Good old SMLE still in service

[DaveB]

Don't get me wrong - the C7/C8 are damn fine firearms. The CHF barrel beats the heck out of anything Colt in the US puts on their rifles. If I had my druthers, I'd take a Colt-Canada AR over a Colt any day.

However, the idea that anybody who wants to tender for the new Ranger rifle has to turn over their designs to Colt Canada to make, seems an unnecessary (read: incredibly stupid) requirement that has completely scuppered the new rifle for the Rangers, and left them cannibalising No 4s long past their use-by date.

I could see it if Diemaco was still in Canadian hands - as I pointed out earlier Canada has a long history of paying over the odds to keep Canadian defence contractors in business, but now that it is US-owned, frankly I don't see any reason why the Canadian government should be doing them any favours.

[Fedaykin]

The old M16A1 was not left hand shooter friendly at all which I learned at Army basic training when I got an ejected case stuck to my neck on the qualifying range. I had the burn mark scar for several years after that! The revised upper with the case deflector is perfect for a left shoulder shooter such as me. Haven't been hit with an ejected case ever with an A2 type upper no matter how much I crawl up the stock.

The British Army has almost as long a history with the Colt rifle as the U.S. Army. They used M16s way back in the 60s for far east operations. I've seen photos from the 60s and 70s of UK Gurkha troops armed with M16s.

Well here is a nugget of information that might surprise you rufrdr, the British Army adopted the AR-15 (wasn't even called an M16 yet) before any branch of the US armed forces.

The were bought in small numbers in the early 60's and didn't have the bolt assist as per US military examples. They were adopted for use in places where the bulk of SLR was not favored.