How a Broken WW1 Rifle Accidentally Became a Sniper’s Best Friend

It started with a battlefield repair—and ended up redefining precision warfare. During the muddy trenches of World War I, a British rifleman jury-rigged a damaged Lee–Enfield with a crude telescopic sight and a modified bolt, unknowingly creating one of the earliest effective sniper conversions of the war. But the Lee–Enfield’s legacy goes even further: its legendary “Mad Minute”—a drill where trained riflemen fired 15–30 accurate rounds in 60 seconds—proved so devastating that German troops initially mistook it for machine-gun fire.

Originally designed for rapid volley fire, the rugged, bolt-action Lee–Enfield became an unlikely sniper’s best friend thanks to its smooth action, reliability, and adaptability in the hands of sharpshooters. Discover how a "broken" rifle and a British obsession with marksmanship turned a standard-issue infantry weapon into a silent killer on the Western Front.

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