Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com. l'm Ian McCollum.
I am here today at the Royal Armouries, the National Firearms Centre in Leeds, UK.
And I am here courtesy of ARES, Armament Research Services.
And today we are taking a look at a side story related to the British SA80 weapon system,
specifically grenade launchers.
Now the SA80 program had always included a requirement for not just
a point ... weapon, namely a rifle, but also an area effect weapon which would be a grenade.
So Enfield had done a number of experiments on adapting an underbarrel grenade launcher to the L85 rifle.
But they never really worked out. We have several different examples here.
But even from the very beginning of the development program, back when these guns were being made in 4.85mm,
they were actually being equipped with 22mm NATO standard muzzle devices that would work with rifle grenades.
So the idea there was you would actually take the grenade, slide it over the rifle muzzle,
and then use a grenade firing blank cartridge and lob the grenade that way.
It's a simple system, but it tends to be a bit less accurate than full underbarrel grenade launchers.
There are a lot of trade-offs between the two.
A bullpup rifle is kind of always going to be a little tricky to mount an underbarrel launcher on,
because you just don't have as much space to work with. Well,
we're going to take a look at four different versions here. ... One of Enfield's early experiments here.
We have an Enfield adaptation of an American M203 ... grenade launcher that they kind of fitted onto a gun.
We have a slightly more refined Enfield- made underbarrel grenade launcher.
And then we actually have what is currently the issue, which is a German ... HK underbarrel grenade launcher.
Now this particular one is actually fitted to an A1 rifle, but that's just because the NFC here
didn't have a spare A2 to put it on. In practical service today these are all on HK A2 guns
So let's begin with a quick look at this guy.
This is one of the B series LSWs. It has no handguard because it was used as an experiment for an underbarrel grenade launcher.
We can note from some of the basic features here,
this is the lever magazine release, it is a lever selector and also a lever safety.
And then as I mentioned, the handguard is gone so the gas system is exposed. This is very much still an experimental gun.
But it has this underbarrel launcher, and if you press this latch down,
it allows you to slide the grenade launcher open like so.
Load it like that,
lock it back into place.
And then the firing procedure for this is actually quite complex.
You have a lever here, you pull that back
and then push it forward. That has then cocked the grenade firing mechanism.
That button right there is your trigger, and this slider is the safety. So this trigger is a pivoting lever.
And in order to fire when I push that button, the back end right here pushes out.
So if I have that slider over it, that's effectively a safety which prevents the thing from firing.
Once that's forward then
I can push the trigger, and that's going to fire the firing pin down in here and drop the grenade.
Then I can reach over, pop that out,
and take my empty case out.
Next up we have the adaptation of the American M203 launcher.
Obviously as you can see here, one of the kind of ... the most interesting,
the crude bit on this is the trigger and trigger guard on this.
You can see they had to take off the original L85 trigger guard in order to fit the grenade launcher in.
And then this appears to have just been kind of manufactured from something that was lying around.
It was suggested to me that this may have originally come in for examination without a trigger guard,
and was immediately rejected on the grounds that it needed a trigger guard.
So someone, you know, ran off to a shed and made this and then immediately brought it back.
It's also interesting to note that this rifle ... was a scrapped receiver or a leftover receiver.
Where we normally expect to have a model designation there is none,
and you can see this is an extremely low numbered receiver. So definitely hallmarks of an experimental rifle.
Lastly, it's interesting to note that ... the bottom of the butt plate is broken off.
The furniture on the L85s was known for being fragile and brittle, and this is no exception.
This is one of several of these rifles we've taken look at over the course of this series that in fact has a broken butt plate
So this was originally a Colt manufactured grenade launcher, and operation is pretty simple.
This is designed to be a forward sliding launcher. So to unlock it you push the lever down.
You can then slide the grenade barrel all the way forward out to there.
You then load your grenade into the barrel and slide it back into position.
Just like so, and then of course pulling the trigger
fires the grenade launcher. Pretty simple.
It's been bolted on around the barrel underneath the handguard.
You can see that there's an additional mounting bracket here.
That mounting bracket includes a mounting pin here, which is going to go through and attach into
this rather heavy-duty lug over the barrel.
So that's how this thing is being held on. There's a second back here under the handguard I presume.
Opening up the gas system access, you can actually see ... the legs of this mounting bracket running all the way
from the front all the way back here.
This guy is a somewhat more refined Enfield prototype, and works rather differently than the other two.
One of the potential problems with a grenade launcher like the US 203 is that
if you ... want to be able to use long munitions like illumination flares.
You have to be able to slide that barrel quite a long ways forward, which we did see on the M203 there.
But there can be easier ways to do it, and this is an example of one of them.
This one is designed to actually pivot around the barrel here.
So there's a large heavy-duty handguard here, and we have this button on the bottom
which releases the grenade launcher barrel. It opens to that position,
and then you have all this free space to load a munition in. And then pivot it back and lock it in position.
We have a torsion spring on this bar, which is what's actually ... pushing on the grenade barrel to open it.
There you go, you can see how that works. And then just a simple latch there at the bottom to hold it in place.
It is fixed to the barrel here and here.
It's a lot of weight quite far forward on the gun.
And then in order to aim it,
they have mounted a folding grenade sight onto the side of the SUSAT.
So this gives you your ranges, pop that open. And then your front sight
I believe the front sight is going to be that centre silver band.
You would line up this band in one of these range notches,
and that is your aiming device.
And then of course when you're not using this, it folds alongside the gun.
Obviously this is an experimental concept. This would not have been something that would be put into production this way.
It is simply a proof of concept to try out the idea.
Now let's take a look at one last one, which is what's actually in use today.
Since H&K was hired to do the reliability rework on the SA80, on the L85,
it would make sense to have them also take a look at the grenade launching capabilities.
And they came up with an underbarrel grenade launcher that fits on, and is actually in service today with the British military.
Like I said, this is on an A1 rifle which is not how they would be seen in service,
but this unit is identical.
These are designated the AG SA 80, which makes sense. So a 40x46mm, low pressure grenade.
It has a manual safety on it.
You can see that the Germans were able to engineer it such that the L85 trigger guard remains intact.
And In order to facilitate using long munitions in this, it is a side-opening grenade launcher.
So we have a release button right here.
Pushing that allows the barrel to tilt out to the side. You can then load whatever grenade you want to use,
(I'm pushing on the muzzle there), and then lock it back into position.
And ... you can leave a grenade in there and the grenade launcher on safe. And then
a typical double-action heavy trigger to fire the grenade.
The grenade sight in this case is the same style as what Enfield was working with.
But more refined, obviously this is a production version. And
obviously designed for high elevation because these are low velocity grenades, 50 out to 350 metres.
And then when not in use the whole sight assembly folds down, and is actually pretty compact and handy.
That's a good way to do an underbarrel grenade launcher.
Thanks for watching guys, hope you enjoyed the video.
These are of course all prototype experimental guns, with the exception of the A2 issue HK launcher.
And ... it's just neat to take a look at the various ideas that people were
tossing around while trying to figure out how best to launch grenades with the L85 rifle.
Thanks to the NFC for letting me take a look at these guns. Thanks to ARES for making the trip possible.
If you're interested in these in particular, ARES will be posting high-resolution pictures
on their website as these videos go up.
And of course the NFC is, while not open to the public, open by appointment to serious small arms researchers.
Thanks for watching.
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