Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, I'm here today at the Royal Armouries,
the National Firearms Centre in Leeds, England, and we are taking a look at an L98A1.
This is a cadet's rifle from the the British military, not actually in use still today.
But for many years this was the first introduction you would get to firearms as a new British Army [Cadet].
They didn't want to give these guys regular L85 rifles, which were of course semi and fully-automatic.
Instead they came up with this manually operated version of the rifle instead.
... Well, these were built from the ground up as cadet rifles, and they have no gas system at all.
Interestingly, the space for the gas system now has a little clip-on spot for an oil bottle.
And a lever-assist manual charging handle has been added to the side of the rifle.
So let's go ahead and take a closer look this. It's an interesting development, or an interesting twist, on
this rifle as a training tool.
The way that they made this conversion is actually kind of pretty cool.
The bolt is totally stock, exactly like a normal semi-auto or full-auto L85 bolt.
However the gas system has been removed. So we can take a look in the top of the handguard here.
The gas block is there because it mounts the front sight, but there's no gas piston, there's no hole, nothing.
Instead you just have these two little clamps for an oil bottle.
Then to charge the rifle you have a charging handle located up here on the front.
And this cams against a block right here on the front of the receiver
to give you a bit of primary extraction, so that if you have a stuck case, it helps pop it out.
You see as I do this, the bolt opens up. We have this big connecting rod right here between the handle and the bolt .
The handle runs on a rail, right here.
And let me go ahead and take this apart, and we can pull those bits off and show you.
Just pull this back, and at this position you would normally pull the bolt handle out.
Instead we're going to pull out this, and then this contraption comes off.
This is very loosely pinned, which is good, that allows it some flexibility
to remove it and also just for the bolt to cycle. ...
This is actually kind of like an AK gas piston, where it's pinned in place and it's not removable,
but you want it to have some flexibility of motion.
And then pulling the bolt out, the bolt is totally normal.
The one other abnormality to the gun are these two additions to the upper receiver.
The rail here that that charging handle runs on,
and the block here that it leverages against when you first open the bolt.
Now we also have a specialised type of iron sight on the rifle.
This ... type of iron sight was available in general.
And in fact when the SA80s were first issued, the idea was all of the
combat units got optical sights, and the support units got these carry handle iron sights.
Now, later on they were told to stop using them as carry handles, because of durability problems
with the mounting rail coming loose from the upper receiver.
But this was the standard pattern of rear iron sight for the SA80.
What's different about the Cadet version is that it is actually adjustable out to 500 metres.
It's a bit hard to see here, but there is kind of
like the adjustment dial on a Spanish FR8, or sort of similar to an HK, you have a dial of apertures.
And then in this hole right here is actually a number telling you what range setting you are currently on.
That's quite hard to see right there, but I believe we're on 1 at the moment.
And then for a fixed sight you can also flip that down and just have a standard, unadjustable aperture.
The front sight is a unit that bolts onto the gas block.
This is a standard front sight which you would ... use with a regular SA80 iron sighted rifle as well.
And that's adjustable for elevation for zeroing.
It's interesting that this rifle, in theory, when it was made would have been perfectly legal to sell to the public in the UK.
But of course at the time the Enfield factory was in the process of shutting down,
and firearms legislation was increasing, although it wouldn't have banned these rifles at the time.
There were some plans potentially to sell these rifles on the public market,
along with a semi-automatic only version of the L85. And those never really came to fruition.
I think a couple of them may have actually gotten out into public hands where they were, or still are, legal.
But the plans to actually sell these on a wide commercial basis never really came through.
... I don't know, it's an interesting version of a rifle kind of alongside some of the assault weapon ban
rifles that we see in the United States that are modified semi-automatics to make them only manually operated.
At any rate if you're more interested in this particular one, make sure to check out Armament Research Services' website.
They'll be posting high-resolution pictures of this rifle as the video goes up.
And if you're interested in doing academic study on small arms like the L85 series, get in touch with the Royal Armouries.
The National Firearm Centre here is not open to the public, but it is available by appointment only.
Thanks for watching.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]