Royal Marine Reacts To Enfield L85A1: Perhaps the Worst Modern Military Rifle
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 лип 2024
- Original Video (Enfield L85A1: Perhaps the Worst Modern Military Rifle)
• Enfield L85A1: Perhaps...
MY EQUIPMENT:
Camera: amzn.to/3W9dL37
Lights: amzn.to/3JtLflf
Key Board: amzn.to/3JpPWwx
Headphones: amzn.to/3JrF15x
Mouse: amzn.to/49P81ij
Monitors: amzn.to/4aLd1FP
Mic: amzn.to/3U7XWXY
Audio mixer: amzn.to/4b2FJSr
StreamDeck: amzn.to/4b4lHH1
Favorite Books:
Norse Mythology: Neil Gaiman: amzn.to/4b24Ftc
The Way of Kings: Brandon Sanderson: amzn.to/3JyHIlu
Breath: James Nestor: amzn.to/3Jur9Y7
We Are Nature: Ray Mears: amzn.to/3JurhXB
The Last Kingdom: Bernard Cornwell: amzn.to/3w4JjN0
BECOME A MEMBER
/ @originalhuman
SOCIALS
►Instagram / originalhuman_
►Twitter: / originalhuman_
►Discord: / discord
►Facebook: / originalhuman.videos
►Business inquires: originalhumanbusiness@gmail.com
DREADNOUGHT MEADERY!
UA-cam: / @dreadnoughtmeadery
Instagram: / dreadnoughtmeadery
OTHER CHANNELS
►The Sword And Scabbard: / @theswordandscabbard7909
►OriginalAdventures: / @originaladventures2728
►OriginalHuman Geek: / @originalhumangeek - Ігри
Ah so you finally got to see Gun-Jesus as we call him.
This comment made my day😂
Praise Gun Jesus and Pass the Ammo.
@@Taistelukalkkuna AMEN
HK Jesus
He is the Way and the Light, except the light is occassionally muzzle flash.
True story. The Czechs sent a bunch of CZ805 rifles to Ukraine as aid and the guys who got them didn't get manuals or instructions so they googled CZ805 and up popped Ian's You Tube video which includes a full strip down so after that whenever an odd rifle popped out of the Ukrainian logistics system the recipients googled Forgotten Weapons and watched his videos in lieu of the manual.
And that’s just another way the message of Gun Jesus is spread!
Damn, we didn't send them a manual? Thankfully field stripping then BREN is pretty straightforward. Would like to know if they have only the 805 BREN or 806 BREN 2 too and what thoughts they have on our rifle.
@@BloPsy__ Probably a bit different to an AK pattern rifle so likely a bit of ahead scratcher if your not familiar.
@@Broadsword999 Yeah it's different, but it's not rocket science. Still, we should have sent them manuals... I served with the rifle and I was already pretty impressed even back then before they went and made it even better after guys complained about some design aspects. Mainly the weight compared to the Sa vz. 58.
@@BloPsy__ s far as i know they ordered more Bren 2s so i guess they liked it. i mean as an aid they took whatever was sent to them be it Brens, Polish Grots or whatever.
when they had a choice they decided they like Bren the best.
You do know the A1's nickname was the civil servant because it never worked and couldn't be fired.
Ian's videos are much more history & engineering intensive. He focuses a lot less on shooting videos, though, he does some.
He should try his Finnish Brutality vids, that'll give yah some more action.
His work is some of the best online IMO. He avoids the politics and social bias as much as he can, instead focusing on the raw history, the engineering and design. Much loved and respected by people on all sides of firearms debate
Same as ²Bloke on the Range"
@@jankrusat2150 Hmm, Bloke has a very different approach... Much more about marksmanship and far less access to different weapons. Mike works a day job four days a week, while Ian is full-time Jesus:)
Surprised nobody has mentioned Jonathan Ferguson at the Royal Armouries as he has done so much research on the SA80 family and also has videos on the prototypes and the EM2 rifle
Is that Jonathon Ferguson the Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum?
