Pre 1988 ban L1A1 Civilian owned rifles

[Peter Laidler]

The trigger axis pin was slightly long to prevent the change lever being rotated to A. Is this the pin you speak of? I think a lot of the dealers bought them in a for a quick buck at a bit below the purchase price and sold them abroad because they were just well looked after service rifles. I didn't have a SUIT on mine as I knew that they were rubbish but did have the double aperture Hythe sight. Quite a few had the picatinny covers - or at least, standard covers that had a rail mounted on them. To be honest, some of the welded on rails were a bit, er........ What's the word I'm truly looking for? Yes....., not very good! If they weren't parallel with the cover/body/barrel the weld would shear the cover during recoil. Anyway. Another thing that immediately became apparent was that every civvy shooter that owned one immediately became an L1A1 expert.

Happy days. Cheap ammo and the practical rifle scene was overflowing with ex Military shooters who really enjoyed the run-downs, snaps, rapids etc etc. As an Army RO, It was easy to give them a taste of real combat style shooting. Standing at 50 metres, I can hear it all now......... 'The targets in your lane will be exposed for between 3 and 6 seconds. You will shoot one round at each target at each exposure. There will be ten exposures Does anyone NOT understand the detail........(pause)........ WATCH AND SHOOT........WATCH AND SHOOT............... (Signal to the butts.....). We didn't wait for dawdlers........

Great times.

Then there were the run-downs from 600 to 100 with all the drills and make-safes while you were on the move. What knackering days they were for the shooters and the RO's. I must confess that I enjoyed the RO'ing as much as the shooting and used to spend the day just as the RCO. No rifle to clean either...........

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