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The Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket (also known as the Pattern 1853 Enfield, P53 Enfield, and Enfield rifle-musket) was a .577 calibre Minié-type muzzle-loading
rifled musket A rifled musket, rifle musket, or rifle-musket is a type of firearm made in the mid-19th century. Originally the term referred only to muskets that had been produced as a smoothbore weapon and later had their barrels replaced with rifled barrels ...
, used by the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
from 1853 to 1867; after which many were replaced in service by the cartridge-loaded
Snider–Enfield The British .577 Snider–Enfield was a breech-loading rifle. The American Jacob Snider invented this firearm action, and the Snider–Enfield was one of the most widely used of the Snider varieties. The British Army adopted it in 1866 as a conv ...
rifle.


History and development

The term "rifle-musket" originally referred to muskets with the
smooth-bore A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars. History Early firearms had smoothly bored barrels that fired projectiles without signi ...
d barrels replaced with
rifled In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the pr ...
barrels. The length of the barrels were unchanged, allowing the weapons to be fired in ranks, since a long rifle was necessary to enable the muzzles of the second rank of soldiers to project beyond the faces of the men in front. The weapon would also be sufficiently long when fitted with a bayonet to be effective against cavalry. Such weapons manufactured with rifled barrels, muzzle loading, single shot, and utilizing the same firing mechanism, also came to be called rifle-muskets. Royal Small Arms Factory developed the Pattern 1853 Enfield in the 1850s. The barrel had three grooves, with a 1:78
rifling In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize th ...
twist, and was fastened to the stock with three metal bands, so that the rifle was often called a "three band" model. The rifle's cartridges contained drams, or of gunpowder, and the ball was typically a Boxer modification of the Pritchett & Metford or a Burton-Minié, which would be driven out at approximately per second. The original Pritchett design was modified by Col. Boxer, who reduced the diameter to 0.55 after troops found the original 0.568 too hard to load during the Indian Mutiny, changing the mixed beeswax-tallow lubrication to pure beeswax for the same reason, and added a clay plug to the base to facilitate expansion, as the original Pritchett design, which relied only on the explosion of the charge, was found to cause excessive fouling from too slow an expansion, allowing unburnt powder to escape around the bullet. The Enfield's adjustable ladder rear sight had steps for the first position , , and . For distances beyond that, an adjustable flip-up blade sight was graduated (depending on the model and date of manufacture) from to . British soldiers were trained to hit a target by with a diameter bull's eye, counting 2 pointsout to . The target used from to had a bull's eye, with any man scoring 7 points with 20 rounds at that range being designated a marksman.


Crimean War

With war breaking out between the Turks and the Russians, Britain realized that it was only a matter of time before they would be drawn into the conflict. The British Army was in the midst of a significant weapons transformation from smoothbore muskets to rifled muskets. While three of the four divisions of the field army in the Crimea had been supplied with the pattern 1851 Minie rifle-musket, the other regiments of the army around the Empire still carried the 1842 pattern smoothbore musket. By the end of 1853, the Enfield rifle-musket was approved by the War Department for the army and was put into production. The Enfield saw extensive action in the
Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
, 1854–1856, with the first Enfield rifles being issued to troops from February 1855.


The Filibuster War

The instability in Central America after the collapse of the Federal Republic of Central America forced Costa Rica to reform and modernize its army, especially after a threat of invasion from Nicaragua in 1848. With the arrival of
Juan Rafael Mora Porras Juan Rafael Mora Porras (8 February 1814, San José, Costa Rica – 30 September 1860) was President of Costa Rica from 1849 to 1859. Life and career He first assumed the presidency following the resignation of his younger brother, Miguel ...
as president in 1849, Costa Rica acquired between 500-2000 1853 Enfield rifles in 1855. Later that year, the adventurer and mercenary William Walker imposed a military dictatorship in Nicaragua, reimposing slavery and threatening to conquer all of Central America. The 1853 Enfield rifle was used in the Filibuster War exclusively by the Costa Rican army, beginning with the
Battle of Santa Rosa In the 19th century, Nicaragua was beset by political problems, allowing William Walker, an American Southerner seeking to establish English-speaking slavery states in Latin America, to ascend to the Nicaraguan presidency. Walker believed in the ...
and the Second Battle of Rivas in March and April 1856.


