#Em-2

Where most equate the post World War 2 British Army with the FAL, it should not have been and should not have come to pass. Experimenting with surprising alacrity and inspired by German designs, the British Royal Arsenals went straight to work on the development of their next-generation rifle. Unlike the US, the British took stock of their standard engagements and concluded that full-power cartridges were not needed and that various intermediate loadings would be ideal for the shoulder-fired infantry weapon. Interestingly, this is the same concept cropping back up by the US Army today…

The following is a guest article written for TFB by reader Tim about his efforts with his friend Paul to recreate the historical .280 British (7x43mm) round developed for the EM-2 and FAL rifles during the early pre-NATO rifle trials of the late 1940s. Enjoy!

The Sterling L2A3 was the iconic Cold War submachine gun of the British Army. Inexpensive to make, compact and rugged, it was a design that incorporated the experience from the Sten submachine gun, a weapon which though inexpensive really left a lot to be desired. In a recent video, Ian from Forgotten Weapons and working in concert with Armament Research Services (ARES), produced a video overview of some of the British developments in submachine guns (which they called “machine carbines”) just before, during, and after World War II. These designs helped pave the way for the Sterling, which saw service all the way through the Gulf War until its retirement in 1994.

In January, just before the 2017 SHOT Show, I got the opportunity to travel to Cody Wyoming to visit the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, to see some of their rare firearms and bring photos of them to our readers.

World War II, as the name implies, was a tremendous conflict with gigantic leaps forward in both technologies and the tactics that went along with them. As a result of the conflict, infantry-troops carried, shoulder-fired semi-automatic firearms became the norm, first inspired by the fielding of the Garand and later perfected by the Nazis and Soviets.

Today on an extra special episode of Historical Intermediate Calibers, we’ll be taking a look at one of the most controversial experimental military rounds, one that many believe should have become the standard for the Western World at the beginning of the Cold War. That round is the .280 British, also known as the 7x43mm, and beginning in 1947 it competed head-to-head against the caliber that eventually became the 7.62 NATO in trials to become the standard infantry small arms caliber of the free world. The .280 British has, in the almost 70 years since its invention, become one of the great “might-have-beens” of the small arms ammunition world. Many small arms enthusiasts wonder how firearms history might have been changed if this brilliantly designed British 7mm round had been adopted by NATO instead of the overlarge and too-powerful US-designed 7.62mm.

Nearly two weeks ago, I published an article that caused a great deal of consternation among my readership, even resulting in a prompt rebuttal video from Ian and Karl with InRange TV. That highly negative article was entitled 7 Reasons I Don’t Like The MP-44 Sturmgewehr. As a result of the unexpected waves it caused, the Sunday after the article ran I took to the proverbial recording studio with Ryan Michad to discuss the Sturmgewehr, its context, and to hopefully explain some of the more controversial talking points of the article.

In about an hour’s time we will be publishing a TFBTV video about the Pedersen rifle, which was chambered in the .276 Pedersen. Almost three decades later the British developed the .280 British round, very similar to the .276 Pedersen, and an experimental bullpup assault rifle chambered in it called the Enfield EM-2 or Rifle No.9 Mk1. Once again the US military were reluctant to give up a high-powered .30 caliber round for a lower powered 7mm round with better ballistics. The EM-2 was scrapped and the SA80 assault rifle was developed.

In preparation for an upcoming article about “light rifle” development (i.e., full power automatic infantry rifles), I have been reading the excellent Collector Grade Publication three-part volume on the FN FAL rifle. In it is contained the transcript of the 1950 Light Rifle trials, which pitted the American T25 design (a rifle that was at once a hybrid of the M1 Garand and BAR, but at the same time much more than that) by Earle Harvey, the Anglo-Polish EM-2 design by Stefan Janson, and the Anglo-Belgian FN FAL design – by none other than Dieudonné Saive, John M. Browning’s Belgian protégé – against the Second World War veteran the M1 Garand. The tests were comprehensive, but not all included the “control” rifle – the M1. Why this was so is not clear to me. In the rain tests, the M1 beat the EM-2 and was not so far behind the FAL and T25, and in the cold tests the M1 was a clear winner, functioning flawlessly (this would be echoed later when the T44E2 would beat the FAL in trials in Alaska, preventing its cancellation and eventually leading to the adoption of its descendant, the T44E4 as the M14, in 1957).

Controversy over small arms is nothing new. Back in the early 1950s, when the 7.62x51mm was called the “.30 Light Rifle” and NATO still believed it could achieve the goal of a universal standard rifle, there was (quite naturally, given the large number of parties involved) what was called more than once “The Great Rifle Controversy”. An apt name, I think.

The Enfield EM-2 rifle, otherwise known Rifle No. 9, remains the rifle I most want to fire, but know I am never going to have the chance. If it had been adopted who knows how modern rifle cartridges would have evolved. This video shows the EM-2 being fired …