@@md_vandenberg Ian also did some videos shooting EM2 and the whole XL60, XL70 precursors to the L85 system, it also includes live fire on a range.
nah, somebody did talk about Jonathan Ferguson on the l85a1 garand thumb react one
Jonathan Ferguson the Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum has even written a huge book about British bullpups, published by Ian's company.
Do you mean Jonathan Ferguson, the Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history?
On two separate occasions we found full mags from an L85 on my street in the late 80’s. They must have either fallen from a rifle or from a pouch. Never saw this when the soldiers patrolling carried FALs.
Are you Irish?
@@Deki_Srpska Yes and from the north
I'm not surprised the slot in the Enfield made mags used to get bent and wouldn't seat properly so they'd fall out as you were patroling, happened to me a few times on exercise.
@@BulldogMack700rs That’d be a rather unpleasant thing to have happen if you ever had cause to use it and didn’t realise it had fallen out. Must’ve happened to a squaddie or two at an inoppurtune moment over the years.
@@BulldogMack700rs The eject button could also be banged against your webbing and...that's 30 rounds gone.
Every time a new UA-cam Reacts-or gets introduced to Ian McCollum an angel gets its wings
Blood wings
Ian is actually kind of a bad ass. He does a lot of competition shooting and will use old firearms that can't even mount an optic lol
Tho Karl was always better at that, lol
@@whensomethingcriesagainhe turned out to be a closet nazi, during the imaginary rizease incident......
“Old firearms that can’t even mount an optic”
That hurts me in my childhood.
Carried the A1 in Belfast and fortunately carried the GPMG in 1st Gulf War, I can confirm the A1 was a piece of crap. How it got through trials says a lot about government procurement. There were some good aspects, I had one that was reliable in the UK and very accurate but all of them had huge problems in the Gulf, guys were trying everything to get them to run! You cannot have a magazine release catch on the body side on a bull pup your body armour/kit will naturally hit it! Which it often did, and when a magazine hits the pavement and scatters round all over the place that's a major problem in any urban warfare environment. The reason the UK stayed with the SA80 was to protect officials in the MOD not to save money, its a scandal.
C&Arsinal (another great history channel, to long for most reactions mind you) was talking about this kind of thing with the rifle family that birthed the famous SMLE. The British military was willing to spend decades refining the problems out of what they had rather than try a new gun. It ends up with a good product but tons of work to get there.
@@tenofprimeThat attitude was ok during peacetime. But when you need a weapon in the meantime, you are basically screwed.
The government at the time wanted to sell off the British Small Arms company to the private sector, and if it had an active contract it would fetch a better price. So they rushed it into adoption without troop trials, which would have caught a lot of the design 'quirks' which went on to be mostly fixed over the course of the A1's lifespan. Much of what became recognised as the A2 pattern were actually these changes which were initially made to the A1 pattern.
The initial Enfield production run, as Ian says in his video, was shocking. The quality control just wasn't there. It was much better at the Nottingham factory. The Nottingham guns actually worked reliably. The trouble was that Enfield parts were already in circulation, and there was no practical way to distinguish between them and Nottingham parts, leading to armourers swapping bad parts into good guns. Even if the majority of parts were good, there were enough bad ones to spoil the entire lot. Which is why, when H&K were given the task of fixing these situation, they simply replaced ALL the parts which required high manufacturing tolerances.
Some troops were issued A1 rifles that were made entirely of Nottingham parts, and had some of those "A2" changes already, and had no issues with them. Others, like yourself, found them unreliable and poorly designed.
Had the troop trials phase not been skipped, they would have identified many of the design issues before fullscale production, and the delay in production would have meant that all the guns were produced at the new Nottingham factory, with proper quality control. The Thatcher government's rush to get it into production is why the rifle had the problems it had.
He has a video comparing the a1 and a2, you should check it out.
Famously, Mikhail Kalashnikov - yes, the man himself - got to try the SA-80 (not sure which variant tbh) when visiting Britain, I believe. He’d quickly picked up the British way of damning something by faint praise, saying something like “you must have very smart soldiers if this is the gun you give them”
Can we quit pretending Mikhail Kalashnikov invented/designed anything.
