British mainstay Rifles SA80!

QBZ957

New Member
the SA 80 or the L85A2 has been around as the British forces mainstay Assualt rifle for a long time and a very capable one as well. But there seem to be many bugs about the gun itself such as the internal parts, and troublesome maintenece. There have been rumours of it that the British will retire the L85A2's and replace them with Heckler & Koch G36's during 2006, anyone got a confirmation on that? or if BDF will replace the gun at all?
 

Kampfwagen

Junior Member
Well, from what I can understand, when people talk about that, they mean that it is the most likely replacement, not THE replacement.
 

Shingy

New Member
Just like to ask a question, how good are the British rifles?
I have heard many mixed opinions, people saying its brilliant people saying its far from that, i mean i don't even know whether its actually decent or not, can someone clear this up for me?
 

QBZ957

New Member
From what i've seen the main advantages on the SA80 is pretty much its compact dimentions, being able to fire rifle grenades screwed on the muzzle break, complys to NATO standards i guess can be an advantage and finally id say being the best would be the weapons itself has the optical sight as a standard issue.
But the disadvantages seem numerous: it's low reliabilty and troublesome maintenance. Constant cleaning. Heavy weight and bad balance makes the rifle poorly controllable in auto fire. the Bayonet heats up complicating its dismantling process. Unrelabile cartridge case sxtraction and the uncomfortable magazine extraction. Well for a bullpup type rifle, id say the uncomfortable mag change wouldnt be too much of a concern but the others seem to be quite disturbing.
Many of my other friends say that the SA80 is a pretty cool gun.
 

Kampfwagen

Junior Member
One of the biggest problems with the SA80 that I have personaly heard of is the fact that the gun has too much junk in the trunk. (AKA, it's rear-heavy) There are the aformentioned issues with dust and dirt sensitivity and it even gets as bad as there being incidents where the magazine will litteraly fall out of it's housing in combat situations.

In short, it makes the first-issue Veitnam era M16's look as though they were the chosen weapons of Hesphestus himself. One of the few good points however is the sighting. As one British Army solider put it 'The gun is nothing more than a glorified paperweight.'
 

Shingy

New Member
Damn i never knew it was this bad, my mate actually told me this that it on some occasions the barrel would actually fall out!
How can they design a rifle so poorly made.
 

Kampfwagen

Junior Member
Here are some other issues I found from the gun, as told by someone who is and had friends in the British Army and I beleve he served himself.

The early rifles had many problems; I have heard many horror stories such as that the plastic would melt when cam cream and insect repellant was applied, that the rear upper receiver and trigger mechanism housing were made of such poor strength that you could squeeze the walls together and prevent the bolt carrier from travelling down the recoil rod assembly. I have heard that the top cover was made so flimsily that it was common practice to tape it down to prevent it opening randomly during firing, even that the lack of a magazine release catch guard meant that the magazine would often release itself when making contact with your webbing! The list goes on....

The gun was made with simplicity in mind, bassed on the already simple AR-18 rifle (which seemed to have various problems when it was developed by Britian, but has not had any other issues in the past. The Type 89 and G36 rifles are both bassed on the AR18 and have had no issues as serious as those of the British AR18 and SA80).
 

crazyinsane105

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Several years ago I was reading how the SA-80 would automatically drop its clip and get jammed during firefights with the Taliban in Afghanistan. I did also remember reading how the British had allocated about 1.2 billon USD into fixing the numerous bugs...
 

isthvan

Tailgunner
VIP Professional
crazyinsane105 said:
Several years ago I was reading how the SA-80 would automatically drop its clip and get jammed during firefights with the Taliban in Afghanistan. I did also remember reading how the British had allocated about 1.2 billon USD into fixing the numerous bugs...

The upgrade program, committed in years 2000 - 2002, was completed by H&K. About 200 000 rifles were upgraded into the L85A2 configuration, out of total 320 000 or so original L85A1 rifles produced.
 

ahho

Junior Member
Just wondering, for 1.5 billion, how many h&k 36 or other choice of weapons can you buy. That seem big of amount of money
 
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