Some new things, lets play a guessing game

[Peter Laidler]

The bayonet grip tool was just sooooo over engineered. We had one in the A in U cupboard of course but generally speaking everyone had a set of home made top and bottom punches that you'd keep on your bench and use as and when. I note the words SA&MG SECT TRENTHAM. That'll be the ±Base Workshop Small Arms and Machine Gun Section at Trentham.

You're right about the BFA's all being black after a good dose of firing blanks. The crunchies had to hand them back clean after exercises but in getting them clean they'd be using the tyupical rifle cleaning kit such as old nails, sand paper, wire wool,wire/steel brushes that they use for cleaning barnacles off the bottom of ocean liners etc etc. So they'd come back into the armouries clean - but with very little yellow paint on them! The Arms storemen used to dunk them in petrol, dry them out and give them a spray with yellow road marking paint. Then every so often they'd all go into the main workshop to be bead blasted and repainted in hard yellow sunkorite. That'd last a couple of weeks and round we'd go again.

BFA's were a constant source of accidents. Some would just go flying off into orbit around the outer planets, some would do the same but hit the 'enemy' and others would disintegrate if someone loaded a live round by accident. Accidents WILL happen but they kept trying to improve the build and safety regime. I suggested that they ought to accept that, say, 10 crunchies or DS would be killed on each exercise due to being hit by blank assisted bullets etc etc. So just write them off as exercise losses.

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[browningautorifle]

Then every so often they'd all go into the main workshop to be bead blasted and repainted in hard yellow sunkorite. That'd last a couple of weeks and round we'd go again.

I WISH ours were so well treated.

BFA's were a constant source of accidents. Some would just go flying off into orbit

We had instructions to fasten ours on tight, for a while a hose clamp was the medicine. Problem is, ours had to have a flexibility during use and without it they would break at the front of the locking spring at the bottom front. They wouldn't come off but extend forward and be useless. People just wouldn't accept that things that look good aren't always serviceable.

if someone loaded a live round by accident.

This usually happened when transition range was present, transition from blank to live. Then senior men would have to get their head on straight and keep supervision to a one man checking everything equally. Otherwise a weapon would be overlooked as everyone else thought someone else had checked and it would burst a muzzle from ball contacting a blank. I still can see a FH that was destroyed during a night attack. The man that had the accident was trying to remedy the failure to function and was firing singles at that point...