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No More Lee-Enfield: Canada's Rangers To Get a Tech Upgrade
ControlsGeek writes The Lee-Enfield .303 rifle is being phased out for use by the Canadian Rangers, a Northern aboriginal branch of the Armed Forces. The rifle has been in service with the Canadian military for 100 years and is still being used by the Rangers for its unfailing reliability in Arctic conditions. If only the hardware that we use in computers could have such a track record. The wheels turn slowly, though, and it's not clear what kind of gun will replace the Enfields.
...reveals that Colt Canada will be producing the new ranger rifle, the RFP was put to pasture last month. My thinking is that the stock will be a sealed beech rather than abs plastic (which would become brittle in the cold), keep the ten round box but chamber the rifle for .308 Winchester (7.62 NATO) and keep the turn bolt action.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Wrong, stock will melt if left under vehicle curved window in summer. I speak from experience.
Getting my gun license in a couple months and it is on the list of guns I want. I spent a week up north working with the Canadian Military and a bit with the Rangers and I enjoyed it immensely. They get an allowance to purchase their own equipment. Once out on the tundra they revert to the traditional garb as they found the high-tech stuff doesn't work well.
I saw a documentary on these poor saps and they were scurrying around in snow tunnels and using rifles against huge manned robots. They managed to get one by tying a cable around its legs using one of the few little airplanes that they had, but in the end it was a rout.
composite (plastic) stocks do become very brittle in freezing weather (I know having had a Crosman Nightstalker disintegrate in my hands while out ratting just last February), this is why the CS proposals were rejected. There is an Enfield analogue already (what you might call a civilian version), but you won't find any Canadian hunters using it simply because it has a composite stock - the M10. Hardwoods are more stable in pretty much any environment as long as the grain is sealed, than any other material save titanium alloy, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to know what that'd cost.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
That is because you were using a cheap-ass thermoplastic/synthetic stock instead of a quality fiberglass/synthetic stock.
There are many bolt guns with similar functionality and better performance than the Lee-Enfield.
For example, the Remington 700P weighs the same as an Enfield, but has modern accuracy (0.5 MOA out of the box isn't uncommon), durability (not as effected by temperature swings), and is available with modern cartridges like 308 Win and 300 Win Mag.
Or there are rifles like the Ruger Gunsite Scout, while not combat proven, is cold weather hunting proven, offering a very lightweight package at aroun 7 lbs, 308 Win, better accuracy than the Enfield, a temperature resistant laminate stock, and back up irons.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Wrong, stock will melt if left under vehicle curved window in summer. I speak from experience.
Then it was an inappropriate choice of material but that is not sufficient evidence to condemn (or recommend) synthetics in general. Most cars are loaded with plastics and they don't melt. If the stock you had melted from the fairly modest heat in a car, then it was a piece of junk to begin with. No plastic on a working tool should melt that easily unless that was the specific intent.
There are plenty of non-exotic plastics with melting points well in excess of 130C (266F), and some considerably higher. Nylon's melting point is 190C for example. I work with many of them routinely. If your car is getting that hot I think some plastic melting will be the least of your concern.
I've owned quite a few Rifles in my time. Wood stocks are superior to composite in every category but 1. Composite is lighter.
Wrong. That may apply to your military with its huge budgets and tiny political oversight.
In the developed world, we do not feel obliged to be the worlds policeman and do not fund our services according to that idea.
Yes, they do tend to get a lot of money but it's not limitless.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
To imagine the same weapon used so heavily in the tropics, mud and monsoon being noted for its reliability in Arctic conditions is amazing. But this is a very simple basic weapon. Even India is phasing them out, apparently.
