It's not a lethal barrel, it's a lethal, barrelled weapon. That means that it is a lethal weapon that has a barrel. A bit like a PIAT........... that hasn't got a barrel. Don't ask us, we're all confused!

Hundreds of the sub cal adaptors were fixed permanently into the actual L1A1 rifles due to the fact that once the barrel bulged, it was impossible to remove it from the rifle so the whole kit stayed put! Another rifle was demanded to replace the now fixed .22" version. The now permanent .22" rifle was marked with a painted red band around the muzzle and stayed as a .22.

This was the only way that you could obtain one of the storeage boxes for the kits because the box was a NP (Not provisioned) part for some reason and it was only when the barrel was bulged into the rifle that the sub cal assembly moved from the box to the rifle...... leaving the box redundant.

When the L1A1 was withdrawn, hundreds of .22" L1A1;s remained behind for many, many years until they went too. To the great scrap yard in the sky. The H&K made L1A1 kits were identical to the H&K FN variant except for the magazine cases. The UKicon MoD .22" magazines were made heavier to replicace a filled 7.62mm magazine. However, the recoil of the .22" just didn't quite replicate the recoil of its bigger brother, especially while wearing only a thin shirt or no shirt at all.

There seems to be plenty of .22" sub cal kits around but, alas, no magazines, even the FN type.

Maybe an article about the sub cal kit wouldn't go amiss. So, to start it off. I know we had them in Australiaicon but can't recall having them in NZ. The first question is this. Did you have them in NZ? Did you have them in Canadaicon?