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The Carbine, Long Magazine, Coconut, Lee was an Indian made derivative of the legendary British Lee Enfield SMLE intended for and used solely by special units of the Fijian Police. It fired the proprietary .410 Indian Musket, which it shared with the Indian prison guard conversions of the SMLE, and utilised an innovative magazine system. An unusual 'rifle', this weapon arose as the result of the near-death of the then Governor-General of Fiji, Sir Reginald 'Basil' Warburton, in 1919. Although very scarce in number, the rifles are nonetheless well known in collector circles not only for their unique configuration but also for the bizarre circumstances of adoption and the rapidity and potential corruption of the development process.

Production began in March 1921, and finished in November of that same year, with an overall production run of just 17.

History
As a colony of the British Empire, Fiji had long enjoyed British military assistance and its military was armed with British equipment. Unusually for a British colonial police force, the threat level in Fiji was considered low enough that the Fijian Police Force went rountinely unarmed, instead being issued defensive weapons as necessary. Since Fiji was but a backwater island of the Empire, the colonial administration never saw the need to issue either the police force or the Fijian Armed Forces with modern rifles, and as such the only firearms available even by the time of the First World War were obsolete, Indian made Snider-Enfields surplused from British Indian Army stores. Though obsolete, they were more than adequate for the purposes of wildlife management which was generally the main use for Fijian service rifles.

In September 1919, following the close of the First World War, the Colony of Fiji held an inaugural banquet for the Indian Cane Growers Association on behalf of the British government to recognise the achievments of their founding members in fulfilling and even exceeding wartime demands for food as part of the war effort. As part of the evening celebrations, the guests, among them Governor-General Warburton and the head of the ICGA, Theodore Riaz, were invited to partake in the ancient Fijian custom of Koko-jaba, or coconut sparring. During a sporting bout between Sir Warburton and Mr Riaz, high winds caused some coconuts from the native Hydriastele boumae trees to fall, resulting in a freak accident that killed Mr Riaz and nearly also resulted in the death of Sir Warburton, saved only by the timely precense of his butler.

Due to the number of guests present at the cocktail party, the high standing of Mr Riaz in the Fijian community and the gruesome nature of his death, an outrage was raised and a committee formed to resolve the issue of coconut fatalities. The recommended solution was a 'coconut cull', and it was proposed that officers of the Fijian Police should be assigned to remove the coconuts from public land by any means necessary. Through popular support and the personal intervention of Sir Warburton, this proposal was ratified in an Act of Parliament and a special commission of senior officers was raised in short to consider the implementation of this new policy.

Within months, this commission decided that firearms were the only practical solution to removing these coconuts; the child labour laws passed in Britain were by this time in force throughout the empire, meaning that it would be legally impossible as well as politically undesirable to return to the traditional practice of employing local youths to climb the trees and knock the coconuts out in a safe and controlled manner. The Snider rifles in inventory were by then over 50 years old, and completely unsuitable so a replacement was sought. When trials started in late September, it was immediately ruled that the .577 calibre utilised by the Sniders was not fit for purpose, outright blowing the coconuts to pieces rather than simply knocking them to the ground, which was deemed as wasteful. There were also concerns about their potential lethality should they fall into the wrong hands, or even those of the less professional serving police officers. A completely new weapon system would need to fill this niche.

A contract was therefore tendered on Christmas Day of 1919 for 15 such rifles, enough to arm the entire police force. This called for "a short and handy rifle, chambered in a calibre that would only be suitable for the destruction of fruit," reflecting the earlier fears of the British colonial administration. Almost immediately, the Rifle Factory Ishapore submitted a proposal that would reuse surplus SMLE parts originally intended for the British Indian Army, and hence both simplify manufacture and vastly reduce cost. Fiji also had a good working relationship with Ishapore, who were already contracted out to repair the Snider rifles. The only other contender, Birmingham Small Arms Co., was unable to meet the limited cost requirements of the contract and so dropped out by 1920.