Not really, all those late 19th century bolt action rifles were extremely reliable, that's why the bolt action is still the most popular rifle action in use today which says something about the soundness of Nikolaus von Dreyse's original design that first saw the light of day back in 1824. This type of gun has been used in the high Andes in S-America, jungles in Africa/America/Asia and deserts around the world. The German Mausers and Russian Mosin Nagants operated just as reliably in those places as the Lee Enfield and long as you had proper gun oil that didn't sieze the gun up in extreme cold they did well in the extreme Arctic too. Bolt action Enfields and Russian Mosin Nagants are still in widespread use by the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and througout the Middle East. I've seen these old guns in the hands of Hamas guerillas in the Gaza strip (At least one was a WWI Turkish Mauser by the look of it) and by rebels fighters in Arabia. People may think that's comical but in the hands of a decent marksman some of these old war horses will still out shoot a Government trooper armed with a brand spanking new M4 Carbine, G-36 or AK-47.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Fiberglass stocks do pretty well in the cold... well enough that the US Army and Marine corp chose them during the Cold War for their M40 and M24 sniper platforms with fighting in Siberia specifically in mind and tested them in field trials in Alaska.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Or, shit, how about the AI Arctic Warfare rifles serviced by the Swedish and Norwegian militaries, amongst others, specifically designed for use in the extreme cold... and also using fiberglass/kevlar composite stocks.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
If you had read the article, you would have noticed that “the supply chain no longer has the parts to sustain this weapon long term.” This is because the weapon is old and - from a military point of view - obsolete, so spare parts are no longer manufactured. It'll probably be quite a bit cheaper to re-equip with a newer rifle than to re-establish a Lee-Enfield production line - especially considering they are likely to pick an off-the-shelf rifle to equip a rather small force.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
You understand that there's a difference between the RCMP and the Canadian Forces, right?
The Canadian Rangers' mandate is to provide a military presence and sovereignty patrols in sparsely settled and extremely remote (Northern) regions of the country. The force is made up of reservists, and they're issued a unique uniform -- CADPAT pants, bright red Ranger sweatshirt and baseball cap. The whole idea is to take a group of Northerners and leverage their wilderness and arctic skills. It's a much smarter and more cost-effective approach than attempting to train and equip a group of 18 year-old city kids for the tundra.
Full disclosure: I'm 56 years old, and still own a Lee-Enfield that was given to me by my father when I was 13, which originally belonged to HIS father. It still works as well as it did the day I got it.
I grew up in Labrador, hunting fishing and camping. I had two tours of CFS Alert, at 82 deg 30 min North. I've been to Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Churchill, Tuktoyuktuk, Iqualiuit, and very many places in between. Believe me, I've seen cold - but cold isn't even the biggest problem.
The Rangers are generally either Innu or Amerind. Technically, they are on duty or on call 24/7. Most of those involved in the Rangers still follow their traditional lifestyles - they hunt, fish, and trap for a living, and spend their time outdoors.
They don''t carry multiple weapons - they don't have the space or weight to spare, given the rest of their kit. That's why the Lee-Enfield has lasted as long as it has - it can be used to hunt for seal, moose or caribou, or defence against moose (ugly, nasty brutes - very evil tempered), wolves, or polar bears. You can hit a target out to about 350 yards or so - more than sufficient for any practical use, and long enough that you don't have to do extra laundry because a polar bear decided that you looked like a snack.
In the meantime - the rifle is carried around on your back while you're going through thick brush, getting banged and nicked as you go. It's sitting in the bottom of a canoe, or a kayak. it's getting banged around while sitting on the running boards of the snowmobile. It's in the bottom of a 12 foot motor boat while you go from island to island in the Arctic Ocean, getting banged around and covered with salt spray. It's stuffed where ever it can fit on the dogsled (yes, they are still used in some places). And after all that crap and abuse, you just have to pick the thing up, and it will hit what you aim at. No fuss, no muss.
Bottom line: Stand me in the world's best gun shop, give me unlimited credit, and tell me I can take one - and ONLY one weapon. I'll take the Lee-Enfield, every time. And I'll still be using it when every other weapon there has died of old age or just disintegrated because of the environment.
I pity the poor bastard that has to make the decision on the replacement. I'm just glad it's not me.
I met that poor bastard who is helping make the decision last week - and everything you said is correct.
It's also bullshit. For a weapon this age, there are no patents, and parts can and are supplied by a multitude of vendors. The number of vendors that specialize on supplying parts for firearms that are no longer produced is quite high.
