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British L85A3 assault rifle (hexbear.net)

submitted 4 months ago by Tervell@hexbear.net to c/guns@hexbear.net

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[–] axont@hexbear.net 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I've always thought this was a neat rifle. The spinning helix bolt thing it has is absolute madness that somehow works. The separate gas system settings are also really interesting design, like it has a gas bolt setting intended to keep a rifle grenade from accidentally cycling the bolt.

It looks cool and Does anyone know why there's no civilian model of these? My understanding is the British armed forces destroy their surplus of L85s.

I've also heard the UK special forces tend to prefer using more typical AR variants instead of the L85. Does anyone know why that is? Is it just because of the poor reputation the L85A1 had?

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I fell in love with the l85 when I saw it in the movie Dog Soldiers about B*itish troops fighting off against werewolves back in like 03-04.

[–] miz@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago

this gun was fun in BF2, primary medic weapon

[–] culpritus@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

I thought these were pretty bad overall from an actual using it as a battle rifle perspective. Maybe this is the updated version that fixed a lot of the earlier bugs though. Got to say that trigger situation looks really weird.

[–] axont@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That was more of the reputation among the A1 variant, produced from 1985 to 1994. The A2 and A3 (the current model) are quite decent bullpup rifles. They're kind of expensive is the only downside I know about.

I also know that the L85A3 is used by British infantry, but British special forces tend to use AR variants like the Colt C8.

[–] Palacegalleryratio@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago

Nah. The original was pretty rough, but the A3 is one of the better modern military rifles. If you’re into the bullpup thing.

[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The original A1 was rife with issues, but that was more-so due to incompetent manufacturing than any fundamental flaws in the design itself, and most problems were addressed with the A2 upgrade program. The actual design is mostly just a bullpupped AR-18, so mechanically it's perfectly sound.

The only thing that I would say is an issue is weight - the rifle is nearly 5 kilos, part of that is the scope, of course, but even that's only about 420 grams, so this still leaves you with over 4.5kg for a 5.56 rifle with a ≈20″ barrel - for comparison, the M16A2 is 3.4kg, the SG-550 is 4.1kg (both having barrels of similar length), the FNC is 3.84kg (with an ≈18″ barrel), and the FAMAS and Steyr AUG - both also bullpups - are 3.6kg. I assume this mostly comes about from the really big receiver - if you look at most other bullpups, they tend to try to make the actual metal receiver bit as minimal as possible, and use polymer for the rest. For example, the QBZ-95 (the FAMAS is also pretty similar) - the carry handle, the upper and the pistol grip & handguard section are all polymer and pretty light.

Or the AUG, which has a rather atypical receiver that actually sits mostly ahead of the chamber - it's the section with the scope on it. The stock is all polymer.

Conversely, on the L85, basically everything behind the green handguard is metal (there's a few other polymer bits, like the pistol grip and the buttplate):

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago

From what I remember reading the l85 was/is a pos not sure if this version is modernized and fixes it's problems.