Weapons

Challenge

Yourself

No. 8 Rifle

The first rifle that a cadet will be trained on is the No. 8 bolt action rifle. The No8 rifle itself is a nice, simple weapon - ideal for training. The sights are simple iron-sights (as with all cadet weapons) and it operates with a manually fed bolt action.

This weapon started life as the Enfield No. 4 rifle as used during World War II. It was modified to have a shorter barrel and altered to fire the .22 long rifle round instead of the .303.

L98 Cadet GP (L98) Rifle

Cadets over 14yrs old may fire the L98 rifle. The L98 is again a modification of an existing design, but in this case it is modified from the standard British rifle on current issue - the Enfield L85A1. It fires the same ammunition (5.56mm) as the L85 but is manually cocked and can only fire one round at a time so it is just like the No.8. The primary difference in operation is that ammunition is supplied in a magazine which is fitted to the rifle rather than loose to be fed by hand each time the rifle is fired.

Future rifles.

Due to come back in to service is the L81 rifle. The L81A1 was taken out of service in 1995 for maintenance. It is being reborn as the L81A2 rifle. A step back in complexity, this weapon is very much like the No.8 rifle in operation, though scaled up. It fires the 7.62mm round and is capable of considerable accuracy

It is planned to replace the L98A1 Cadet GP rifle with a semi-automatic version of the L85A1. The basic L85A1 rifle can fire semi- or fully-automatically. The big advantage will be that the rifle will load the next round itself - most of the problems encountered when firing the L98A1 are due to incorrect operation of the manual cocking handle.