L98 cadet rifle

[froggy]

No water melons, but many attempts were made as a young French PM (~cadets) to orbit empty ration tins with the 49/56

[DW58]

I always thought it was because many Cadets used the SMLE so transferring from a manually operated rifle to a gas powered semi rifle would have caused issues.

British cadets hadn't been issued with the SMLE for many decades prior to the issue of the L98 - presumably you mean the No.4 Mk.1/2 Enfield?

[Charlotte the flyer]

Slightly before my time but our older cadets had the SLR, and were mightily upset when the L98 came into service.

I saw a video of a balloon being burst by a blank which put the fear of god into us back in the day (and the army vids of unsafe weapon handling)

One thought that I had regarding a straight pull and a BFA, where does the gas go if you did actually use one?

[snayperskaya]

Slightly before my time but our older cadets had the SLR, and were mightily upset when the L98 came into service.

I saw a video of a balloon being burst by a blank which put the fear of god into us back in the day (and the army vids of unsafe weapon handling)

One thought that I had regarding a straight pull and a BFA, where does the gas go if you did actually use one?

The gas still exits out of the front, how a BFA works is that it actually acts as a restriction that still allows gas to escape but allows enough pressure to be retained so the gas system still operates.Without a BFA a semi or full auto rifle wouldn't cycle as all the gas pressure would simply vent out the end of the barrel and not pressurise to gas system.

[Daryll]

As an Air Cadet back in the early 70s, we had the No4, but I did get a go with the SLR while on annual camp in Gibraltar.

I was reunited with the SLR many years later when I joined the R.Aux.A.F in '87, those were replaced with the L85 2-3 years later.

[HALODIN]

So is £3.5K about right?

[User702]

The gas still exits out of the front, how a BFA works is that it actually acts as a restriction that still allows gas to escape but allows enough pressure to be retained so the gas system still operates.Without a BFA a semi or full auto rifle wouldn't cycle as all the gas pressure would simply vent out the end of the barrel and not pressurise to gas system.

Spot on. There is a similar issue with using BFAs from other weapons on the A2 family, the example being using an A2 BFA on an LSW. The longer barrel means that there is less gas trapped and the rifle doesn't cycle. You need the specific LSW BFA.

That was the longest night section attack of my life...

[nickb834]

[
With no BFA the rifle spat all the gunk straight out the front. It's surprising just how lethal a blank round can be at short range - ever seen the watermelon demo?

IIRC the safety distance was 50m. The air cadets had a massive sad-on about fieldcraft in my day so we never did anything like that.

I got shot in the face by a "mate" when on excercise in Germany - original LA85 (this would be circa 1999) - we'd laid up in order of March for an ambush, I had a LSW, matey had IW and the 3rd member of our group had the GPMG (we were the cut off group for the ambush in case the enemy managed to run away from the killing group). Anyhoo - back to the point, so I'm laid on the floor with my back against my bergen catching zome zzzz's. Matey has the IW pointed straight at the side of my head as he's sat on my right but on his bergen. He's supposed to be made safe, ie mag on, nowt in the chamber and safey on. He get's the notion to check to see if he is indeed made safe - and decides to do this by pushing the safety over to fire and pulling the trigger. Given it's a creepy 8lb pull plus, he reckons that he can feel the tension on the trigger telling him the hammer is cocked etc (he's not wrong you can, but that does nowt to prove whether there's one in the chamber or not)...........

BANG!!!!

hot gas and crap comes out the end of the BFA about 6" from my eyes.....

OMFG - you effing pr*ick.....

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH.........

copious amounts of swearing later and flushing me eyes out - I'd luckily gotten away with it.

The irony to this story - this lads nickname was "Trigger"

Matey boy gets a Mil Training wing Captain come storming over and invited to explain just wot the actual F he's doing, and then get's to go for a guided run around the training area for an hour or so.

Later than night, the lad with the GPMG puts a burst across one of the DS boots when we're patrolling to the ambush site.

All in all, not a very succesful excercise.

[nickb834]

Spot on. There is a similar issue with using BFAs from other weapons on the A2 family, the example being using an A2 BFA on an LSW. The longer barrel means that there is less gas trapped and the rifle doesn't cycle. You need the specific LSW BFA.

That was the longest night section attack of my life...

FWIW on the orignal weapons (ie L85A1's and L86 - though I've never seen an L22 for real) I dont' recall there being any difference to the BFA nor the gas parts between the LSW or the IW. From memory the front sight was in the same position on both weapons for the same sight radius - just that the LSW had the longer barrel, bipod, different hand guards and an additional grip behind the magazine oh and a shoulder strap / bar thingy that flipped up from the top of the buttpad.

Given that the sight block and this piston and cylinder are in the same place, then even allowing for the extra barrel length I wouldn't have thought the gas pressure / dwell to be significantly different to neccessitate a different BFA.

[David TS]

DavidTS has one too doesn't he?

Correctamundo .

Here's mine, now wearing an Elcan Specter OS4 scope, as being retrofitted to the L85A2.