What I see is an unfounded belief that buying long-term non-OEM support will be more expensive than buying support for a new weapon. In the real world, it's the other way around - new weapons are far more expensive to support. Never mind all the other costs of switching.
Mark my words: Five years from now, there are going to be Canadian news articles about how the original budget was blown several times over.
My guess: Someone has been promised kickbacks and incentives, and the choice of a replacement has already been made. It will now be followed by a circus to "determine" that it's the best choice. And it will end up costing the tax payers a fortune. I.e. a smaller version of the F-35 scam. Follow the money trail.
but the AWP can kill someone if you shoot their toe or finger. the best strategy is to bunny hop around the battlefield to avoid being shot.
you should also spin around so you can shout "LOL 360 kill"
My guess: Someone has been promised kickbacks and incentives, and the choice of a replacement has already been made. It will now be followed by a circus to "determine" that it's the best choice. And it will end up costing the tax payers a fortune. I.e. a smaller version of the F-35 scam. Follow the money trail.
DING, DING, DING! And we have our winner! Money and votes are the only motivations here. Nothing else makes sense. Money, some manufacturer is going to get a juicy multi-year exclusive contract. Votes, some MP is going to be able to say, "look how many jobs I brought into our district!"
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
No, that's wrong on many accounts. The german reports of withering Lee-Enfield fire are from the first world war. And since the German army had extensive experience from the Lee-Enfield from the first world war, its capabilities weren't a surprise the second time around. Not by a long shot.
But that didn't matter since rifles were passe. The German infantry squad was armed with the Mauser (shortened version of the full length rifle of WWI) throughout WWII. But that didn't matter as the rifle squad had the newly invented general purpose machine gun to form around. It was even considered the sole reason for the squad's existence. (See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...). Note that only NCOs etc. were supplied with any kind of automatic weapons, in most cases the "Schmeisser" submachine gun. The rest of the squad was basically there to carry ammunition for the machine gun and to provide flank cover for the crew. And the German rifle squad could definately put more rounds on target than a British rifle squad of the time, the "mad minute" not withstanding.
The sturmgewehr 44 didn't come out until (you guessed it), 1944, and was never a standard rifle squad rifle. It's cartridge was emphatically not developed with any "only need to wound" factor taken into account. Instead it was recognised that most targets were human, and only 150m away or so (max 300). So much could be saved by developing a cartridge for that situation instead of a cartridge that could topple a horse at shorter ranges and a man at 1000m (the original design specifications actually hinged on the effectiveness against horses, as stopping a cavalry charge was still very much the order of the day). So instead the "kurz" round was developed to give rifle like performance out to a couple of hundred meters, but allowing the carrying of more ammunition both on the person and in the gun, and much lower recoil, which becomes important in a fully automatic weapon.
The "wound not kill" design parameters don't come into effect until 5.56mm NATO and the corresponding USSR rounds were introduced in the late sixties/seventies. (As can be observed by their abysmal performance in a full metal jacket to actually stop a man. They still kill without much problem.) Horses were out of the picture when 5.56mm NATO was developed, so that together with "wounding factor" (wound not kill wasn't really a factor when designing rifle ammunitio) is why they got away with such a weak cartridge. Which was actually weaker from the beginning but the Army kept insisting on being able to penetrate a steel helmet at 300m, so the case had to be lengthened and lengthened to fit enough propellant. That gave the unfortunate case dimensions that are with us still to this day.
Stefan Axelsson
Epoxy is a thermosetting plastic so is very unlike nylon. It's already as brittle as it is going to get at room temperature - it keeps the same toughness at lower temperatures because it doesn't have a glass transition temperature like nylon does. It's due to the two materials having very different structures. Epoxy has a lot of crosslinking, like a mesh, while nylon doesn't, like spaghetti. Cool the spaghetti down and there's a lot more resistance to it moving about on the plate until suddenly it's all stuck frozen together - glass transition temperature.
Look up "thermosetting vs thermoplastic" for some ideas. What the holders of the nylon patent know is not relevant for something made of glass reinforced epoxy resin.