Commercially Retailed L96A1 Rifle

[Promo]

Have been made aware of rifle 90PM0707, so the fourth and therefore last one to that batch mine also came from. It seemingly now belongs to a company in Austria and they published a [German] video on it on YouTube. At around 23:35 in that video they show off the original price list and manual from the importer Spindler.

[Peter Laidler]

Talking of UK military L96's and the little green S&B L13 telescopes. Generally speaking, the serial number of the telescope was usually quite close to the serial number of the rifle. For instance. I had 85A-1191, one of the very last of the UK military contract and the telescope was AI-1098. Likewise I had 0711 and the telescope number was, as I remember, AI-0727.

I have mentioned several times that there were steps afoot to upgrade the expensive S&B 6x42 green scope to an image magnification type. S&B didn't come out tops in the trial. It was a Bushnell but amazingly, the manufacturers wouldn't change a couple of specs for the small number (about 1300) required.

[southwell]

Talking of UK military L96's and the little green S&B L13 telescopes. Generally speaking, the serial number of the telescope was usually quite close to the serial number of the rifle. For instance. I had 85A-1191, one of the very last of the UK military contract and the telescope was AI-1098. Likewise I had 0711 and the telescope number was, as I remember, AI-0727.

I have mentioned several times that there were steps afoot to upgrade the expensive S&B 6x42 green scope to an image magnification type. S&B didn't come out tops in the trial. It was a Bushnell but amazingly, the manufacturers wouldn't change a couple of specs for the small number (about 1300) required.

I have the transit case for a late production one. Do you know why some rifles were UA85 and others were UA86? There is a sticker with a C-suffix serial number on mine. I would’ve thought by the time they’d got to my serial number, they’d have been doing things in house and therefore there would’ve been no need for the concession mark from Pylon’s mistakes.

[Peter Laidler]

Yes. The UA 86 rifles were made and taken into service in 1986 whereas the 85's were 1985. Production and acceptance was slow, believe me. The C indicates that the rifle body was subject to an extremely high standard of crack testing after the remote proofing. There were a couple of failures before that. The joke at the time was that if the rifle didn't have a C serial numb er suffix, it shouldn't fire anything more powerful than blanks!

And another AI scope serial number. AI 0537 and rifle number 85A 0561. They were always quite close

The IPR's and certain features of the L96 always belonged to the UK MoD. Outside buyers of an L96 rifle or its commercial derivative were required to pay royalties for the privilege