The rifle the British have been showing off to the press is the EM-2, Enfield rifle. It weighs about eight and a quarter pounds without sling and magazine. The F.N. rifle is heavier; models brought over for testing in the United States weighed almost as much as the Garand (10 pounds).

The British apparently did not adopt the F.N. rifle. Perhaps they reasoned it would be better to adopt the 'British' lightweight rifle, the Enfield rifle. U.S. Ordnance was surprised when the British chose the EM-1 over the F.N. because Ordnance thought the F.N. was the better of the two rifles.

After the British unveiled the EM-2 rifle last August, the F.N. people unveiled their own rifle on September 6, at Brasschaef (pictured on page 20, Rifleman, November 1951). The press attended and discovered that the F.N. rifle used the same cartridge as the EM-2 rifle. Perhaps that is better put in reverse: The British EM-2 rifle uses the same cartridge as the Belgian F.N. It apparently was F.N. that finally perfected the cartridge. In any event, the front page of the brochure distributed at the F.N. Brasschaet demonstration reports: "F.N.-as was recently acknowledged officially-finally brought (the cartridge) to its present satisfactory stage of development." At that demonstration, F.N. officials declared that the cartridge had a muzzle velocity of 2,300 f.p.s.

When the British originally brought the lightweight automatic rifles to the United States for testing, along with the cartridge, they brought along a steel-core bullet, the presently accepted battlefield bullet material. The bullet weighed 140 grains. This bullet, in U.S. tests registered a muzzle velocity of 2,300 feet per second. For a military rifle and cartridge, a muzzle velocity of 2,300 f.p.s. is not acceptable by U.S. standards. It was been proved, for example, that in cold weather, the rifle loses at least 200 feet per second. Therefore, in cold climates, such as Alaska, or Greenland, where the U.S. might be fighting in the next war, the British cartridge would register a muzzle velocity of only something in the neighborhood of 2,100 f.p.s., not enough power in extreme cold weather to operate the mechanisms of the rifle with any amount of safety factor.

The loss of muzzle velocity directly affects the trajectory of the rifle. The trajectory figures of the British bullet have not been released, and, as one writer describing the British rifle said, it was one of the two questions the British would not answer about their rifle.

Anyone having an elementary knowledge of ballistics will have no trouble in working out approximate figures for the British steel-core bullet, and it is plain that the trajectory is very poor. With a target distance of 700 yards it is conjectured that this bullet would rise to 6 feet above the ground at 200 yards from the firing point, and midway to the target it will be feet off the ground. It is only at 600 yards (one hundred yards from the target) that the bullet returns to the six-foot mark to descend to the target at the 700-yard mark. In short, for 400 yards of the 700 yards range the British bullet would have passed completely over the head of a six-foot man.

Such a trajectory is not acceptable by U.S. standards. The new U.S. T-65 bullet fired under the same conditions, stays flat, and passes through equivalent height of the chest of a six foot soldier at mid-point to the target. In short: Since Ordnance claims the T-65 will do everything the .30 will do, the highest point of the trajectory of the U.S. T-65 bullet must be five feet, or slightly under.

The British team went back to England after the disappointing results of the tests conducted here in the United States. By then, they had learned of the new U.S. T-65 cartridge which U.S. Ordnance experts had produced. They problem the British faced was a complex one, that of finding a method of stepping up the muzzle velocity of the rifle from 2,300 f.p.s., to something near acceptable U.S. standards, while retaining the 140-grain bullet.

They subsequently found a solution, of course, because in all recent displays of the British rifle the muzzle velocity has been stated at 2,530 f.p.s., still weak by U.S. standards, but nonetheless better than an unacceptable 2,300 f.p.s.

