This is not really Pt2, it could lead somewhere completely different.

But having come across this little snippet, and having spent some time in the previous article trying to prove that 5 rounds was the right way of doing things, in the interests of fair play I had to put it up on the website.

It comes from an addendum to "Armourers Notes 1931" I believe, and was published after the No4 was introduced in order to update it.

This relates to the No4 Mk1 of course.

This is interesting because it implies that loading with 10 was the norm in 1942.

It does rather explain why you can't load 10 rounds on some rifles though.

So if anyone knows anything more about this or has any further evidence (not just anecdotal please), then do please let us know.

LERA members (who have not forgotten their login details) can download the whole thing in the forum.

UPDATE:

It would appear that the training manuals from 1942 onwards make no mention of the 5 round rule.  But then there was a war on, the manuals are a lot shorter and the object would have been to turn raw recruits into soldiers as fast as possible.

Applying the 5 round rule takes a lot of training and practice which they didn't have time for, so it makes sense that they dropped it.

An elderly veteran of the Korean war whom I spoke to recently said he wished they had had the SLR in Korea.

I am still not convinced, once all your SLR mags are empty, and just 25 yards away they are still coming, I would rather have the option of just putting another clip of 5 rounds in and keep shooting.