Sa80

Someone gotta start finding out where they are hidding.

They went past their "best before date" and vanished (like many firearms did in the early nineties), in order to make the Lieberal bureaucrats feel better about having "done something", remember If it saves one life.........:rolleyes:
 
THey are "interesting" rifles and supposedly very accurate - the trigger is very heavy.

It will be nice to know exactly the spec of the HK upgrade.
 
It is heavy because the entire receiver is make of sheet steel - look at how much sheet steel is used in SA80 in comparison to the AR18. The SA80 receiver construction is G3 technology at best from the 50's.

If it is made today, it will be aluminium.
 
one of the issues of the sa80/ ar18 is the square bolt carrier and the rails it runs on, they have a bad habit of heating up and coming off the rails.
if you geta chance to look as a armalite ar180 and an sa80 you will see big changesto the thinkness of the rail and how deep the rail sits into the bolt carrier.
When i was doing basic in the 90,s we had a few sa80,s they if you grabed the cocking handle and ramed down on it from the top, then cocked it, it would make the bolt carrier come of the rail just enought to jam the gun.
If someoone were to make a new sa80/ar180 combo, the exstruded alum upper frame would not be a good idea, the rails would wear to quickly.
Unless you had them put in as insert and fixited into place, ie like the remington 870 ejector.
bbb
 
The idea would never be to have aluminum guide rails. I like the AR18 system with the separate steel guide rods, always steel on steel.

Or if you're doing an extrusion, could do a tube like the AR15.
 
THey are "interesting" rifles and supposedly very accurate - the trigger is very heavy.

It will be nice to know exactly the spec of the HK upgrade.

I don't have the "specs", but like I said in a previous post, they basically rebuilt the inside of the gun.

From an article in SWAT magazine may 2003:

"...Following extensive analysis and experimentation, a design team headed by Ernest Mauch came up with a long list of modifications and replacements necessary to make the best of a less than ideal situation:

-Internal machining to clear feed and extraction paths
-Breech block and bolt
-Extractor and ejector with spring
-Recoil springs
-Firing pin
-Cocking handle
-Entirely new magazine (still NATO M-16 style) made from pressed steel
-Gas plug and cylinder
-Hammer
-Barrel extension
-New barrel (LSW only)

......initial run of 200 modified weapons, for 92 million pounds.......If my math is correct, this amounts to over $600 per unit---pretty close to what H&K would probably charge for similar quantities of new G36 rifles.


Intersting to note that the MOD police use H&K G36 rifles. Royal Ordinance / British Aerospace owned H&K at one time, and assembled G3s in the UK (someone on this board has one).

Another thing I read somewhere is that Sterling, who made AR-18s under license, got a look at an early trade show prototype, and their engineer said that they had not copied the AR-18 properly, and that it would not likely work well.

Collector Grade Publications has a whole book dedicated to the subject, and it is "on my list", but I haven't actually bought it yet. No doubt it will have eveything anyone ever wanted to know about the SA-80.

Interestingly, the original 4.85 version looked very different (more EM-2 like), and that the 5.56 version looks distinctly "cheaper".
 
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The book, "The Last Enfield", by Collector Grade is astounding!
It was probably the one time I got emotionally upset reading about the quality of the build of a rifle. I first read their books, "The Black Rifle Vol 1 and Vol 2". I could actually predict the next set of problems as I read along. It was horrifying. It seems to boil down to problems with never investigationg dwell time due to near plagiarism, refusal to use anything but tubular ammo by RG, and blaming the troops for not pouring lubricant all over the beastie by the gallon.

I remember handling an SA80 in 1989 out in Wainright. I can honestly say that the version I saw then made a STEN gun look like a quality piece of design.

If anything made me grateful for a C7, it was seeing this.
 
The book, "The Last Enfield", by Collector Grade is astounding!
It was probably the one time I got emotionally upset reading about the quality of the build of a rifle. I first read their books, "The Black Rifle Vol 1 and Vol 2". I could actually predict the next set of problems as I read along. It was horrifying. It seems to boil down to problems with never investigationg dwell time due to near plagiarism, refusal to use anything but tubular ammo by RG, and blaming the troops for not pouring lubricant all over the beastie by the gallon.

I remember handling an SA80 in 1989 out in Wainright. I can honestly say that the version I saw then made a STEN gun look like a quality piece of design.

If anything made me grateful for a C7, it was seeing this.

Kudos to Steve Raw for a hell of a piece of work and you can feel his biais through the book but even when it was being introduced I remember the IDTU team complaining about its faults but admitting it had potential!
I was reasonably happy with mine although it did have problems!
 
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