L, first entering a recess prepared for it in the shoe.  There is a magazine spring, D, at the bottom of the magazine box which pushes the cartridges up into the shoe.  The point of the top cartridge is pushed into the projection, L, and this keeps the lower cartridges in their places in the box while the latter is detached; when the magazine is inserted in the rifle, the withdrawal of the bolt causes the top cartridge to be slightly drawn back, so that it is now free to be fed up into the shoe by the magazine spring, D.

There is a later pattern of magazine, which has its front face quite plain, with no projection, L, as the magazine catch was found sufficient to hold the box in its place.  To prevent the cartridges being pressed out of the magazine before the latter is inserted in the rifle, there is a strong spring placed vertically in one side of this box, the curved upper end of which bears upon the top cartridge; when the magazine is in its place in the shoe, this side spring is so acted upon that it ceases to hold down the cartridges in the box.

To use the rifle as a single loader, formerly the magazine had to be detached, when a spring plate in the shoe, which is pushed aside by the insertion of the magazine, starts back into its place and nearly fills the magazine slot, so as to prevent cartridges falling through to the ground when fed into the chamber by hand.  The later pattern, however, has two notches on the magazine for the catch, C, to engage in.  When the magazine is inserted in the slot only as far as the upper notch, the rifle can be used only as a single loader, but on pressing the box home to the second notch, the magazine immediately comes into play.

The magazine can be released from the slot by an upward pressure on the lower projecting end of the magazine catch, C, which is covered by the trigger guard.

Improved Lee.—­This rifle is precisely similar in principle to the Lee, the chief difference being that the magazine is permanently fixed in its slot underneath the shoe, and in front of the trigger guard.  The cartridges are inserted from above.  There is a stop by means of which the cartridges can be prevented rising up into the shoe, and which forms a sort of false bottom to the slot in the latter, so that the arm can be used as a single loader.

Lee-Burton.—­The bolt action is the same as the Lee, but the box magazine is attached to the right side of the shoe, instead of being underneath, as in that rifle.  When the magazine is raised to its higher position, the cartridges pass successively into the shoe by the action of gravity alone, and are thus pressed home into the chamber by the closing of the bolt.

[Illustration:  Fig. 11.]

A number of the Lee-Burton and improved Lee rifles are now being manufactured for issue to the troops, in order to undergo experimental trials on an extended scale.