 Pounds. Four Pounds was the value of an ounce of Gold, which is over $1800 today. The price of an Army rifle was close to $2000 in today's debased money.... or about the price of a top-of-the-line M-16 clone, so nothing much has really changed. The apprentices learned their trades on the 5-Pound Army rifles before they were allowed to work on the 100-Pound shotguns.
So the vast Majority of Lee-Speeds were military rifles. But there were ALSO factory Lee-Speed SPORTERS in grades from "plain and ordinary" to "plain spectacular". And they ALL cost serious money. They were emphatically NOT junk, then or now.
Value, and a whole bunch of other things, depend on precisely what you have, as well as its condition.
You really need to post some photos of the rifle, friend.
I can only tell you about the rifle. There are other people on here, every day, who can tell you the value and make connections which I cannot.
Post a set of good photos and let them tell you "the rest of the story".
Hope this helps.
.
Last edited:
- Location
- Tucson, Arizona
while Metford rifling was accurate with black powder, They quickly found out that with the higher burning temperatures of cordite that throat erosion occurred. That was why many Lee Metfords were rebarreled with Enfield rifling. You will find an E stamped on the knoxform.
BP loads were only around for a couple of years before they switched to cordite.
BP loads were only around for a couple of years before they switched to cordite.
