The SA80 saga continues today with the final pre-production versions of the L85A1 and L86A1, although at this point they still both carry XL designations, as they were not yet formally adopted weapons. In these weapons we can see a couple last distinctive mechanical changes, but perhaps more impo...

At last, we have reached the L85A2, when the rifle was finally made into something reliable and effective. In 1995, after extensive public scandal from the L85A1's shortcomings being blatantly exposed in the first Gulf War, Heckler & Koch was given a contract to retrofit the rifles. At the time H...

One of the original design intentions of the SA80 project was to replace the infantry rifle and the submachine gun with a single weapon that could fulfill both roles - hence the choice of a bullpup configuration. This would, theoretically, allow rifle ballistics and also SMG handling and maneuver...

In our final segment on the SA80 family of weapons, we are looking at a selection of underbarrel grenade launcher adaptations of the L85 rifle. Specifically, we will see a prototype XL60 series launcher, a prototype Enfield XL70 series system, an adaptation of the Colt M203, and the final adopted...

The Thorneycroft was the first military bullpup rifle, developed in the United Kingdom in response to combat experiences in the second Boer War showing the British infantry rifles to be overly long and cumbersome. Scotsman James Baird Thorneycroft figured he could address this by moving the actio...

With the British military's return to Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror, it was found that the very long engagement ranges made it necessary to have a 7.62mm designated marksman's rifle, in addition to the 5.56mm scoped rifles in service. This was not unique to the British military; the US ...

The Army Cadet Force is a British quasi-military organization that acts general as a precursor to military enlistment. With the adoption of the L85A1 as the British service rifle, a manually operated copy was also developed for use by Cadets. Designated the L98A1, this rifle was built without a g...

The Accuracy International Precision Marksman rifle was the winner of the British MoD's competition to replace the L42A1 as the standard British sniper rifle, and was accordingly adopted as the L96A1. It was the vanguard of the modern sniper rifle, with a highly modular chassis design, and it rev...

In 2007, the British Army placed an order for 582 AI Arctic Warfare Super Magnum rifles chambered for the .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge, formally adopting the model as the L115A3 sniper rifle. This followed special forces use of the .338 Accuracy International rifles in Afghanistan, where the A1 (f...

After the British adoption of the Accuracy International PM as the L96A1 sniper rifle, other nations began to give a very serious look at the company and its rifles. One of the first was Sweden, which requested a rifle like the PM/L96 but with a few changes to better suit the northern environment...

George Lanchester was the engineer responsible for originally reverse engineering the German MP28 submachine gun for production by the British, under the designation Lanchester. Once he finished that design work, the gun was put into production by the Sterling Engineering Company, and Lanchester ...

The 1985 competition to pick a new sniper rifle for the British military came down to a closely fought contest between the Accuracy International PM and the Parker Hale M85. The M85 was a fantastically accurate rifle, every bit the equal of the AI submission and to this day there are still people...

The Jameson Raid in December 1895 was one of the key events in the lead to the second Boer War. Leander Jameson took a force of about 600 men on December 1895 to make a surprise attach on Johannesburg, incite support form the multitude of British miners who felt oppressed by the Boer government, ...

I debated whether or not to film this rifle, because I can’t say with 100% confidence that it is genuine. It really seems genuine to me though, and so I decided to use it as an example of the sort of conundrum that comes up in gun collecting. Here I will present the evidence that suggests that it...

In 1884, High Silver and Walther Fletcher patented a system to rapidly unload a gate-style revolver. They negotiated an agreement to have their system integrated into Webley revolvers (specifically the New Model RIC) as an option, and sold about 350 of them, including some to both he Royal Irish ...

After World War One, the British looked at how to apply the lessons of the war to development of a new infantry rifle. Even before the war, a decision had been made to move to an aperture type rear sight - which would have been used on the Pattern 1913 Enfield, had the war no interrupted adoption...

Webley introduced the WS model revolver in 1902, combining the square grip of the earlier WG model with the mechanical system of the Mark IV government revolver. The new WS pattern was available in both Army (6” barrel and fixed sights) and Target (7.5” barrel and adjustable sights) patterns. In ...

In the 1960s, the Sterling company began to worry about the prospects of continued sales of the Sterling (Patchett) SMG, especially in light of new competitors like the H&K MP5. Its chief design engineer, Frank Waters, created the S11 as a gun to replace the classic Sterling. The S11 was based on...

The Viper Mk I was an experimental submachine gun developed in the UK for use by military policemen in post-WW2 occupation West Germany. It was a simplified Sten gun (full-auto only, without the semiauto option normally included in the Sten trigger mechanism) put into a wooden housing. It was int...

Colonel Thomas Thornton was a wealthy and somewhat flamboyant character in England in the late 18th and early 19th century. He commanded a militia unit with which he had some disagreement, and which mutinied against his comment at Roborough Camp in 1795. Some years later, he commissioned this qu...

Sorry for the poor audio quality - today I am back at the Cody Firearms Museum talking to Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries in the UK. Jonathan has written a new book on the history of British bullpup firearms, which Headstamp is very proud to be publishing!...

Before modern revolvers, the pepperbox was a popular low-cost defensive firearm. Between the invention and patenting of proper revolvers and their widespread affordable availability, a transitional style of pepperbox grew up, particularly in the UK. These guns used a paperboy style action, with t...

The NATO rifle trials of the early 1950s eventually chose the 7.62mm x 51mm cartridge, and the British and Belgians agreed on the FAL rifle to shoot it (and they thought the US would as well, but that's another story). The British government formally accepted the FAL for troop trials, and in 1954...

The Tarn was a 9x19mm pistol developed by a Polish ex=pat designer named Z. de Lubicz Bakanowski. It was a simple blowback design, with a quite heavy slide and recoil spring. It was manufactured by the Swift Rifle Company, and ten examples were made as prototypes. They were tested formally by the...