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The ONLY reason the Canadian rifle had a HOD was the short body cover. We could use the 5 round charger clips and replenish the magazine from the open action. That was sort of handy at times. And by the way, I met more than one HOD that was a pig to operate.
Talking of which......... There was an operating weight for the spring inside the HOD as I remember. JUST light enough to operate easily with a hot slippery wet hand and strong enough to release when the bolt is drawn back slightly. When the sand or worse still, the silt from the mangrove swamps - or ANY swamp got in there, that was the end of them.
What has got me thinking is this. In Australia and Malaya, did our L2A1's have HOD's or were they the same as the L1 rifle?
HGOD's, yes, there was always a lot of healthy discussion about them and they weren't strip-downable either so once they were gummed/jammed up, they were effectively scrap
I seem to recall there were three different HODs, one with a hole in it, one with a short pin that served no purpose, and a plain one with no hole at all. If you got the one with the hole, you could make a long pin and get it to work. I did this, and later got fined £5 for 'conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline' . This came back to bite me, many years later.
I have a Australian 2d pattern and it does have pin in it. Based on what I have seen here, I might just forgo replacing the pin and leave well enough alone!
Thanks all...learn something new every time I'm on here!