[ L85A1 at the Range ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we have a chance to actually do some shooting with an L85A1.
This is a registered post-sample machine gun here in the United States.
I had a little bit of opportunity to shoot one of these
in England a few years ago, but we had a total of 10 cartridges.
Which didn't give us that much opportunity to really get a feel for the gun.
Well this time it's America, so I've got ... well, normally that would mean I have lots of ammo,
right now I suppose it doesn't. But I have enough ammo that we can make this work.
So this is an actual Radway Green magazine, which is one of the weak links in the L85A1.
This ... rifle has had a few of the service updates,
for example, it has the shield around the magazine release.
But this is still very much an L85A1, it is not the HK-upgraded A2.
So let's see how much ammo I can actually put through it without it malfunctioning.
We'll start on semi-auto.
The British soldiers who are watching this will probably tell me that I'm supposed to
tap the charging handle forward every time that you cycle the bolt.
Right. So, overall impression is that recoil is quite mild on this thing.
The L85 in this guise ... had lots of flaws.
By the time HK was done with it, it was a totally serviceable rifle.
They did a really remarkable job getting it into that configuration.
However, even though it was serviceable, it was still heavy.
And especially with the SUSAT optic here, this is a heavy rifle,
and that contributes to it not having a whole lot of felt recoil.
... It would be very pleasant to shoot if it were not for the very short eye relief
of the SUSAT which is kind of popping me in the forehead every time I shoot.
So we have a crossbolt ... safety up here at the front,
and then we have a selector switch here on the back.
So we'll flip that from repetition to automatic and try that out.
Impressively, it has fired an entire magazine without a single malfunction.
And the handling in full-auto is pretty much a duplicate of the handling in semi.
... The recoil is not that bad, it doesn't have that much muzzle climb to it.
I have a hard time keeping a good sight picture
because we do have a 4x power magnification optic here.
Which under any sort of full-auto is a bit high,
at least for me, without having a lot of practice on that sort of thing.
Alright, let's try some more.
The L85 is not convertible between left and right handed,
so it will be all right-handed shooting today.
It's kind of interesting, I can actually see the ejection pattern
out the corner of my eye while I'm shooting.
And it's ... a wide angle of ejection that this thing is covering.
And it's not going that far.
... These are kind of indicators of maybe the gun's not super healthy of a design.
You typically want to have a very consistent ejection pattern.
And it probably would be nice if it went a little farther than this.
Although we have not had anything actually malfunction in any way yet,
which is still remarkable.
Leave it on full-auto.
Magazine release on this side. Controls are a little awkward for a bullpup.
But that's kind of endemic to a bullpup.
Especially one from the '70s that's not a FAMAS.
I'd like to give a big thanks to Woody's Weapons and Sienna Armory for providing access to this.
These are fantastically rare in the United States.
And it's a lot of fun to actually get a chance to shoot one.
I'm very glad that I am not a soldier who was issued one of these.
I feel bad for the British soldiers who did,
but they do have a legitimately totally decent rifle now in the L85A2 and A3, so.
Incidentally, if you're interested in more information on the development of this thing
because some of the early versions of it were really interesting
(frankly, the whole gun is really interesting),
you can check out Headstamp Publishing's book on Thorneycroft to SA80,
which has a major section on the development of the L85.
So, do a little bit more shooting and dump out the magazine.
We'll do a couple of shots on semi-auto.
It is a remarkably accurate gun, that is one thing that the British will always
remind you of, and they're right, it is a nicely accurate rifle.
Sometimes that's used as kind of,
"We have to have something nice to say about it, to cover over all the other stuff."
Alright.
Alright guys, well I hope you enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.
There we go! Right at the end, we got our malfunction.