Let's Talk Lee-Enfield's

[u/Flat-Dark-Earth]

The Lee Enfield, a rifle that everyone is familiar with and many seem to own, yet somehow I never ended up adding one to the collection.

I'm playing catchup now and would like to pick up a Lee Enfield, the question is which one?

From my understanding there are 5-6 models of the rifle that evolved over it's ~60 years of military service.

For someone looking to buy their first, which examples should I be looking out for? Any to avoid? No.1? No.4? SMLE? Jungle carbine? Long Branch (Made in Canada?).

Also, there were a couple misconceptions surrounding this rifle that I had been told for years, the first was that these were $300-$400 rifles, that only appears to be the case for sporterized examples. Clean unbastardized examples seem to be going for $1,200-$1,800 at retailers today.

The second being that .303 ammo was "expensive" and hard to come by. Neither of these seem to be true as it’s priced comparable to 308 and I am seeing a ton in stock (PPU, S&B etc).

Edit: I think I have decided on a No.4 Mk 2 Long Branch.

[u/Apologetic-Moose]

For someone looking to buy their first, which examples should I be looking out for? Any to avoid? No. 1? No. 4? SMLE? Jungle carbine? Long Branch (Made in Canada?).

It really depends on your preferences quite a bit, especially if you're not a collector already. Is there a particular era of history you're more interested in?

I'd buy from the secondhand market personally, lots of retailers tend to overcharge for these. Certain rifles of a particular historical provenance (e.g. certain contracts) are more desirable for collectors. A very quick rundown:

No.1 (Long Lee): fair bit more expensive than SMLEs, usually in the mid-upper $1k range. IMO, if you're not already an Enfield collector then you should look elsewhere first.

No.1 Mk3 (SMLE): Standard going into WWI. Produced through WWII by Ishapore (India) and Lithgow (Australia). You can find originals for $7-800 pretty regularly on the used market, more for numbers matching. If you ask me, it's pretty hard to go wrong with an SMLE for the money.

No.4 Mk1: standard going into WWII. Changes from the SMLE include rear peep sight instead of the notch, removal of the nose cap, etc. Most of these changes were intended to bring the manufacturing cost down. They're priced higher because people pay more for WWII era kit - if you're savvy you can find them from $800, but standard pricing is $1100-1200. Long Branch rifles command a premium here because of the Canadian connection, ~$1300-1400 for average examples is fairly common.

No.5 Mk1 (Jungle carbine): what it says on the box. Lightened and shortened Lee with a flash hider slapped on the end of it. The lower weight means they have significantly punchier recoil, but I know you're probably fine with that. $750-850 usually.

What to avoid: IMO, rebarreled drill purpose guns (red and white paint on stock) or restored sporters. These tend to be quite a bit cheaper since they're not "correct," but unless you know what issues to look for, I'd steer clear. Not all restorations are done with the same level of quality.

[u/jollygreengiant1655 → u/Apologetic-Moose]

Great write up. The only thing I'd say, more of a nitpicky detail, is that the No4 wasn't the standard going into WWII. It was officially adopted in 1939 but they didn't really get production going until 1941. It was pretty much SMLE's for the first 2 years of the war.

[u/Apologetic-Moose → u/jollygreengiant1655]

Good catch, thanks. Interesting to me that the original trial run of No.4s was in the early 1930s, so they clearly had the data package and tooling, but didn't start production until a decade later. I wonder if they just had enough SMLE parts laying around in the arsenals that it didn't make sense to switch until they were all used up.

[u/jollygreengiant1655 → u/Apologetic-Moose]

IIRC that was certainly part of it. But they also didn't want to replace the old reliable SMLE workhorse unless it was with something better, so they took their time to make sure it was. And there was also some pretty big complacency/war hangover/lack of funds in that time.