@@johndeaux3703 Wow. Yeah... He definitely didn't design the most well known and used family of rifles in history.
This is sarcasm.
@@johndeaux3703He was the greatest kitbasher before the word got invented.
You'll have to check out his other video where he shows the A1 and A2 side by side. If I remember right, he goes into more detail on all the A2 changes.
He has a range of videos on all the earlier rifles that lead to the development of the SA80, as well as videos on the post-WW2 EM1 and EM2. All well worth checking out.
He has a very good video on taking apart the HK G11. I know it’s an odd rifle but it’s cool he was able to examine it in close detail on camera.
Everything you could ever want to know about the L85 can be found in Jonathon Ferguson's book "Thorneycroft to SA80: British Bullpup Firearms, 1901-2020". He also is a big fan of bullpups and a Brit like you.
And a nice guy to boot. Gun Jesus seems to be as well, but I do not know him.
The book is published by gun Jesus' company, btw
He has another video showing the A1 and A2 and the differences between them side by side. Definitely worth checking out.
While this is his video on the L85A1, it's an overview of the L85A1 just showing how it works and what it looks like.
It's only 1 out of an 8 video playlist called SA80 History or History of the SA80 or something, I can't remember exactly. But they go over the initial XL60 Prototype, issues at Enfield and the MoD that essentially made the Rifle too big to fail, and perhaps most importantly and interestingly "Why, SA80"; and explains the thought processes behind the decisions that led to the inevitable Cluster F that was the initial L85A1's and AFAIK ALL L86's with then just sorta giving upon it instead.
I believe Ian has a short series about this rifle and some of the later iterations such as the A2.
He also has videos on British WW2 weapons.
Id be interested if you did a reaction to any of those too.
I found actually SA80 mags in Germany where we had an combined FTX with British Army. I still own one with a cleaning kit and BFA i also found. Very specific items to loose
I think Jonathan Ferguson mentioned in a conversation with Ian, that HuK didn't actually change that much of the design but just built it to specs, which tells you something about the British arms industry of that time.
That's true for some parts, but not others. The firing pin, for example, was completely redesigned (and the bolt to accommodate it), because the firing pin, as designed, would break constantly, even if it was made to spec. There's a separate video on Forgotten Weapons comparing all the redesigned parts from the A1 & A2/A3 side-by-side, and many are are different & redesigned, not just made to spec.
He also detailed *WHY* this happened. It wasn't just quality control issues at Enfield, aka not making parts to spec... it was more that, by the 1980s, because of the death of the UK's gun culture and not really having designed a firearm since right after WWII, all of the engineers working at Enfield didn't know anything about guns. They were primarily auto workers, or general machinists, and not gunsmiths. They were technically competent, but didn't having the domain-specific knowledge, so they made lots of very small & subtle mistakes in the design of the gun. They looked at the AR-18, and copied it, but didn't know why certain things were done the way they were, so when they started moving & changing things, they caused problems.
In Ferguson's conversation with Ian, he was really just cheekily joking that "HK didn't change much" and admitted he was saying that just because of national pride.
@@lamelama22 The government at the time of its adoption rushed it into production, skipping troop trials, because they wanted to sell off the factory. The same factory which would produce so many poor quality parts that would go on to plague the rifle. Troop trials would've identified a lot of those issues. It was a stupid thing to do, skipping them.
@@ErwinPommel Yes and no. Yes they were skipped, intentionally, as you said, for the reasons you said. Yes this would've identified the problems... However, no, this wouldn't have changed anything.
They did know about a lot of the issues pre-Desert Storm, and they certainly found them all out during that mini-war, and the government tried its best to cover it up and hide it, and it took nearly a decade of press and political pressure to get them to admit they made any mistake at all and to do something about it.
