Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are taking a look at
the L8 rifle. This is the last gasp
of the Number 4 Lee-Enfield.
So this is the Number 4 Lee-Enfield converted to 7.62mm NATO.
And of course this happens after the adoption of the NATO cartridge,
the British Army adopts the [FAL] as the [L1A1].
By the way, in the process they adopt this new "L" designation.
So previously they had rifle numbers, you had Rifle Number 1 Mark III was the original SMLE,
Rifle Number 4 was the standard World War Two Lee-Enfield,
Number 5 was the Jungle Carbine.
And they converted that to a series of L, A, and N numbers.
So the L1A1 was the first iteration of the land service rifle, the FAL.
This was designated Rifle L8.
And there were actually five different versions of this, there was the L8A1 through the L8A5.
However, in truly classic British style,
those don't actually indicate any difference between the final product at all,
those are simply indicative of what model of rifle was ... converted into the L8 in the first place.
So if you took a Number 4 Mark II and converted it, it became an L8A1.
If you took a Number 4 Mark I, it became an L8A4.
If you took a Number 4 Mark I*, it became an L8A5.
This is kind of ridiculous, but it's also technically useful
because if some part breaks on the rifle,
it would potentially be a part from the original unconverted version of the rifle,
and so you need to know what part to get to fit.
Long story short: the L8 is all the L8, five versions that are all the same.
So let me show you up close exactly how they did this,
because there were actually a bunch of things that they had to change
to do what seems like a simple calibre conversion.
This conversion was originally intended to be something that could be done at a unit armourer level.
That never actually happened, so they were all done at the factory.
So what you'll see for markings are the original rifle designation lined out,
this was a Number 4 Mark 2, (F), Fazakerley.
And then the new markings back here (move the safety out of the way),
Rifle 7.62 L8A1, that's because this was a Mark 2.
And then this conversion was done in 1960.
Now to do the conversion they had to put in a new barrel in each rifle,
that was of course a 7.62 calibre barrel with a NATO chamber.
The next most significant thing would be replacing the magazine
with a new magazine that was cut to fit the rimless 7.62 NATO cartridge.
These will be marked. I believe this is actually an L42A1 magazine,
that's CR 141A as an assembly for the magazine, the L8 magazines were CR 12A.
And then also a year of production, so this is a 1965 made magazine.
Now if we look at this, you can see the follower is substantially different
from a standard .303 magazine.
And, more significantly, they have ... spot welded on
an ... ejector here on the rear left magazine feed lip.
Because of the change from rimmed to rimless ammunition they had to change
the ejectors in the rifles, and it was easier to just add the ejector
to the rear lip of the magazine than to try and fit new ejectors into the rifles themselves.
So when you look at this from the top you can see that the ejector sticks up,
and as the bolt is pulling the case back the case head will hit on this,
and that will flip the empty case out of the rifle.
There was some machining, not a lot, but some machining that
was required on the inside of the receiver to fit the new profile of magazine.
New bolt heads were needed to fit the 7.62 cartridge, the rimless case, new extractors.
And these were proofed to 19 tons.
So there is the new proof mark that you should see on a correct L8 bolt head.
And you'll also find it on the bolt stem there.
Well that covers most of the obvious mechanical components: new bolt, new magazine, new barrel.
However, you do also have to consider the sights.
The 7.62 NATO cartridge is a higher velocity, flatter shooting cartridge
than the original .303 British, so one would assume that you have to change out the sights.
Well, not necessarily.
The stated fact, assuming that it is actually true,
is that if you simply kept the exact same sight gradations,
but you read them as metres instead of yards,
(because on an original Number 4 this rear sight would have been calibrated in yards),
once the NATO cartridge is adopted (the UK military is now working in metres instead),
what they claimed was that this, at least up to 800,
the change in range from yards to metres balanced out the change in trajectory of the cartridge,
and the original sight leaf worked just fine.
I have no idea how true that really is. That would be an interesting thing to test out, in theory.
I believe Stirling on their kits, which we'll talk about in a few minutes,
did actually offer a replacement rear sight calibrated up to 1,000 metres if someone wanted it.
And the one last change would be to the charger guide.
... Changing from .303 stripper clips to 7.62 NATO stripper clips,
the new clip is narrower in width,
and so it wouldn't really fit effectively in the original charger guide.
So they made a stamped simple sheet-metal insert
that went into the charger guide to properly size it for 7.62 NATO.
So those were added.
And I think that pretty much covers all of the mechanical changes that were needed
to convert a Number 4 into an L8 7.62mm rifle.
The system for converting the Number 4 into 7.62 NATO
was actually first done by the Stirling Company commercially in England.
And they patented their conversion system, their idea.
I think it was the magazine that they actually patented.
And they wanted to sell this commercially, they figured,
"Maybe we can sell them to the British government to make Number 4s into reserve rifles
before there's a lot of FALs that are available for reserve service.
Or maybe we can sell them to other Commonwealth nations, or maybe we can just sell them to
countries that have Number 4 rifles that want to be using that new standard ammunition."
However, they had lined up some sales to places like India.
India, by the way, ... eventually had its own conversion
of the Number 1 Rifle to the 2A and 2A1s in 7.62 NATO.
But the British never really made any effort to convert Number 1 Enfields, only Number 4s.
Anyway, Enfield (the British military arsenal),
came up with a very similar system for converting the Number 4 in the early 1960s.
In fact it was so similar that it landed them in a bunch of patent infringement cases
with Stirling, and that would drag on for a few years.
Ultimately it kind of killed Stirling's business,
because by the time that all the patent issues were sorted out
the urgency of converting Number 4 rifles to 7.62 was kind of gone.
A lot of the major military countries in the Commonwealth, or that had been in the Commonwealth,
had plenty of FAL rifles in stock now, and they weren't that concerned.
So Stirling was never able to sell very many of these.
The British government did do ... well I don't know exactly how many conversions they did,
it wasn't just a prototype, but it wasn't done in large numbers either.
These had some accuracy issues. In order to get them to be accurate
they had to basically just drop most of the stock,
put in a new free-floated barrel, and that was the design for the L42A1 sniper.
Which was a Number 4 action in 7.62 as a sniper rifle.
And that actually worked out quite well for the British, and
would ... be in standard service for several decades.
As a service rifle pattern the L8 was completely unsuccessful, and really didn't go anywhere.
So, I think 1,000 of them were sold to Sierra Leone, of all places.
A handful of them went to New Zealand,
where they were used by like the Forestry Service and some police agencies.
And a number of them were used in Cadet and training programs in the UK.
But that's pretty much it.
Today they are quite scarce rifles, there are a small number of originals
that did make it out onto the civilian market, however there are also a lot of fakes and frauds.
Because this is not that difficult of a rifle to find and put together a fake copy of.
So, hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. Hopefully if you are looking at getting an L8
this will give you some idea of what a proper one is supposed to look like.
Help you get away from any potential fraudulent ones.
And well, thanks for watching.