How did the British step up the muzzle velocity? As indicated by a recently published article, they have substituted a lead-core bullet in place of the original steel-core bullet. Since the density of lead is greater than that of steel, the British could afford to chop off some of the length of the bullet in the cartridge case, and in the space saved stack in more powder. The extra powder packed into the cartridge, made possible by the use of a lead-core, cupro-nickel coated steel jacket bullet, gave the cartridge extra zip, and stepped up the muzzle velocity of the rifle from 2,300 f.p.s. to 2,530 f.p.s. The weight of the bullet remained at 140-grains. With the lead-core bullet, then the British increased the velocity of the rifle, and in doing so, managed to improve the trajectory of the bullet. Trajectory figures on the British rifle firing a lead-core bullet are now considered classified, but it is believed that the present trajectory of the bullet fired from the EM-2 rifle is within the area of acceptance by U.S. Army Ordnance. Trouble is, that it is all done with a lead-core bullet.

Ordnance, and the U.S. Army have long since ruled lead-core bullets obsolete simply because, while they may suit the sportsman, they do not measure up on the battlefield. They are fine for penetrating wood, and the British bullets, according to reports, have penetrated three and a half feet of soft wood at 100 yards range. This is not a particularly spectacular feat. As most experience riflemen know, lead-core bullets under certain conditions regularly penetrate more wood than steel-core bullets. At the same given weight, a lead-core bullet is apt to be more stable in flight, and more stable as it enters the wood, because it is shorter than a steel-core bullet. A steel-core bullet is longer for the same given weight (because lead is more dense) and therefore less stable as it enters the wood, and frequently flips off course.

But the U.S. Army attaches little significance to the amount of wood a bullet may penetrate at any given range. Long ago, they found that there was 'more steel on the battlefield than wood,' or that steel was more often used as protection from the enemy solider than wood. No modern military vehicles are covered with wooden boards.

In Ordnance tests of new cartridges then, greater significance is attached to the amount of steel a bullet may penetrate than to the amount of wood a bullet may penetrate. The British lead-core bullet will not penetrate steel in ordinary thicknesses encountered on the modern battlefield. In tests conducted in the United States, a lead-core bullet simply splattered against the side of a comparatively thin (1/4 inch) piece of armor plating.

The British note that the British bullet will penetrate a standard British helmet at 1,000 yards range. This, on the surface, is apparently a satisfactory test of the penetrating power of the rifle. Brigadier C. Aubrey Dixon (on page 40, Rifleman, January 1952) makes a great point of this, when he says: "If you can kill...at over 1,000 yards range through a steel helmet, you are surely doing well enough for moderate combat conditions." He is referring, as other writers have, to the British helmet. If war occurs, will the British be firing at British helmets, or will they be firing at Russian helmets? The Russian helmet and the U.S. helmet is much thicker and harder than the British helmet. The question is really: at what range will the British bullet penetrate a Russian, or a U.S. helmet? The British have not yet released that information. It is considerably less than 1,000 yards. At what range will the Russian 7.62 mm. rifle, fired at a muzzle velocity of 2,800 f.p.s., penetrate a British helmet? 1,500 yards.

The British rifle is inadequate in other respects. The straight stock arrangement of the British rifle is frowned upon by the Army, because it exposes the shooter unnecessarily. If a soldier is shooting over a foxhole or a trench with the British rifle, he must necessarily expose more of his face when aiming the rifle, because of the straight stock. Another bad feature of the British rifle is the telescopic sight which in battle can easily become disarranged, fogged, or packed with mud.

The British, then, have substituted a lead-core bullet in order to increase the velocity of the EM-2 rifle. As has been pointed out, the lead-core bullet, while it may penetrate more wood under certain circumstances, will not pierce many thicknesses of metal commonly encountered on the battlefield. There is some doubt as to the feasibility of producing an effective observing bullet in so small a caliber as .276. This doubt was expressed by British Ordnance experts. When the British cartridge is fitted with a steel-core bullet of 140 grains, the velocity of the rifle is reduced to 2,300 f.p.s., too low for U.S. Ordnance standards. As has been pointed out, in cold weather this might even drop to 2,100 f.p.s., a hazard for soldiers who will depend on perfect function of the rifle for their lives.