The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

ordnance wrote:

This tread is amusing me because it's not really based on any fact or real user experience. Everybody is entitled to an opinion and I'm entitled to be amused by them.

It is based on well documented facts, and users opinions and experiences, more so than a lot of posts that just are peoples opinions. I guess some people are easily amused.

I've been shooting all weekend with a couple of Queens Medalist who also think this is a funny thread.

And your point, does that make their opinion somehow superior to the rest of us.

To yours, of course.

I'm fully supportive with JohnMH's viewpoint on this, if you're keen to air a viewpoint on a rifle - it helps to have actually fired one before you trot out the attributes of this and that.
Stating anger/disappointment on behalf of British service personnel is very well meant, but also comes across as slightly pathetic by someone who knows nothing through first hand experience.

Read some books and look at the poster on your wall on the SA80 - that will qualify you perfectly to be appointed to be charged with its replacement.

Who posting in this thread has actually used an L85A2 and by that I meN has fired in excess of 10000 rounds through one or seen in excess of 250000 rounds fired through a batch of 15 rifles?

Is it a guess who now. ? And what does it prove if someone has fired 10,000 rounds trough the rifle. The discussion was about the history and other aspects of the rifle, not who had fired the most rounds trough one.

I'm fully supportive with JohnMH's viewpoint on this, if you're keen to air a viewpoint on a rifle - it helps to have actually fired one before you trot out the attributes of this and that.

How many people that have posted on the subject have not fired the rifle and how go you know. ? Even if they have never fired a round through the rifle, it doesn't change the fact that as a rifle on different levels it has being a failure. As already posted the sales of it to other countries says it all. For someone to argue that the SA/80 is a successful rifle on all sorts of levels, just tells me that they don't know what they are talking about. After millions of pounds spent over many years it now goes bang when you pull the trigger is that what people see as a good rifle.

ordnance wrote:

Who posting in this thread has actually used an L85A2 and by that I meN has fired in excess of 10000 rounds through one or seen in excess of 250000 rounds fired through a batch of 15 rifles?

Is it a guess who now. ? And what does it prove if someone has fired 10,000 rounds trough the rifle. The discussion was about the history and other aspects of the rifle, not who had fired the most rounds trough one.

I'm fully supportive with JohnMH's viewpoint on this, if you're keen to air a viewpoint on a rifle - it helps to have actually fired one before you trot out the attributes of this and that.

How many people that have posted on the subject have not fired the rifle and how go you know. ? Even if they have never fired a round through the rifle, it doesn't change the fact that as a rifle on different levels it has being a failure. As already posted the sales of it to other countries says it all.

The SA80 family of weapons has had better export success than many other nations military rifles, for example the Singaporean SAR-21, the FAMAS and many others. So if you're judging a rifle's success merely by export, then we're still up there.

But a rifle isn't to be judged purely by commercial or export success. If that was the case, the Stoner 63 would be seen as one of the worst rifles ever to be made while actually it's brilliance in firearm form.

John MH wrote:Who posting in this thread has actually used an L85A2 and by that I meN has fired in excess of 10000 rounds through one or seen in excess of 250000 rounds fired through a batch of 15 rifles?

Me..

The SA80 family of weapons has had better export success than many other nations military rifles, for example the Singaporean SAR-21, the FAMAS and many others. So if you're judging a rifle's success merely by export, then we're still up there

There are lots of reasons why it was an expensive failure not just exports. But with its troubled history what country in their right minds would have bought it.

The original SA80 rifle was suspended from the Nato nominated weapon list in 1997 after soldiers experienced problems such as jamming in extreme weather, and it was subjected to a £92m modification programme.

ordnance wrote:

I'm fully supportive with JohnMH's viewpoint on this, if you're keen to air a viewpoint on a rifle - it helps to have actually fired one before you trot out the attributes of this and that.

How many people that have posted on the subject have not fired the rifle and how go you know. ?

It's all a bit sad really. I've spent a little bit of time doing the old "watch and shoot" people that never have that are posting an opinion on the British service rifle quite simply aren't qualified to do so - it's just conjecture.

It's all a bit sad really. I've spent a little bit of time doing the old "watch and shoot" people that never have that are posting an opinion on the British service rifle quite simply aren't qualified to do so - it's just conjecture.

Some might not have fired the rifle but that doesn't mean they cain't have an opinion, the troubled history of the SA/80 is well documented by reliable sources including the MOD.

ordnance wrote:

It's all a bit sad really. I've spent a little bit of time doing the old "watch and shoot" people that never have that are posting an opinion on the British service rifle quite simply aren't qualified to do so - it's just conjecture.

Some might not have fired the rifle but that doesn't mean they cain't have an opinion, the troubled history of the SA/80 is well documented by reliable sources including the MOD.

Plus there more to understanding the SA80 than shooting it. There is the system that created it, created the circumstances that led to it needing the mods to work and to understand how we can avoid a similar situation in future. Its a reflection of how our system of governance barely works sadly on some levels.

Gundoc wrote:

John MH wrote:Who posting in this thread has actually used an L85A2 and by that I meN has fired in excess of 10000 rounds through one or seen in excess of 250000 rounds fired through a batch of 15 rifles?

Me..

And me as well and quite a few of my former Staff, I also had my own allocated armourer much like yourself I would suppose.