L1A1...what happened to the original receivers?

I have been thinking, especially since the recent purchase of my L1A1 with a Embel receiver...where did all the Enfield OEM receivers end up? Were they destroyed, and the remaining parts being sold as surplus that now makes up the kit guns out there? Are they complete, sitting in long-term storage in some London warehouse? Or were the entire weapons sold to friendly governments across the globe?
I compare it with the US surplus items I am familiar with...as long as they are not fully automatic, the complete firearm may be sold/purchased.
Can someone enlighten me with the Enfield story?
Thanks.
Mike

try zib in Germany hes got 100's

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Originally Posted by 82Trooper

I have been thinking, especially since the recent purchase of my L1A1 with a Embel receiver...where did all the Enfield OEM receivers end up? Were they destroyed, and the remaining parts being sold as surplus that now makes up the kit guns out there? Are they complete, sitting in long-term storage in some London warehouse? Or were the entire weapons sold to friendly governments across the globe?
I compare it with the US surplus items I am familiar with...as long as they are not fully automatic, the complete firearm may be sold/purchased.
Can someone enlighten me with the Enfield story?
Thanks.
Mike

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Well Trooper, the reasons for none original recivers in the vast majority of US L1 builds is that the L1A1, though a semi automatic rifle, has an Auto Sear making conversation to selective fire a easy proposition. Simply a matter of swapping out the safety for a selective fire example and taking 6mm off the trigger plunger.

The auto Sear is a hang over from the parent Fal, but it also meant that exactly the same reciver could be used in the heavey barreled L2A1/C2 LMG.

With that in mind L1A1's could be stripped and shipped as parts kits or shipped with the receiver cut up.

As we have discussed in the past, some original Rifles are available in the US, original British L1A1's, sold as Law Enforcement Rifles, or the rare and highly collectable special production run Lithgow Factory L1A1A that was built with the Sear deleted, especially to be ATF compliant.

Original recivers are still available here in the UK and with others in Europe. Both my Enfield and my Lithgow L1A1's have original Recivers.

That makes sense..thank you.

"Auto sear" or as Cdn and other ordnance called it "safety sear" which prevented the arm from firing out of battery.

"Safety Sear" works from a Commonwealth perspective, but just causes confusion to others in my opinion.

Say Auto Sear, and our American friends know straight away why Uncle Sam gets Class 3 nervous over original Recivers.

Well John,
I miss the old L1A1, but I'll wait till I visit the FBI Academy later this year and shoot a "proper" one un tampered.
So frustrating having got GGG working well in it, and it still had issues, all caused by so many varied parts in our UK versions, to conform to legislation. A real crying shame IMHO when you consider what they left untouched out there!!! grrrrrrrrrr.

The term 'safety sear' v 'automatic sear' was a discussion point often raised by instructors (Mr Stan Ayley, or better known to us as 'sir') while we were apprentices and later on upgrading courses. It was done to get you thinking in real terms about exactly what was and did what. We, the UK and Commonwealth called it a safety sear. But the rest of the known universe called it an automatic sear. But I held my ground during these discussions and sai that I considered it to be an AUTOMATIC SEAR. Mind you, so did many of the others too.......... and so the discussion went on. Why do I say this and others in the class would say otherwise, like Green (post 5 and plenty of others here I suspect) they have a point. It DOES prevent the rifle firing before the rifle is fully locked. But that's not the whole story.....

Regardless of the 'safety' sear or not, the rifle WILL NOT fire out of battery or when it is unlocked simply because the breech block carrier (the BBC) will not expose the rear of the striker to the hammer UNTIL the breech block (the BB) is locked down. Have a look and see next time you have yours stripped. In addition to this, if there was a mechanical failure somewhere in the trigger mech and the hammer did spring forwards, then in every possible position the forward rotation of the hammer, the hammer blow is absolutely diminished as its rotation is slowed right down by the rear underside of the hammer slowly rolling forwards fully controlled by its shape, frictioning on the rounded underside on the rear of the BBC.

Have a look...... It is another mechanical safety that makes the rifle fool-proof. Clever eh!

Oh, yes. What SHOULD we call it? It is the automatic sear. Or is it the secondary sear. Or the upper sear? I'll tell you what it's not........ A safety sear! But I sing from the same hymn sheet as the other Armourers and call it the safety sear.

Are you still awake at the back of the class........

Peter,
You make I laugh :lol:
Hope you have all this written down for the future generations of L1A1 lovers. The SEAR was always a talking point in NI in the hours of boredom........"Now what does it take to make this little beauty fully automatic". Not a lot came back the answer, but needless to say, we never tinkered about with the rifle, it was brilliant as it was, none of this sticky back plastic Blue Peter answer or was it silver foil!

You can quite see why the ATF have an issue with auto/safety Sear recivers. It' just way too easy to make them Rock and roll!

The ex law enforcement examples that change hands might be fine, but, could potentially get you a prison sentence if some officious little Hitler decided to nail you to the wall and declare it a Class 3 firearm.

---------- Post added at 06:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:33 PM ----------

Just a superb rifle Gil, only with the adoption of the L119 7.62mm AR have the army had a comparable rifle.

I had a chat with a guy who carried one in Afghanistan, he couldn't praise it enough.

John,
They seem to be all over the place at the moment. It must be a Tiffy's nightmare, I have never seen so many variants, long rifles, short rifles, short machine guns, GPMG of course and most of them various rounds too, what a nightmare!!
GLOCK 17 9mm
L115A3 Long Range Sniper rifle 8.59mm
L129A1 Sharpshooter rifle 7.62mm
L15A2 81mm Mortar
Combat Shotgun ARGO system 12 Gauge
GPMG 7.62mm
H&K 40mm Grenade Machinegun
L1A1 12.7mm (.50) Heavy Machine Gun
Light Machine gun belt fed
LSW A2
Guided Wepaon (NLAW)

Phew.....................:confused:
However, so refreshing to see the GPMG wont be replaced anytime soon, she still soldiers on!!

