.450 inch & above Express Rifles

By the spring of 1915 the Western Front had degenerated largely into one of static trench warfare. From the Channel coast to the Swiss border, the massed armies faced each other across a narrow no man’s land, each side occupying a maze of trenches, dug-outs and strong points. It was against this background that the snipers came into their own.

Unlike the British army, who had paid little attention to sniping at the outbreak of war, the Germans were believed to have had some 20,000 telescopic-sighted sniping rifles available for the field in August 1914 plus many thousands more telescopic sporting rifles donated by the German public. When the British did start to introduce the first telescopic-sighted versions of the SMLE, the equipment was slow in arriving and there was little experience available to exploit it.

British losses to snipers mounted steadily in the early part of 1915. In his contemporary account “Sniping in France”, Major Hesketh‑Pritchard recounts that in early 1915 one battalion lost eighteen men in a single day to snipers. The advantage to the Germans was not just the simple fact of inflicting casualties; the steady attrition sapped British morale, forcing troops to stay in cover and allowing the Germans to dominate no man’s land.

Another problem confronting the British was that even when counter-fire could be brought to bear on a German sniper’s position, the normal .303 inch ball bullet could not penetrate the armoured loop-hole and the early armour-piercing rounds, such as the steel tipped .303 Mark VIIS, of which there was only a very limited supply, fared little better.

One solution that seems to have occurred to several people at the same time was to use heavy calibre sporting rifles to defeat the German armour. Many officers had taken their personal sporting rifles to France and began to use these against snipers. Hesketh-Pritchard tells how he had taken several telescopic-sighted rifles with him to France and recalls how when he returned to the UK on leave for a week he took home a captured German sniper shield and tested several different express rifles against them for effectiveness. He tried “….. all kinds of rifles, from the Jeffery high‑velocity .333 to heavy elephant guns of various bores, and was delighted to find that the bullets from the .333, as well as the elephant guns, pierced them like butter”.

Major Hesketh-Pritchard was so enthused by this that he obtained a fund, to which Lord Haldane, Lord Glenconner and Lord Finlay contributed, for the purchase of telescopic-sighted sporting rifles, telescopes and other equipment for sniping. He writes “As to the heavy and armour-piercing rifles, they did their work exceedingly well, and no doubt caused a great surprise to the enemy.”

In September 1915 the authorities in England began receiving reports from France of the effectiveness of this solution and decided to investigate on a more formal basis. The result was that they purchased 52 Express rifles in the following calibres, .600, .577, .500, .475 No.2, .470, .450 3 1/4, .450 No.2, .450.

The cost of these rifles was too high and the Ministry of Munitions purchased no further rifles. However, these rifles were issued for service and contracts placed for both new and reloaded ammunition.

Example Express rifle cartridges used in WWI

Left to Right 1. .303 Ball Mark VII (for comparison)

2. .500 Nitro 3”

3. .500 Nitro 3¼”

4. 450 Nitro 3¼”

5. .450 No.2 Nitro

6. .475 No.2 Nitro

7. .475 No.2 Jeffery Nitro

Example Express rifle cartridges used in WWI

Left to Right 1. .333 Jeffery

2. .577 Nitro 3¼”

3. .600 Nitro 3”

Imperial War Museum Exhibition

When the Imperial War Museum opened in 1922, an exhibition was staged of the arms and equipment used during the recent conflict. One of the exhibits was a display of the cartridges used with the Express rifles as described above. Fortunately, some of those examples still survive today in the Imperial War Museum collection in both full and sectioned form.

Left to right: .470 x 3 1/4 inch Nitro, Full and sectioned, .577 x 3 inch Express cordite sectioned, black powder sectioned and full round. (Imperial War Museum)

It appears that the .577 x 3” was used in both black powder and cordite-loaded versions, as there are sectioned examples of both amongst the exhibits.

.470 Inch Pattern '13

When the purchase of express rifles was stopped in December 1915 a .276 inch Pattern 1913 rifle was re-barrelled in .470 inch and sent to France for trials. The results were unfavourable and it was decided to retain the original .276 inch calibre but to develop special armour piercing bullets for it.

.276 inch Pattern '13 rifle

In the event, although some experimental work was done, the development of the improved .303 inch armour-piercing Mark VIIW meant that German sniper shields could be penetrated using the issue rifles and work on the .276 inch ceased.