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'Tonight my men and I have been through hell and back again, but the look on your faces when we let you out of the hall - we'd do it all again tomorrow.' Major Chris Keeble's words to Goose Green villagers on 29th May 1982 - 2 PARA
Love it Gil, I understand Warminster had enough of those for shooting purposes and enough ammo to do that. I think the 7.62 would indeed be a handful, specially on FA. I was supposed to get a posting to Warminster in 1996 but it never materialized. Had I gone, Peter and I would have met and discussed many things and weapons such as these wouldn't be such an enigma...
We used to shoot a couple of these ar Shrivenham and also had a couple more at Warminster. The 7.62mm version really was at the extreme end of its mechanical capabilities. Plenty of drawbacks to the rifle and the bolt was the work of a mechanical master. Alas, it would have been a crunchies nightmare - or rather, an Armourers nightmare after they'd field stripped the rifle to clean it. I still don't understand the complexities of the HOD......... We also had boxes of different magazines.
I think I'd be right in saying that we made the right choice with the FN. Mind you the 7mm round had plenty going for it and we had a couple of prototype FN's in 7mm too. Just in case.......
I watched him strip and assemble the rifle and I tend to agree. Trying to balance that whole thing while in the deep dark bamboo would result in many an N/S rifle I fear.
When the Belgium 7mm bullet (140grs) was used in the necked-down US 49mm case, they made the 7x49.15mm Liviano for Venezuela. Venezuela ordered 5000 FAL rifles in 1954 chambered for the 7x49mm Liviano cartridge which fired a 7mm bullet at 2775 fps.
This cartridge would still have potential today for military use.
Way back when all of that EM-1 / EM-2 trialling was going on, the cartridge "issue" loomed large.
One of the "compromise" cartridges was also a 7 x 49 "second optimum". Another was the 7mm x 51, (Liviano). That one ended up being the cartridge for which Venezuela's initial FAL's were chambered.
And the 7mm Liviano was "recycled" (slightly modified), much later as the "7mm-'08" Remington; a fine hunting and target cartridge.
I found this photo a while back and wondered about the No.7 type bayonet, is it me or is this the an original photoshop? Has anyone seen this type of No.7 bayonet with a small muzzle ring?
We had a small selection of them at Warminster but never saw one with a shaped crosspiece. They all seemed to be straight sided, like the later L1A1 rifle bayonets
From what I can remember they had the slightly tapered crosspiece, but I could be wrong...didn't know I was supposed to be looking for that detail. And my memory could be shaded, I drank in those days.
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