You should certainly do more reactions to Ian and his videos. He is very well researched and unbiased, and unlike alot of gun tubers keeps politics out of it nearly entirely. Fun fact he is friends with Jonathon Ferguson, the Keeper of Arms and Artillery at the Royal Armories Museum and helped author and publish a book with Jonathon on British bullpups. He has probably gotten his hands on all kinds of early prototype L85s. I also recomend taking a look at the EM-1 and EM-2 rifles, very interesting to see what could have been if they had been adopted.
This guy’s videos are incredible. And he breaks down every weapon known to man. Lol. He is an encyclopedia of firearms knowledge. And he takes these weapons to the range in his videos. 💯💯💯
I used to fall asleep every night listening to Forgotten Weapons and listening to him ramble on about the benefits of steel guide trunnions over aluminium ones.
FW brings an academic rigour to the subject, he's like one of those lecturers whose lectures you look forward to as he brings the subject alive. Interesting to see OH mention some feature or bug then a few seconds later FW also picks up on the very same thing.
Dude... this is the legendary Gun Jesus..Ian McCollum. He knows more about the history of weapons like this than God. He also works closely with the Royal Armouries. Forgotten Weapons and C&Rselnal are 2 channels you really need to follow.. lastly British Muzzle Loaders with Rob McKay .. absolutely essential viewing for anyone interested in the history of the British rifle
You're absolutely correct! I like the M 16 A1. That's what I used in the US Army. One that I didn't like is the grease gun tankers used. It looked exactly like a grease gun, it was approximately 16" long ans a .45 cal. It had a ton of kick. At the range we finished our recertification. We had thousands of rounds left and the Army wouldn't accept unused rounds back in the armory. So we had to finish them off. My friend was in an M 88 recovery vehicle, which is a tank with no big gun but had this solid steel boom on it and 50 cal mounted. So I attempted to fire the grease gun, that's right attempted. I pulled the trigger and that barrel was pointing straight up half way through the magazine. I almost sh*t myself. I had no idea it did that. I'm usually shooting my M 16, you can fire it one hand and it doesn't do that. So I gave it right back to my friend. Screw that. We were trying to waste ammo, we didn't want to do 3 round bursts. My M 16 I was just smoking that barrel. I shot almost 1000 rounds in about 5-7 minutes. I could have cooked a steak on that barrel. It was the most fun I had with my weapon.
Makes sense, the Grease Gun isn’t something you shoot one handed. You have to grip it by the mag-well if you want to be able to control it. And when done so, the Grease Gun becomes one of the most controllable submachine guns out there. There’s a video on my channel on shooting the M3A1 properly, it barely moves and mag dumping with it is insanely fun! I’ll put it this way, I have fired more modern day submachine guns that are less comfortable than the M3A1 Grease Gun (looking at you, UMP45).
He's dipped his toes into the 'research paper' Guntuber scene now...... Shall we throw him in the deep end with C&Rsenal and Othias doing a 'Primer' episode?
USMC here, cleaning the M16A4 was sometimes a nightmare too. Sometimes guys would stick cash in the bolt so the armorer would just accept it.
To summon Gun Jesus, go to a gun show and say out loud, “I have 32 French Long” 3 times.
Ian is full of interesting history and has gotten his hands on some real unicorns of guns to show how they work.
Along with the video he made on the difference between the A1 and A2, Ian made videos where he managed to get a hold of the Xl70 series prototypes and XL80 preproduction versions of the SA80, incase you're interested in the story behind the how the A1 was adopted despite being obviously garbage.
His comparison video is SA80 History: L85 A1 vs A2 (and the coming A3). With how much you talked about it you might want to see the differences.
yes i love forgotten weapons, he defends the uk and the usa alot with our decisions bc its hard being the greatest military powers
I hope you'll check out the General Dynamics NGSW bid, now known as the Lonestar RM277 (Garand Thumb has a pretty good video on it). It's one of the best examples of what a bullpup design can offer with modern design implements and processes. And in my personal opinion a rifle that would have had more long-term potential than the SIG XM7 the US:A went with.
