Commercially Retailed L96A1 Rifle

[southwell]

Yes. The UA 86 rifles were made and taken into service in 1986 whereas the 85's were 1985. Production and acceptance was slow, believe me. The C indicates that the rifle body was subject to an extremely high standard of crack testing after the remote proofing. There were a couple of failures before that. The joke at the time was that if the rifle didn't have a C serial numb er suffix, it shouldn't fire anything more powerful than blanks!

And another AI scope serial number. AI 0537 and rifle number 85A 0561. They were always quite close

The IPR's and certain features of the L96 always belonged to the UK MoD. Outside buyers of an L96 rifle or its commercial derivative were required to pay royalties for the privilege

Thanks Peter. I'll be honest, I've never seen a UA85 rifle. L96s started production in 1986 if anything. Royal Armouries has UA86 A0001 and some in the 1000s that I've seen are also UA86.

Did you ever see one of these in your time by any chance? L96 with a STIC bracket and bipod extension mount. I'd only ever seen the bipod extension mount in the Green Meanie book, so made some copies for myself and a friend with a PM rifle. I spoke to some others, and apparently only very few units got these.