He assigned an engineer named Tony Kinchin to the project.Īn expert on the history of US Civil War arms noted, “In an attempt to meet Le Breton's request, Tony Kinchin traveled to the (Royal Armoury) museum at Enfield to record the dimensions of original rifle-muskets and the tooling used to manufacture them. Parker Hale’s Production Manager John Le Breton decided in the early 1970s that he wanted to make an exact reproduction of the Enfield black powder muzzle loading rifle, and that he wanted the gun to reflect the exact specifications of the original Enfield rifles.

Over the years the firm primarily produced small caliber bolt-action target rifles. Alfred Gray Parker and Arthur Hale founded the business to provide shooting supplies to the British Volunteer companies and the marksmanship (target shooting) clubs in England around 1880. Although the name sounds reminiscent of many Civil War-era gun-makers in the Birmingham Small Arms Trade, obviously, the company never produced Enfield rifles on commercial contract for either side in the US Civil War. A bit of background discussion about the history of the Parker-Hale enterprise is in order.įirst of all, Parker-Hale was an English gun-maker founded in the Gun Quarter of Birmingham England, but not until well after the US Civil War ended. The Birmingham Parker-Hales are now gone but not forgotten. The P53 was by far the most popular Parker Hale product, and the one most widely used by (re)enactors. This was followed by their Enfield long rifle (P53) in 1974, Naval rifle (P58) in 1975 and later a. The first reproduction Parker Hale Enfields became available for sale beginning in 1972, starting with the 1861 Artillery carbine. These are considered among the highest quality reproductions of Civil War-era rifles and rifle- muskets ever produced. In the early 1970s, the Birmingham gun-maker Parker-Hale began selling reproduction Enfield rifles to both (re)enactors and live fire enthusiasts, or “skirmishers.” The company ceased production (in England) of muzzleloaders in 1990. While the history of the US Civil War is an area of great interest to hobby participants there is also a historical piece to the (re)enactment hobby itself which dates back at least fifty years.

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