I’m half way through the video so don’t know if he is going to mention this, but the SA80 was designed for fighting in the mud of Central Europe and the snow of Russia against the soviets. The reason there isn’t protection on the magazine release catch, and the clocking handle and change selector are huge is so they can be operated with mittens on when it’s minus 20. The reason for the huge tolerances are so they guns wouldn’t freeze like the nazi’s guns did. All these things worked against us in Afghan when you humping tonnes of kit and when sand and dust could clog up the weapon. In the 80’s the designers didn’t expect we would be fighting for 20 years in the Middle East.
As far as Ian being a shooter, he does compete a bit and is pretty good. What I really like is his skill in reloading an M1 Garand. I honestly didn't know it could be done so quickly. His personal interest is in old, French rifles. He has quite a collection.
Ian McCollum is notoriously a left handed shooter, so he takes the ergonomics of left hand shooting seriously.
When I was stationed in the UK in the early 90s, we got some range time with a British Army unit. We swapped rifles. After 30 rounds, I was done with the L85A1. Horrible trigger pull. Crap optic. Tedious mag change. I had no idea how they used it. Such an unwieldy beast.
The Brits got our Model 604 M16s. These predate the M16A1. We're talking original 1965 rifles still with 3 prong flash hiders & chrome bolts. 30 years old. The Brits loved them. Switched to full auto, they were in awe of how controllable it is. Smiles like you've never seen before.
Here we are 30 years later, and they are finally getting their own AR.
Awesome react vid dude 👍 Especially cool seeing and hearing your nostalgia kick 💜
A mate of mine is a SStg in the Aus Army, and he joined when they had just ironed out the teething problems with the F88A1 (Australian manufactured Steyr AUG). He said a lot of the older guys were still struggling with the transition from long rifles, still pining for the L1A1s heavy round.
Around 2000 they had some UK troops visiting, and they were fully ready to try and steal some F88's rather than keep their L85A1's
I think Forgotten Weapons did do a A1 vs A2 difference video some time ago, they went through things like the firing pin changes and other stuff side by side.
Ian is definitely more of a gun historian. Hes covered everything from white elephant prototypes, to antique weapons, to iconic weapons like the M1 Garand
Really enjoy seeing you give your input and experiences on some of these channels. Most of them are American veterans and getting a British military (or any foreign service member) perspective is really refreshing and informative.
198something or other and i am at Warminster on the Instructors conversion course to the SA80. Chief Instructor on the first day speaking to the course: "Sorry chaps it is what it is"!
Nuff said.. Back at the unit some months later and they say we are withdrawing the LMG for the LSW... Nearly a mutiny. Wind it back to the 70s and I am at Bisley. Enfield has a stand and are showing us their idea for the Bullpup replacement for the SLR. It was a very different rifle to the SA80 that it morphed into.
Ian's done many videos on the whole sorry saga of British bullpups, and the amazing and tragic thing is that the more we "developed" them, the worse they got. The EM-2 was pretty decent but got killed by the US insistence on NATO adopting the 7.62x51mm round , the 1970s 4.85mm versions were okay-ish, but NATO adopted 5.56x45mm SS109, and then we got into the SA-80 debacle.
Garand Thumb and Forgotten Weapons are very aware of each other's material. You often hear Mike of GT say, 'now I won't get into all the mechanics, but if you do want that FW has a video already about all of that' or something like that. Ian of FW is a mechanical engineer by training and has always been fascinated by why gun engineers choose to build guns in certain ways. He has been working hard for a long time to chronicle weapons and found video format to be the best way to present his findings. And not to demish Mike if GT, but he usually won't do a video on a gun unless he's allowed to put a few hundred rounds through it, thousands preferred. FW will do videos without firing a round but loves to shoot some to compare to modern or contemporary to judge if engineering decisions made a gun fire worse and that might be why they failed.
*"the gun is fine"* "what other rifles have you used?" *".....the aussies let me hold a steyr once"*
Wow I didn't realize the AR 180 connection. That's why the dust cover looks familiar.
