James Paris Lee - The Lee Magazine Systems and Rifles

The Lee Magazine Systems and Rifles

Perhaps Lee's greatest individual impact on modern small arms development came with his invention for a spring-loaded column-feed magazine system for centerfire cartridge rifles. Fitted with a charger bridge, the Lee magazine could be quickly reloaded with either single cartridges, like a tubular feed magazine, or a charger of five rounds, like the Lee or Mannlicher en bloc systems. With the magazine detached, the rifle became a single-shot weapon, a feature seen as desirable by some countries for training purposes or for maintaining control over sometimes unreliable colonial or indigenous troops. The Lee magazine was also adaptable to a variety of cartridges and bolt systems regardless of bullet shape or cartridge length. Because the cartridges were stored in a column, the Lee magazine could be easily lengthened to store additional cartridges in keeping with evolving small arms doctrine. In combat, the detachable magazine theoretically allowed a soldier to carry multiple loaded magazines, thus speeding reloading time. Unfortunately, at the time Lee's magazine was introduced, rifle magazines were expensive to fabricate, and could not be regarded as expendable items. Lee's idea of carrying additional loaded magazines was not seen as an advantage by most major military forces at the time, who preferred to issue the soldier with loose cartridges or en bloc charger clips. However, in time Lee's detachable column-feed magazine system became the preeminent design used in all modern military small arms.

Concurrently, Lee independently developed an en bloc charger-loaded magazine along the lines of the system developed by Ferdinand von Mannlicher, which was used in the M1895 Lee Navy rifle adopted by the U.S. Navy. In 1891, Lee unsuccessfully sued von Mannlicher, claiming that the latter's design infringed upon his en bloc magazine patent.

The Lee Model 1879 rifle, a landmark rifle design, incorporated a turnbolt action and the Lee spring-loaded column-feed magazine system, and was his first successful magazine-fed rifle. The Model 1879 was adopted by China and the US Navy, and two later designs - the Remington-Lee M1885 and the Winchester-Lee or Lee Navy M1895 - were also adopted militarily and sold commercially.

His bolt and magazine design soon interested British ordnance authorities, and in 1889, after extensive trials, the British Army decided to adopt the Rifle, Magazine, Lee-Metford as a standard issue arm. This in turn developed into the Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield (or SMLE), the British service arm for many decades.

James Paris Lee died in Short Beach, Connecticut on February 24, 1904, having lived to see his rifles in service throughout several Colonial conflicts and the Boer War- yet no doubt completely unaware that his contribution would still be in official service 100 years later.