Pre 1988 ban L1A1 Civilian owned rifles

[Frederick303]

Some time ago when I was researching what happened to US M1 rifles I came across the following bit of info: supposedly in 1988 when the semi-auto ban on full bore rifles occurred a total of 4,700~4,750 FACs were affected. No exact figure on how many rifles were held by the average FAC (some held more than one) but the following calibers were listed in order of approximate prevalence:

7.62 NATO, 30-06, 7.62x39, 5.56 x45, 9x19. The only figure I could come across was the number of MK VI sterling's held which was around 130 in the UK and the various islands that had their own permitting systems. Back then I was really interested in how many M1 rifles might have been in circulation in the UK and was attempting to bracket the range (not many) . on the other end the two most popular 7.62 NATO rifles were the L1A1 and the HK91, in that order (or so it was indicated to me).

None of the above came from official sources but a few competitive shooters/dealers that were kind enough to explain the intricacies of UK laws and permitting to me based on on-line postings. I think a Bisley dealer/shooter Jack Brogden was the source for the # of permits (only name written down), but the notes are not clear, he might have been the one to explain that in the 1970/80s the permitting of rifles went by caliber, with most police agencies taking a dim view of multiple rifles in the same caliber. Before the practical rifle sport became popular there were not all that many self loading rifles in use, the Bisley full bore rules did not allow the use of those actions in target or match rifle. The M1 rifles were apparently pretty cheap to dealers in the late 1970s when they could not be imported into the US of A, far cheaper than a L1A1.

In any case for what it is worth that is what data I have. Perhaps the UK fellow can correct any misconceptions in the above, the data was collected for a different purpose and perhaps there is some inference that I took incorrectly. But I am pretty sure that the total FAC figure is correct as I could not believe it was so low. The low figure went to explain why there was relatively little fight of the self loading ban, when a much larger effort was made on the 1997 pistol ban.