You need to check out more Forgotten Weapons videos, Royal Armouries videos with Jonathan Ferguson the keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal armories museum in the UK that houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons throughout history is feeling better this week lol Also Gamespot "Firearms Expert Reacts to" and there are even Ian and Jonathan colab videos that are a must see.
Ian is the goat. 16:31 important to note... Ian is a southpaw.
He had made a separate video on comparing the A1 with the A2. So check that out!
Very interesting and down-to-earth reaction. Would be cool to see your reaction to other firearms, potentially ones you've seen in your service before (officially issued or not).
Exports were limited to Bolivia for the most part, many were eventualy demilled and sold to nostalgic British service members, if youve ever heard of those, thats where they came from, or possibly demilled canadian cadet rifles. The rest of the Bolivian test rifles got sold to gangs, at least one has been spotted in the hands of Brazilian gangsters.
There were definatley semi auto ones made for civilian sale, a few hundred to Switzerland and possibly as many as 80 to the US
Ian is most probably one of the top gun historians right now in the world, with serious work poured on books. And... he is left handed. Good you are checking on his work.
Now, this is a good reaction video. Informed insight coming from both ends.
Thanks, mate!
Ian is a great resource on the interwebs. As far as the SA80- even the M16 had issues at first but now is a world class arm. And yes, i still adore the FAL
I was a small arms repairer (45b) in the US Army and had the M16A1 and A2 during my time. Military procurement isnt too swift. I would have loved an A1 with A2 sights but got the A2 with the horrible burst trigger. Luckily for me i replaced my A2 trigger with tuned A1 and shot expert every time because it was so much more consistent.
Aaaaaand just like that, you’re getting a follow just on the strength of the Anakin joke. Anyway, good to see you doing a Forgotten Weapons reaction. Ian McCollum/Gun Jesus is a serious firearms historian and is mates with a guy called Jonathan Ferguson at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, who is an expert on British bullpups with a book out on them - also worth checking out vids by him. I’m also subscribing to see when you do a reaction to Gun Jesus’s videos on the L85A2 and A3. I think he might have done vids on the L86 and the cadet rifle as well, or maybe that was Royal Armouries.
He also did a whole series on the development of the SA80 with all of the prototypes from the Royal Armouries.
Sig Sauer spear like that cheerleader chant " where do you give'em the spear?"
21:55 Ian did say that H&K changed "all the springs", among other things. =)
Glad you found Ian. He is so incredibly knowledgeable about firearms and their history. If you need to know anything about any firearm made in the last 100 years Ian is the guy to turn to.
We should have a drinking game...every time he flips backend forth from good to bad rifle or bad to good rifle, drink. 😂
I've always really liked the look of the L85 :>
Great video, greetings from Finland!
doesnt Ian have a comparison video with the A2 ? or a shooting video ?
Xm8 forgotten weapons with larry vickers lots of info on that weapon.
Ian has videos on the A2, wierd prototype stuff for the SA80 (grenade launchers, etc.) and a few on th EM rifles. You'd get a kick outta those.
Almost forgot, the new Sig we are using comes in different lengths and configurations, there is one or two shorter than 36" if memory serves. Also, you totally missed a chance to copy the Fat Electrician with the 6" line. Have your wife stick her head in the door after you say " 6" is big?a lot", she sticks her head in and says " you call THAT a lot", and then she leaves and you talk about "it's not the size of the pencil it's how you write your name" or something to that effect! I was totally expecting it.
Hoping you return to your Medal of Honor playthrough once you return to games. Love the vids
From what I've seen, compared to an M16/M4 the SA80 is an absolute nightmare to clean no matter what you do. Yes, you can get good at it, but my god, there's SO many more surfaces than M4. Weird thing is, too, that there's not actually many places to clean that affect reliability, but so much of it gets so dirty.
When you fire blanks, blue gunk appears on top of the barrel under the gas system.
Cleaning the piston isn't that bad, cleaning the bolt carrier isn't that bad. Boom, your rifle is probably reliable. But getting it clean enough to turn in to an armory? Man. That sucks.
