In trying to think of a firearm that is iconically British, I
just can't think of anything other than a Lee-Enfield. That's a sort of general category of a long line of british bolt action rifles ranging in era from the 1870's to the 1940's in Britain, 50's and 60's in the British colonies like Pakistan and India. I have two indian friends, whose fathers used Lee Enfields in the Indian Army. One was old enough to have had one in .303 British, one was a few years later when they updated to 7.62x51 NATO.
Anyway, it is said that the weapon that WON the great war was the SMLE, which was technically a certain variant of the Lee-Enfield. SMLE stands for Short Magazine Lee-Enfield rifle. I have one, by the way
The SMLE was ranked by the Military Channel as either 3rd or 4th greatest infantry combat rifle of all time. Ahead of it were only the M16 and the AK47, and that's really saying something. It was one of the greatest infantry combat rifles of all time because it was durable, reliable, and moderately accurate. When I say moderately accurate, I mean that they were selected by the military and required to be able to shoot at a record of 2.67 minutes of arc, which comes out to being able to hit a 16" diameter target at 600 yards. The British wanted a soldier to at least be mechanically able to hit a man's body at 600 yards. I've only shot it at 100y, but mine will actually shoot about 1.5 MOA, which means about 1.5 inches at 100y. Hypothetically, since MOA (minute of arc) is an angular measurement independent of distance, it should be able to hit a 9 inch target at 600 yards. They were one of the few rifles being used by major WW2 powers that were magazine-fed, and their 10 round capacity and cock-on-lock springloaded bolt made reloading EXTREMELY fast. It is said to have been the fastest bolt action rifle ever produced by a military, which is important in a combat environment where machine guns are ruling the dirt.
I have one called a Number 4 Mk.1 (There are diff numbers and mark models of each one). I'm familiar with a Number 1, Number 2, and Number 5, and each one has a few models. The No 4. Mk.1 (T) was a sniper model. Looks like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... anders.jpgThey're so resilient that even today, they are used in remote parts of the world by guerrilla fighters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:014_PLA_Fighters.JPGI'm not suer when that picture was taken but I think you can tell from the quality that it was pretty recently, and that rifle is probably a 1940's model.