[fred cook]

This round was developed from the old 6mm Lee Navy round from 1895. The Lee Navy was one of the earliest small bore/high velocity rounds made for military use. At a time when the typical military round was running about 1200-1400 fps, the 6mm Lee was doing around 2600 fps or a bit better in some cases. The Lee round was also one that would "shoot out" a barrel in a relatively short time. The rifle used was a straight pull bolt action designed by James P. Lee and built by Winchester. The rifle was loaded by way of a 5 round stripper clip that would fall out of the bottom of the action when the last round was loaded. As a result, most of the clips were lost and are quite rare today. The Lee Navy rifle was only used for a short while before being replaced by the Remington Lee, a more conventional rifle. One of the few places where the Lee Navy saw action was at the defense of the legations in Peking during the Boxer rebellion.