Ian has a whole series on the development of the SA80, from prototypes up to current iterations and collaboration with Johnathan Ferguson. Highly recommend watching them, if only for your own enjoyment/education.
For the length of XM7, it keeps short by shortening the barrel (13.5 inches only). L85 has 20 inches of barrel instead.
AND, with a short barrel, XM7 requires a special rounds which produces a very high chamber pressure. The new bullet is almost as big as 7.62mm NATO which 5.56mm NATO is replacing.
I've shot the EM1 and the EM2, my uncle got ahold of them about 20 years back. They were... alright (given that they were the tail end of WW2 era technology, they were probably pretty good, but I haven't fired many guns from that era.). First experience with a bullpup form factor for me, so I didn't really have a lot to compare them to at the time. I was also 14, so I don't remember it as well as I could. Bullpups always look cool, but it's very model dependent, sometimes even down to the individual gun as to whether they're any good, at least from my experience and what I've seen and heard from others.
Also for what it's worth, I firmly believe that any gun that can safely (to the operator) throw lead downrange is an okay gun. There are some real bottom of the barrel guns in that category, of course, but at the end of the day if it won't explode in your hands or delete you outright when you try to shoot it, it does what a gun is supposed to do. There will always be redeeming qualities. As much hate as they get online, I myself have a Hi-Point C9 that works perfectly fine, and I've always done well with accuracy at the range with it. As much as there are definitely some guns that are just better than others, it falls as much or more on the operator in question as to whether the gun is useful. But of course you know that since you were in the military, this comment is more for others that may not have been. I myself wasn't in, but nearly every male in my family besides me and my brother did join at one point or another, so I grew up in what amounts to a military household.
No you didn't
If you have any reason to watch more Forgotten Weapons videos, you will not be disappointed, especially with the huge range of both shooting and history videos
L85A1 aka "The Anakin" (Skywalker)
for military games, its hard to beat squad, 6 days in Fallujah is rough. Ian, is a weapon historian, you get a LOT of practical history and close look at historic firearms
6 days is too rough, too raw imo, particuarly if you've spent time in that arena.
@tyrantworm7392 I only play it with some friends that were in Iraq together, and only for as long as they want to. I don't understand why they play it, I have asked, the only thing I have gotten is it's like going home for a visit, except when it gets to be to much YOU CAN stop, honestly. I feel privileged to be included in their sessions, it's high praise, actually. 6 days is as close as you can get In a game from veteran's who were there, learned opinions. I am constantly surprised on what they pick up on in the game, and the fact that those hints are coded in the game, players who were there see them, I don't, I am the FNG that has to be told what to look out for.
If you’re into Ian’s type of videos, he’s done a few collaborations with a guy from your neck of the woods (the two seem to get along well). Can’t remember his name (I only watched one or two videos with him in it), but I believe he was the firearms expert at some Royal Museum, or something. I think the collab video Ian did with him, that I saw, was regarding the Lutey and Makarovs (or something of the sort). The dude actually has his own UA-cam channel as well; his videos are constantly being recommended to me.
Johnathan Ferguson at Royal Armouries, Leeds.
mate youl love his channel, youre gonna be binging like hell now lol
Back in 2000 the Danish TA thought about getting the L85, but they went with Colt Canada c7 and c8.
For military games the "Combat Mission" for example "CM Black Sea" or "Shock Force 2" Series is likely one of the most realistic. Its by the way also used by the dstl.
He did a side by side that your looking for called SA80 A1 Vs A2. Type in Forgotten Weapons SA80 he has done a breakdown on almost the entire family of firearms. As an ex Army Man myself I love his channel especially the SA80 it's worth watching his channel the history and information is brilliant.
Love the educational value on thus channel too.
If you ever wanna do a tank squad match in Hell Let Loose, let me know!
Ok, I do have a clip about the L85A1 for you. Unfortunately I can't find in UA-cam, but I found a reddit post with the clip titled "How credible is the explanation of the L85A1 from Upotte?"
I don't know if explaining what Upotte is would make it better or worse.
