Do my eyes deceive me - The Fal rides again!

[browningautorifle]

So why I wonder did some bright spark re-invent the wheel and procure different magazines??

Simple answer for that one. Cost. We could produce a magazine from plastic here in Canada that would cost pennies compared to the US issue that we'd need to buy in bulk and pay perhaps a dollar each at source. When the mags proved to be garbage they overhauled the long multi mold instead of admitting fault. It took some years of blundering along before the hung their heads and admitted their design was headed for the gashbin and purchased metal from US suppliers, what they should have done initially.

Remember, the rifle was Colt made originally and assembled here. The lowers were only roll marked and then anodized here. That's why the first ones had a purple translucent hue instead of the deep black of today.

What amazed me was they were willing to take chances with our lives in action by deliberately giving us a known substandard magazine for combat use... That was their intention...

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[mrclark303]

What amazed me was they were willing to take chances with our lives in action by deliberately giving us a known substandard magazine for combat use... That was their intention...

Quite Jim ... At least you guys were dealing with a known commodity with the Armalite, change magazines and job done. Though I hate to mention the Spanish Inquisition again ... when the L85A1 was first introduced, the magazines were the least of the problem!

Why oh why didn't we take the same very sensible route as the Canadians and licence manufacture the M16. By the time of the L85's introduction in the UK, the Americans were rolling out the M16A2 into general issue, it would have suited the UK's needs of the day just fine, along with a few carbines for tank crews etc.

No doubt some over paid bloated bureaucrat in Whitehall would have found a way of ******* it all up and making it three times as expensive!

[Sentryduty]

Why oh why didn't we take the same very sensible route as the Canadians and licence manufacture the M16. By the time of the L85's introduction in the UK, the Americans were rolling out the M16A2 into general issue, it would have suited the UK's needs of the day just fine, along with a few carbines for tank crews etc.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

It's a tough call that bit, maybe it was the pride of having a domestically designed rifle in service was placed ahead of the realities of function? Historically, England was always one of the leaders in military arms historically, at least I always considered so, but the L85 seems to have been the Waterloo. I could be way off base as the SLR was a FN design, as is the GPMG, but perhaps it was someone's Moby Dick to restore the English firearms industry?

[Eaglelord17]

Simple answer for that one. Cost. We could produce a magazine from plastic here in Canada that would cost pennies compared to the US issue that we'd need to buy in bulk and pay perhaps a dollar each at source. When the mags proved to be garbage they overhauled the long multi mold instead of admitting fault. It took some years of blundering along before the hung their heads and admitted their design was headed for the gashbin and purchased metal from US suppliers, what they should have done initially.
What amazed me was they were willing to take chances with our lives in action by deliberately giving us a known substandard magazine for combat use... That was their intention...

To be fair to the magazine we did not use it as intended either. It was originally intended to be a disposable magazine, which realistically it wouldn't have served too horribly as. The problem with it being in practice we reloaded them and continued using them. I also remember reading we substituted the initial plastic used for a weaker cheaper one, I am not 100% sure if that was true, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[browningautorifle]

It was originally intended to be a disposable magazine,

I believe that whole statement to be correct and must basically agree...

we substituted the initial plastic used for a weaker cheaper one

That would also make sense, instead of polymer we used plastic, or junk...I'd have to agree there too.

Doesn't matter what was intended. We sent our guys all around the world with that garbage.

[Sentryduty]

That would also make sense, instead of polymer we used plastic, or junk...I'd have to agree there too.

Doesn't matter what was intended. We sent our guys all around the world with that garbage.

I am glad they were basically out of service by my time, in fact the only place I seen them were training area finds, and in pictures found in the PAM's.

Let's see, I first shot PWT 1 as a Cadet in 1999, (former) CFB Summerside ranges and we had the typical steel magazines for that. On to the Res and Reg's never seen one in a rifle, well, maybe an Airforce or Navy W.., ah, non-combat arms member on gate guard somewhere but I could be mistaken on that.

[browningautorifle]

I am glad they were basically out of service by my time

Lucky man...to show how mind set changes, when the rifle teams had to turn in plastic and draw steel there was hesitation. They had to be ordered to do so and argued that "These one's work though"... It's hard to convince some guys of simple facts sometimes.

[Eaglelord17]

Doesn't matter what was intended. We sent our guys all around the world with that garbage.

That is very true and I do agree they were garbage, that being said, I can't fully blame the magazine because it did what it was supposed to do (be a one shot and then destroy item), and must mainly blame the leadership/penny counters. The leadership should have recognized they were poor magazines and insisted on metal mags or actually used the magazines as disposable magazines. The penny counters shouldn't have been so concerned with being penny wise and pound foolish.

Much like our poor FN FALs (C1s) they completely screwed them up over a couple cents. With the magazines if they had just bought steel in the first place they wouldn't have spent all that money on poor magazines that broke and damaged rifles, so in the end they were out more money, just farther down the road. For the FN-C1s (and C1 SMG and C2s) when they placed them into war storage they decided to put them in a 'special Styrofoam protector' which was marketed to them by a company for long term storage instead of the more expensive however proven to work method of greasing up the rifles. When it came time to do the verification check they obviously rusted, and unwilling to spend more money on them scrapped them instead of refurbishing and packing them away properly. End result of that was they spent more trying by to cut a corner on storage and chopped them up anyways, which as unfortunate as it is to say they would have been better off just scrapping them in the first place (dollar wise not history wise).

Interestingly enough it would have been the same people who made both those decisions...

[browningautorifle]

Interestingly enough it would have been the same people who made both those decisions...

That would be correct, the ones well out of circulation. I never blamed the mags, they're an inanimate object...but then some of the decision makers are also.