Indian Rebellion 1857/Sepoy Mutiny

The Enfield P53 was introduced to Indian troops under British rule in 1856. The Enfield rifle-musket was a contributing cause of the Indian rebellion of 1857. Sepoys in the
British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
's armies in India were issued with the new rifle in 1857, and rumours were spread that the cartridges (referring here to paper-wrapped powder and projectile, not to metallic cartridges) were greased with beef tallow, pig fat, or a combination of the two – a situation abhorrent to Hindu and Muslim soldiers based on religious beliefs. British military drills of the time required soldiers to tear open by biting open the prepared cartridge, pour the gunpowder contained within down the barrel, snap off the greased end of the cartridge containing the bullet at the muzzle, ram it home, bring up the rifle to the hip, replace the percussion cap, ready the rifle by setting the sights and moving it to full cock, then to present the rifle, marking the target and squeezing the trigger. The musketry books also recommended that, "Whenever the grease around the bullet appears to be melted away, or otherwise removed from the cartridge, the sides of the bullet should be made wet in the mouth before putting it into the barrel; the saliva will serve the purpose of grease for the time being". The idea of having anything which might be tainted with pig or beef fat in their mouths was unacceptable to the Indian soldiers, and when they objected it was suggested that they were more than welcome to make up their own batches of cartridges, using a religiously acceptable greasing agent such as ghee or vegetable oil. This seemed to prove that the issued cartridges were, in fact, greased with pig and/or beef fat. A further suggestion that the Sepoys tear the cartridges open with their hands (instead of biting them open) was rejected as impractical – many of the Sepoys had been undertaking musket drill daily for years, and the practice of biting the cartridge open was second nature to them. Incidentally, after the Mutiny, manuals amended the method of opening the cartridge to, "Bring the cartridge to the forefinger and thumb of the left hand, and with the arm close to the body, carefully tear off the end without spilling the powder." As a consequence of British fears, the Indian infantry's long arms were modified to be less accurate by reaming out the rifling of the Pattern 1853 making it a smooth bore and the spherical / ball shot does not require greasing, just a patch. This greatly reduced the gun's potency and effectiveness, as did replacing the variable distance rear sight to a fixed sight. This became the Pattern 1858. However, due to the now thinner walls, the barrel would bulge, and bursting was not an unknown problem. Furthermore, with the bayonet fitted excessive flexing became an issue. To remedy this, an urgent order was placed in England for around 12,000 new barrels made specifying with a thicker barrel wall. This became the very scarce Enfield Pattern 1859 which in good to very good condition attracts a premium.


New Zealand Wars

The Enfield 1853 rifle-musket was issued to the British Army regiments, colonial Militia and Volunteer units and later to the New Zealand Armed Constabulary, and saw extensive use in the mid and later stages of the New Zealand Wars. The first Enfield rifles were issued to the 58th and 65th Regiments, stationed in the country, in 1858. The Enfield was not the ideal weapon for use in the dense bush covered hills of New Zealand because of its length and weight. Special units called Forest Rangers were formed to fight rebels in the bush but after their first expedition into the bush covered hills of the Hunua ranges, south of Auckland, most Enfields were returned and replaced with a mixture of much shorter and lighter, Calisher and Terry breech loading carbines, and Colt Navy .36 and Beaumont–Adams .44 revolvers. The special units kept a handful of 1853 Enfields for long range sniping. The Enfields continued to be used by the many British line regiments in the more open fern and tussock covered country of the Waikato interior. Numbers of Enfield muskets were also acquired by the Maori later on in the proceedings, either from the British themselves (who traded them to friendly tribes) or from European traders who were less discriminating about which customers they supplied with firearms, powder, and shot. After the introduction of the Snider-Enfield, many of the Enfield Muskets in the Armed Constabulary's armouries were sold off to members of the public, and they remained a popular sporting and hunting arm in New Zealand well into the late 19th century, long after the introduction of metallic cartridge-loading firearms.