The starting point for this new design would be the Ishapore produced SMLE, large stocks of which were left over from World War I. To meet the non lethality requirements of the contract it was decided that .410 Indian Musket, used in Indian prison shotguns of the time, would be a suitable chambering for the

Design
Mechanically, the Coconut Carbine is near identical to an SMLEThe most significant change to the Coconut Carbine was

The Coconut Carbine was about 100 mm shorter and nearly a kilogram (1 kg) lighter than the SMLE from which it was derived. A number of "lightening cuts" were made to the receiver body and the barrel, the bolt knob drilled out, woodwork cut down to reduce weight and had other new features like a flash suppressor and a rubber buttpad to help absorb the increased recoil and to prevent slippage on the shooter's clothing while aiming. Unlike modern recoil pads the No. 5 buttpad significantly reduced the contact area with the user's shoulder, increasing the amount of felt recoil of the firearm. In official recoil tests, the No. 4 rifle yielded 10.06 ft·lbf average free recoil energy and the No. 5 carbine 14.12 ft·lbf. Of the No. 5 carbine 4.06 ft·lbf extra recoil energy 1.44 ft·lbf was caused by adding the conical flash suppressor (muzzle shroud). The No. 5 iron sight line was also derived from the No. 4 marks and featured a rear receiver aperture battle sight calibrated for 300 yd with an additional ladder aperture sight that could be flipped up and was calibrated for 200 - 800 yd in 100 yd increments. It was used in the Far East and other Jungle-type environments (hence the "Jungle Carbine" nickname) and was popular with troops because of its light weight (compared to the SMLE and Lee–Enfield No. 4 Mk I rifles then in service) and general ease of use, although there were some concerns from troops about the increased recoil due to the lighter weight.

Due to the large conical flash suppressor, the No 5 Mk I could only mount the No. 5 blade bayonet, which was also designed to serve as a combat knife if needed.

A No. 5 Mk 2 version (or, more accurately, versions, as several were put forward) of the rifle was proposed including changes such as strengthening the action to enable grenade-firing, and mounting the trigger from the receiver instead of on the trigger guard, but none of them was ever put into production and there was subsequently no No. 5 Mk 2 rifle in service. Similarly, a number of "takedown" models of No. 5 Mk I rifle intended for Airborne use were also trialled, but were not put into production.

Service history


The rifle was first issued to British airborne forces in Norway towards the end of the Second World War; these were troops that were likely to be sent to the Far East for an invasion of Japan

The term was colloquial and never applied by the British Armed Forces, but the Rifle No. 5 Mk I was informally referred to as a "Jungle Carbine" by British and Commonwealth troops during the Malayan Emergency.

"Wandering Zero"
One of the complaints leveled against the No. 5 Mk I rifle by soldiers was that it had a "wandering zero" — i.e., the rifle could not be "sighted in" and then relied upon to shoot to the same point of impact later on. This condition is accurately referred to as an inability to zero, which would require this ability.

Tests conducted during the mid to late 1940s appeared to confirm that the rifle did have some accuracy issues, likely relating to the lightening cuts made in the receiver, combined with the presence of a flash suppressor on the end of the barrel, and the British Government officially declared that the Jungle Carbine's faults were "inherent in the design" and discontinued production at the end of 1947.

However, modern collectors and shooters have pointed out that no Jungle Carbine collector/shooter on any of the prominent internet military firearm collecting forums has reported a confirmed "wandering zero" on their No. 5 Mk I rifle, leading to speculation that the No. 5 Mk I may have been phased out largely because the British military did not want a bolt-action rifle when most of the other major militaries were switching over to semi-automatic longarms such as the M1 Garand, SKS, FN Model 1949 and MAS-49. (Anecdotal evidence from shooters of military surplus firearms suggests that the wandering zero problem would be alleviated by free-floating the barrel and glass-bedding the action.)

Nonetheless, it has also been pointed out by historians and collectors that the No. 5 Mk I must have had some fault not found with the No. 4 Lee–Enfield (from which the Jungle Carbine was derived), as the British military continued with manufacture and issue of the Lee–Enfield No. 4 Mk 2 rifle until 1957, before finally converting to the L1A1 SLR.

No reports of wandering zero are explained by the inability to truly "zero" the "tangent sights" used on SMLE rifles and there also exist no reports or demonstrations of "Jungle Carbines" maintaining or returning to "zero". The massive amount of barrel length removed from SMLE rifles as different "marks" were developed could easily explain why the "Jungle Carbine" has nothing like the reputation for accuracy and precision other "marks" are praised for despite having the shortest, most-rigid and presumably the newest barrels available. Unless, of course, successive "marks" of SMLE rifles are/were "overhauled" rather than new production rifles with cleaning rod-worn muzzle rifling and crowns removed by "cutting down" old barrels.

That each "new" mark is/was at the least the same length as earlier rifles and often shorter by multiple inches at the expense of velocity, energy and - according to some who believe longer barrels are better - accuracy; and reductions in velocity would affect the calibration of "tangent sights" suggests that "Jungle Carbines" were and are a bridge too far in "economically" overhauling old, hardly-fired but heavily-handled and excessively-cleaned rifles.

The most common cause of worn-out muzzles, crowns and rifling is daily cleaning of unused rifles with steel cleaning rods from the muzzle end.