SA80

[Peter Laidler]

Yes, the optical sights DO cost more than the rifle. Even the SUSAT came in at a tad over £300 whereas the rifle was £299. That was the 1992 price I should add. But the demise of the SUSAT was one of total lack of er........, foresight - if you'll excuse the pun or 'just-in-time' when they should have been thinking 'just-in-case'

But I have to say, in its defence, that once H&K took on board all of the small scattered programmes being undertaken piece-meal and put them all into one package, mechanically the A2 wasn't bad. They didn't do it ALL, but. In fact they didn't incorporate my ideas but I did get a lot of money for my suggestions. H&K said that the A2 programme would overcome the faults AND corrections I had highlighted. Not a lot of people know that........

[Brian Dick]

The Canadian made Diemaco/Colt Canada, L119A1 SFW is the go to weapon and has been for many years. I saw racks full of new ones at the Birmingham Proof House when I was there in 2009. I know the guy who designed it too as he's a retired Senior Armourer from the CF and became a senior engineer at Colt Canada after he left the CF. I carried an M16A1 in the eighties and will always be partial to the M16/M4 platform when it comes to 5.56mm rifles. They're pretty foolproof with proper maintenance.

[mrclark303]

Good point Brian,

Give anyone an Armalite variant and the controls are intuitive and fall naturally to hand, they become comfortable with the firearm very quickly.

The L85 is an absolute dogs dinner in this perspective, designed by committee, poor ergonomic design, with little reference to the end user.

The Marine Corps had gone one step further with the M16 of course and introduced the M27, a US made and modified HK416.

From what I can see, it's about perfection for military rifle, a superb (if expensive) piece of kit.

[Brian Dick]

I shot an HK416 years ago too and the only impressive feature was how cool it ran with the piston system during sustained automatic fire. Many get all excited about the piston systems that have been designed for the AR platform and I'm not one of them. The direct impingement has it's drawbacks like heat in the bolt carrier and fouling if you don't keep it clean but I never saw it as a problem. I'll stick with Gene Stoner's original design. Easy to maintain with less moving parts to go wrong.

[Gil Boyd]

Brian,
That is clearly the point of this thread. It shows the SA80 to be an "incompetent" weapon on all counts as far as an operational weapons system is based.
The HK416 or revised M16 would have been a far better proposition, but I am convinced it was because Royal Ordnance had been recently taken over when the SA80 first reared its head and it was simply "this has to be a British weapon" that hurried it through without all the bells and whistles sorted.
Now they have in part sorted all the issues after billions have been thrown at it by successive governments, it is in my view too late to try and rectify this, with the old soldier mentality.
I do believe however, a new soldier or fresh face on the block will think it the best weapon on the face of the planet, without knowing whats gone before!!

Again in my view and perhaps biased somewhat, I do believe the PH M85 should easily have won the MOD sniper rifle contract in favour of the L96, which had its own problems in the early days.

[browningautorifle]

a new soldier or fresh face on the block will think it the best weapon on the face of the planet

I can't agree Gil, a soldier will look at other weapons around him and study them. Even a young one will handle things and through time will understand the difference. I know that there are some that can't learn, one fellow senior NCO showed ignorance saying to me "There will always be enough of our rifles lying around, we don't need to learn theirs"... Untrue... The troops will form opinions in this fast moving pace of current employment... You can't fool them forever. Then there's guys like us telling them what shyte they have at the slope...and what else there is.

[mrclark303]

Brian,
That is clearly the point of this thread. It shows the SA80 to be an "incompetent" weapon on all counts as far as an operational weapons system is based.
The HK416 or revised M16 would have been a far better proposition, but I am convinced it was because Royal Ordnance had been recently taken over when the SA80 first reared its head and it was simply "this has to be a British weapon" that hurried it through without all the bells and whistles sorted.
Now they have in part sorted all the issues after billions have been thrown at it by successive governments, it is in my view too late to try and rectify this, with the old soldier mentality.
I do believe however, a new soldier or fresh face on the block will think it the best weapon on the face of the planet, without knowing whats gone before!!

Again in my view and perhaps biased somewhat, I do believe the PH M85 should easily have won the MOD sniper rifle contract in favour of the L96, which had its own problems in the early days.

I've never really understood how an obviously deeply flawed firearm like the L85A1 could go through all the necessary checks and balances and be accepted for service...

It really does seem like 'a lot' of people must have looked the other way while a totally inadequate rifle was (knowingly) issued to young men and women, who depended on it to save their lives!

Absolutely disgraceful behaviour...

At least the current A3 variant is a reliable and effective rifle, if still heavy.

No chance of a new rifle until a new NATO caliber is selected.

[Peter Laidler]

As a matter of interest, one of my last bosses refused to sign off the L86 LSW for service........ But someone did!

I'm minded to ask Clarkie above the following. If the current but oh-so-slow A3 version is relaible and effective, is it any MORE reliable and effective than the A2 it is slowly replacing? Given that mechanically, it is the same.

[Gil Boyd]

Peter,
The truth is, that many lads opt for the sharpshooter on ops due to rifle still letting them down.
If put into context, one lad recently told me on SFSG, that he used his Glock more then his rifle because it was always failing in someway.
I was surprised to hear this after RSA Enfield closed and it moved up to Notiingham where I expected great things from them, as they moved onto brand new machines and not the old stuff at Enfield. Yes the system improved somewhat, but is still dogged by issues, which I understand are manifested in sandy conditions.
One thing the SLR never suffered from!!!

[skiprat]

As an Armourer and a prolific shooter of the SA80 in many service competitions , reliability was 2 different things.
As a shooter if I picked it up would it work as required? And for how many rounds.
As an Armourer when it came to inspections how many out of the company require repair, something the user will never know (as they would be repaired and returned to service)
The A1 was plagued with many many small faults that were mainly sorted when they changed over to the A2. But with age other faults came to light ( welds failing on the bodies and TMH’s)
I think the A 2 was slightly more reliable than the A1 but we had 15 years to get it sorted. But that dose not say the A2 was reliable just not as bad....
I found one big failing of the A2 fitted with the new handguard and down grip was the fact that you could grip the front grip and flex the barrel enough to pull shots well off target.
A reliable weapon should function AND be able to hit the target