American Civil War

The Enfield 1853 rifle-musket was also used by both the North and the South in the American Civil War, and was the second most widely used infantry weapon in the war, surpassed only by the
Springfield Model 1861 The Springfield Model 1861 was a Minié-type rifled musket used by the United States Army and Marine Corps during the American Civil War. Commonly referred to as the "Springfield" (after its original place of production, Springfield, Massachus ...
Rifled Musket. The Confederates imported more Enfields during the course of the war than any other small arm, buying from private contractors and gun runners. It has been estimated that over 900,000 P53 Enfields were imported into America and saw service in every major engagement from the
Battle of Shiloh The Battle of Shiloh (also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing) was fought on April 6–7, 1862, in the American Civil War. The fighting took place in southwestern Tennessee, which was part of the war's Western Theater. The battlefield ...
(April 1862) and the Siege of Vicksburg (May 1863), to the final battles of 1865. The gun was highly sought after in the Confederate ranks. According to a survey taken by British officials during the early stages of war on the arms of the Western Confederate Forces, nearly 70% were armed with smoothbore arms, such as the Model 1842 Springfield. Later in the war the same survey was taken, they found that more than 75% had acquired a rifle, mainly the Pattern 1853 Enfield. The P53 Enfields capabilities were largely lost by the lack of marksmanship training by both the Union and Confederacy. Most soldiers were not trained to estimate ranges or to properly adjust their sights to account for the "rainbow-like" trajectory of the large calibre conical projectile. Unlike their British counterparts who attended extensive musketry training, new Civil War soldiers seldom fired a single cartridge until their first engagement. After the end of the war, hundreds of formerly Confederate Enfield 1853 muskets were sold from the American arms market to the Tokugawa shogunate, as well as some prominent Japanese domains including
Aizu is the westernmost of the three regions of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, the other two regions being Nakadōri in the central area of the prefecture and Hamadōri in the east. As of October 1, 2010, it had a population of 291,838. The princi ...
and Satsuma. These units were later used in the
Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...
, and some remaining in Satsuma were also used by rebelling former samurai in the
Satsuma Rebellion The Satsuma Rebellion, also known as the was a revolt of disaffected samurai against the new imperial government, nine years into the Meiji Era. Its name comes from the Satsuma Domain, which had been influential in the Restoration and beca ...
about a decade later.


Reproductions

The Enfield 1853 rifle-musket is highly sought after by US Civil War re-enactors, British Military firearms enthusiasts and black powder shooters and hunters for its quality, accuracy, and reliability. The Italian firms of Davide Pedersoli & C. and Armi Chiappa (Armi Sport) manufacture a modern reproduction of the Enfield 1853 rifle-musket, which is readily available on the civilian market. Davide Pedersoli's reproductions are imported into the United States by the Italian Firearms Group located in Amarillo, Texas. The British company
Parker Hale Parker-Hale Ltd. was a British firearms, air rifle and firearms accessory manufacturer, located in the Gun Quarter of the city of Birmingham, England. It was founded by Alfred Gray Parker and Arthur Hale. History Alfred Gray Parker founded a ri ...
also made reproductions of the Enfield 1853 rifle-musket and of the Pattern 1861 Enfield musketoon in the 1970s. Those pieces were made to original patterns but are not particularly suitable for use by American Civil War reenactors because they were made to 4th model specs, including having the Baddeley barrel bands. This model (the 4th) was originally made too late to have been fielded in the American War. Appropriate models for that use would be 2nd or 3rd model three band rifle muskets.The Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle by Peter Smithurst; Osprey Publishing


See also

*
British military rifles The origins of the modern British military rifle are within its predecessor the Brown Bess musket. While a musket was largely inaccurate over , due to a lack of rifling and a generous tolerance to allow for muzzle-loading, it was cheap to prod ...
*
Rifles in the American Civil War During the American Civil War, an assortment of small arms found their way onto the battlefield. Though the muzzleloader percussion cap rifle was the most numerous weapon, being standard issue for the Union and Confederate armies, many other fir ...
*
Pattern 1861 Enfield musketoon The Pattern 1861 Enfield musketoon was a short-barrel version (610 mm or 24 inches) of the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musket, having a faster rifling twist rate (1:48 versus 1:78), along with more rifling grooves (five grooves versus the P ...
, a shorter version of this weapon. *
Snider–Enfield The British .577 Snider–Enfield was a breech-loading rifle. The American Jacob Snider invented this firearm action, and the Snider–Enfield was one of the most widely used of the Snider varieties. The British Army adopted it in 1866 as a conv ...


References


External links


Loading and Firing an 1853 Enfield Musket

Shooting the short Enfield musket

The Enfield Rifle
* http://sharpshooters.cfspress.com/arms.html

{{DEFAULTSORT:Enfield Pattern 1853 American Civil War rifles Weapons of the Confederate States of America Victorian-era weapons of the United Kingdom Weapons of the United Kingdom Rifled muskets