Morning Gil, yep, the GPMG still just keeps rolling on, FN must have made a fortune on royalties with that design.

With Manroys still building them for us, there's no sign of that stopping any time soon.

Manroy.......... Not any more! What was always nice to see is old L7A1's upgraded to L7A2's dated 1965 and BL65A serial numbers still soldiering on. Or even old Enfield made UE67A's that were made before the SF crews on the courses were even born!

They must have stopped fairly recently then Peter? So, just the .50 cals now then. I wonder, are we just making use of what's in the system now or buying M240's from Uncle Sam to top up with....

NZ Police rightly considered them to be an auto sear. I purchased 1,000 L1A1's off the NZ Army in 1988 and converted them to 'semi-auto only' specs for civilian sale by grinding 1/4" off each end of the auto sear and arc welding them in place. Problem solved and perfectly acceptable by the NZ Police. Subsequent Army civilian sales were stopped by the Government and the rest of the L1A1's were exported or destroyed.

I can understand the NZ Government's caution Woodsy and your very sensible solution to the issue.

I can't think of any "good" reason why anyone would want to turn an L1A1 into a fire breathing monster anyway... Only very bad reasons come to mind!

From a US perspective, if I didn't have a Class 3 licence, the late "special run" Lithgow L1A1L's, with the deleted auto Sear is the way I would go.

That way you get a true Inch pattern and you won't get a knock on the door by the Spanish Inquisition!

Ironically, the Auto Sear was always left intact on UK civvy Rifles prior to the 1988 ban, on the ex civvy examples I have seen anyway.

One would assume that as the UK never used a selective fire variant, it just wasn't thought about or considered nessasary.

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Originally Posted by mrclark303

the L119 7.62mm AR

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One of our offerings from Diemaco...

Colt Canada C7 - Wikipedia

The L119 is the 5.56mm British SF weapon as designed by Gary Crocker, (now retired), from Colt Canada/Diemaco. I had the pleasure of handling the prototype in 2010 in the UK and saw the first large batches being processed at the Birmingham proof house.

Brian,
Certainly a nice well thought out and balanced piece of kit for vital CQB work in theatre. Thanks to Janes Defence for the topographic image

Receiver pics ... :thup:

The CQB model is a bit different than the standard L119 SFW. It was determined many years ago that the 14.5" barrel is the best all around length for an M16 carbine for a variety of reasons that are well known. Doug has been kind enough to post my photos above. The carbine on the right is the prototype and the ones to the left are the production carbines.

I had the chance to handle an L119 a while back, Colt Canada make a very fine AR that's for sure.

The quality of fit and finish was excellent, upper receiver and lower were certainly nice and tight without the usual play you come to expect between them.

Like its big brother, the Lewis Machine L129, great to have the utility and unbeatable ergonomics of the AR platform within our armed forces.

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Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

well thought out and balanced piece of kit for vital CQB work

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And wondering where this was 40 years ago when we wanted to do this stuff.

Jim,
Ha Ha..........too bloody true.;)

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

Manroy.......... Not any more! What was always nice to see is old L7A1's upgraded to L7A2's dated 1965 and BL65A serial numbers still soldiering on. Or even old Enfield made UE67A's that were made before the SF crews on the courses were even born!

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65 dated L7's are still out there, have worked on a few......... as for the L119 excellent.......... after shooting these it rekindled my love for the AR based rifles and was very close to buying a Straight pull but previous experience with one soon put the idea on the back shelf.........although one in .22RF is on the cards.

Brian:

Those Brens in the background of the middle pic seem to be a little "casually" stored.

I like the "urban combat" footwear; nice touch.

I agree Bruce. I was cringing a bit because they were all freshly deactivated and awaiting proof. What a shame.

When is it, July when this European Directive on Deactivation comes out, where NO moving parst whatsoever.
That wooden basket will be even fuller!! Very sad days indeed, its a shame noone has the balls to say, can we wait till March 2019 and we, as Englishmen and women will decide what WE WANT in our deactivated weapons!!
Sorry off my political soapbox.........................thats why we need to get out!!....Quick:surrender:

End of this month I think Gil, but not sure if that is just the EU Directive so don't know if it will be passed in the UK before we leave, took about a year on the last one.... so we may get away with it by the skin of our teeth....... World Wide arms mention it on Milweb in there adverts.

A great shame not just for the collector but for the re enactors who take time out to show the weapon systems of the time they portray....... My mate at work was at a display at Dover Castle, British, USA and German re enactors doing a display then letting the public have a close up of the weapons. If you have an address in the channel islands or Isle Of Man then you can still buy old spec stuff, D&B Militaria have some advertised, think Museums can still buy them in certain cases.

It's a nightmare Gil and Geoff. Companies forced to rework and resubmit their extensive stock .... Again, enormous cost, and lost sales, all to make welded up firearms .... Well, even more welded up!

Its utter nonsance ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Woodsy

NZ Police rightly considered them to be an auto sear. I purchased 1,000 L1A1's off the NZ Army in 1988 and converted them to 'semi-auto only' specs for civilian sale by grinding 1/4" off each end of the auto sear and arc welding them in place. Problem solved and perfectly acceptable by the NZ Police. Subsequent Army civilian sales were stopped by the Government and the rest of the L1A1's were exported or destroyed.

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Wow, I thought there were more than 1,000 SLRs on the civvie market in NZ??