"Eru Chan" besto waifu... PERIOD...
ua-cam.com/video/b0LvRx2-Bp8/v-deo.htmlsi=31xrC0ignSeT2hqd
Besides, I can't find that clip anymore... a few years ago I shared it several times, but now is vanished...
Boot polish on the rubber eye ring never gets old….. Binos doubly so.
The Soldier fix of attaching a para cord and clip lanyard to the magazine being carried in the weapon was a thing back in the day until the guard to the magazine release has fitted I have been told.
You need to see Ian McCollum aka Gun Jesus, make his Finnish Brutality, gun matches.
Please check out the rabbit hole of the SA80 series Ian has done. He has made videos on the experimental XL64 (the Enfield from Black Ops 1), the XL70s, and even the L85A2 and does a parts comparison between the A1 and A2.
If I were British MOD, I would go with licensing IWI Tavor instead of adopting the AR-15 platform. It's bullpup and it would be an upgrade over the existing SA80. But what do I know :)
28:15 It doesn't take a big change in the angles and materials (hardening spec etc.) of the bolt and bolt carrier to make big change in how well the gun performs. Some guns get a little bit of wear on the cam track or cam pin develops some slop and it stops being reliable. (EDIT: While many don't, good example is how even a worn down AK is usually going to run OK.)
Has been interesting to watch you reacting to Ian's videos, hopefully you'll do more. As someone who likes bullpups, I recommend watching his other bullpup videos (he has a playlist of 51 videos ua-cam.com/play/PL9e3UCcU00TTzXDor8v2xKyjHqR03X00R.html). And in general the channel is just fecking awesome to learn about the history of firearms.
the FAL can be ridiculously controlable with the right muzzle device in FA.
If you haven't tried metro, give it a shot, the DLC goes quite hard too
Forgotten Weapons has a whole series of videos on the SA-80 story.
I’m across the pond, so I can’t say I’ve heard from any inside sources in the British Military, but I HAVE heard from sources close to KAC that the new L403A1-AIW program adopted by the Royal Marine Commandos and UK Army SOF is essentially a shadow trial run for full Armed Service transition to the AR-15 platform. I’m closely watching it to see how that goes.
As a Yorkshireman, I was surprised to find that Gun Jesus spends more time in Leeds than me!
Ian also did a video on the L129A1 sharpshooter’s rifle.
Everyone is mentioning Jonathan Ferguson and his book, but I’d like to recommend you watch the video from the Royal Armories talking about the EM2. I just checked, and it’s the video with “did these experimental bullpups see action?” In the title. Similar format to this video, but I don’t believe he disassembles the gun.
Mag release and fire selector switch. One of these is going to be really stiff to make it really difficult to accidentally adjust. The other will be left for fate to decide...
Ah, I see after Garandthumb you decided to watch Ian
Ian is not a usual Guntuber. He is a real Historian and Expert. And just casual beside that, he is cool as Frick, it has Reasons he is called "Gun- Jesus" =)
1:55 Sounds like a good start, Ian also really like bullpups, the old versions of the SA-80 just were pretty dire. And of course Ian is a lefty, so he'll prefer ones that you can switch around. =)
If you want a side by side comparison worh A1, A2 and (possibly) A3, I think there is a video which Ian has done more recently.
Regarding the A2 the only real complaints I've heard is that it's heavier than contemporary rifles, and the controls are not effectively laid out, with your hand reaching over to opposite sides to charge it and press buttons or operate the safety. Reliability wise I think they tested it against other rifles around the time of the war in Afghanistan and it was performing just fine in terms of rounds between stoppages.
We love our ARs and are skeptical of bullpups. That being said, I just bought a Tavor, I love it, and if the UK would export a civilian L85 to America I would buy one in a heartbeat. I love oddball guns, they just make everybody smile on Range Day.
After watching your L403A1 video and your L85 video, I would actually be interested in seeing your thoughts on the L119A1 and the L119A2. (L119A2 is not the L129A1 that you previously mentioned). Looking forward to your L129A1 video though.