These early SMLE rifles are known as 'Mk.I' pattern rifles. It is also here that the Lee-Enfield would gain one of its most defining visual features: its trademark blunt nose cap. The most substantial upgrades made were the shortening of the barrel and the introduction of a stripper clip guide on the bolt head. The first rifles to be given the SMLE (Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield) designation arrived in 1904. The No.1 Mk.III SMLE is perhaps the best known member of the Lee-Enfield family. Switching to a new square-shaped rifling system designed at the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) Enfield solved the problem, and thus the Lee–Enfield was born. Experiments with smokeless powder in the existing Lee–Metford cartridge seemed at first to be a simple upgrade, but the greater heat and pressure generated by the new smokeless powder wore away the shallow, rounded, Metford rifling after approximately 6000 rounds. 303 British cartridge, a rimmed, high-powered rifle round. The rifle was also equipped with a detachable, 10-round, double-column box magazine, a very modern development in its day. The Lee action cocked the striker on the closing stroke of the bolt, making the initial opening much faster and easier compared to the "cock on open" design of the Mauser Gewehr 98. Variants of the Lee-Enfield would serve as the standard infantry rifle of the British army from 1895 to 1957. It was derived from the earlier Lee–Metford, a mechanically similar black-powder rifle which combined James Paris Lee's rear-locking bolt system with a barrel featuring rifling designed by William Ellis Metford. The Lee-Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle that served as the main firearm used by soldiers of both the British Empire and the British Commonwealth.
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