Our story begins back in the Boer War of 1899. In their skirmishes with the South African republics, and despite the sizable numeric differences in their fighting forces, the British found the various guerillas and irregulars were shooting their men to pieces. A good part of the cause came down to a difference in armament — the 7mm Mauser rifles used by the Boers outranged and outshot the various Lee-Enfields and Lee-Metfords chambered in .303 British.
Though the British proved the victors of the conflict, the Boers left the Empire licking its wounds and with the desire to field a gee-whiz rifle and cartridge combination of its own. By 1913, those efforts coalesced into the .276 Enfield round, which pushed a 165-grain bullet at about 2,800 feet per second, along with a shiny new launching platform built to accommodate the round’s greater length and pressure: the P13 (“Pattern 13”) rifle.
