L85 (SA-80)

The SA80 family originated in British post-war work on intermediate cartridges, beginning with the EM-1 and EM-2 bullpup prototypes of the late 1940s, the latter briefly adopted as the Rifle, Automatic, Calibre .280, Number 9 before NATO standardisation on the 7.62mm cartridge ended the programme and led to adoption of the L1A1. In 1969 the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock resumed development around a British 4.85×49mm round, producing the XL64E5 rifle and XL65E4 light support weapon, whose sheet-metal construction, bolt and bolt carrier drew on the Armalite AR-18 then being licence-produced by the Sterling Armaments Company. Prototypes were ready for trials in 1976. Following NATO's second standardisation decision, Enfield rechambered the designs as the XL70E3 and XL73E3, leading to the XL85 and XL86 pre-production series. The system was accepted into British service in 1985 and the first weapons were issued in October of that year. Enfield's weapons factory closed in 1988 and production moved to the Nottingham Small Arms Facility under Royal Ordnance, ending in 1994.

The SA80 is a selective-fire, gas-operated design using a short-stroke piston mounted above the barrel and fed through a three-position regulator, with settings for normal use, adverse conditions, and a closed position for launching rifle grenades. Locking is by a rotating cylindrical bolt with seven radial splines, rotated by a cam stud running in a helical guide machined into the bolt carrier. The receiver is stamped sheet steel reinforced with welded and riveted machined inserts, with nylon furniture and safety plunger. The bullpup layout places the action behind the trigger group, giving an overall length shorter than a carbine while retaining a full rifle barrel. The weapon is hammer-fired, with the selector on the left of the receiver behind the magazine, a cross-bolt safety above the trigger, and a magazine release above the magazine housing. The ejection port and reciprocating cocking handle are on the right, so the rifle is issued for right-shoulder firing only. Feed is from STANAG magazines, initially aluminium Colt items, later steel patterns from ROF Radway Green and Heckler & Koch, and from 2011 the Magpul EMAG. Sighting was originally by the SUSAT optical sight or fixed iron sights, later by ACOG and ELCAN SpecterOS Lightweight Day Sights.

The L85 has been the standard rifle of the British Armed Forces since 1987. Troop trials in 1986–87 and combat use in the Gulf War exposed reliability and durability faults, catalogued by the LANDSET report. In 2000 Heckler & Koch, under Ernst Mauch, was contracted to remanufacture 200,000 weapons to A2 standard, with redesigned cocking handle, bolt, extractor and hammer assembly; conversion was completed in February 2006. The L85A3, adopted in 2018, added a full-length rail, a modified upper receiver and a Flat Dark Earth finish, with M-LOK handguards from 2020. The family also comprises the L86 Light Support Weapon, withdrawn in 2019, the L22 Carbine issued to vehicle crews and other second-line users, and the L98 Cadet GP Rifle. Users include Jamaica, Bolivia, Mozambique, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea, the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, the Royal Bermuda Regiment from 2015 and the Falkland Islands Defence Force from 2019.