First off: congratulations!!!!!!!
Second: about proofing. Military and civil Proof in England at that time were exactly the same except that, if anything, the military was more rigorous. Any British rifle which had undergone military proofing would not have required a civilian proofing unless it wewre rebarrelled or had undergone a complete rebuild.
Third: P.-'13 production. There were two batches produced, the original 5 rifles at Enfield and then a quantity of 1,000 for the 1913 troop trials. Exactly who these 1,000 rifles were produced by, and where, still is the topic of some debate. There is a considerable body of opinion saying that the 1,000 Trials rifles were built by BSA, but there appears to be little on paper one way or the other. There have just been SO MANY paper cremations. But then, I'm a historian by training, so I hoard old papers.
I have heard that a FEW original military P.-'13 rifles were sold off in Ontario in the 1950s, but the vast majority just seem to have disappeared into the woodwork... or the smelter. I know that they are quite expensive enough that I will never own one.
Now, as to the P.-'13 itself. Its official name was the .276" Rifle, Pattern of 1913.
What had happened in the Second Boer War, basically, was that the British Army had had its collective BUTT shot off by a bunch of FARMERS. Officialdom may have been satisfied to leave things as they were, but the Army was not. Those FARMERS had been armed, for the most part, with their 96 rifle, which was a small-ring German-built Mauser of the 1895 type and it was chambered in 7x57 (although some 7x54 ammunition was sent to South Africa during the War; the rifles would accommodate either, as the only difference was 3mm in the neck).
And so the starting-point would seem to be to out-seven-millimetre the 7mm and to out-Mauser the Mauser. The Americans, who had had THEIR collective butts kicked off during the Spanish-American War, by exactly the same rifle and cartridge in the hands of a bunch of SPANIARDS, did exactly the same thing, developing the 1903 Springfield and the .30-'06 in retaliation. But the Brits never do anything RASH, you know, so they approached things in an incremental manner.
The FIRST step was to design a cartridge. Just about this time, the Canadian .280 ROSS was kicking VERY serious butt on the long-range matches which were popular at that time, so it was used, being that it was a 7mm, as the basis for the new round. The ROSS cartridge was shortened slightly and toned down a bit in performance, but the new cartridge, the .276" test round, remained pretty much a Magnum-class cartridge and it certainly was Magnum-class in size.
Then came the rifle. The 1895 Mauser (of which the Brits had far too many on hand, all with bad memories attached) was scaled UP in size, becoming fatter and longer: a true Magnum-length and Magnum-pressure action. A big set of protective 'ears' was added to protect the aperture rear sight (first in general service in the world), the bolt-handle was given a crook so that the rifle could be reloaded and fired extremely rapidly in the same fashion as the Lee-Enfield.... and the first 5 rifles were made and presented to the Board of Ordnance and then the orders were given for another 1,000 to be built.
In the 1913 troop trials, the rifle proved to have heavy and sharp recoil, both from the very heavy loads they were using. The ammunition proved to have too much flash when shot at night, and so Woolwich Arsenal began work on improving the ammunition.
And that is where things stood when that dear Herr Princip emptied his silly little Serbian-purchased Browning .32 into the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Archduchess Sophie, thus getting World War One, a month later, into action.
The British Army REALLY wanted that new rifle, but they had a war on their hands and it would be stupid to try to issue 2 major battle rifle rounds at the same time. However, a bolt-face which could handle the wide base of the .276 could ALSO handle the rim of the .303. And the rifle itself was pure Mauser: change the barrel and you change the calibre. Switching rear sights and magazine-boxes would fit a .303 Super-Mauser to the .276 it was intended for!! Even the taper of the cartridges was close enough that likely no work on the feed-rails would even be needed!
So the Brits let out contracts to Winchester (which did nearly all of the tooling AND made the pilot models, of which I have s/n 305), to Remington and to Remington's gigantic new plant at Eddystone, Pennsylvania (a converted locomotive factory) to build the new rifle. Board of Ordnance approval dragged and it took time to get the plants into operation, but the Americans did manage to turn out a couple of million of the NEW rifles, now called the Pattern of 1914, in .303" calibre. As the War dragged onward, British rifle production caught up with demand and the British started cancelling contracts early in 1917.
Then in April, 1917 the US declared war and had about one rifle for every 5 men they were going to send overseas. Hastily, the Pattern of 1914 was converted to handle the immensely-powerful American .30-'06 cartridge and another 2-million-odd rifles built. The "American Enfield" in .30-'06 was, without doubt, the best battle rifle of the Great War.... even if it wasn't quite as fast as the SMLE.
But what became of those 1005 rifles produced for the Trials of 1913?
There certainly aren't enough of them around in original trim to make up more than a tenth of that number. They are VERY rare. If they were not, I would have one, even if I had to chew open the vault to get one with my own teeth!
It now APPEARS that a very few of them, particularly Serial Number 34, were converted into Sporters by BSA (the original manufacturer?) in 1923. I know that there WERE P-13 receivers discovered at BSA at the time that the Small Heath plant was pulled down, almost 40 years ago, and that fuelled part of the debate as to the manufacture of the original Pattern 1913 rifles.
So now we know that SOME, at least, were offered as Sporters IN THE ORIGINAL CALIBRE. I would think it highly likely that others would have been converted into various 'African" calibres as well.
But there is at least ONE left, Sporter conversion, nicely dated, still in the original calibre.
And that appears to be ALL.
Could you be so kind as to post a whole BIG bunch of photos for us to drool at?
AND...... do you have any ammo for it? I REALLY need a round!!!!!
Verily, verily, the Enfield Fairy looketh upon Thee with great Favour!
