Book The Last Enfield, SA80 - The Reluctant Rifle

The Last Enfield SA80- The Reluctant Rifle
By Steve Raw, Deluxe First Edition, 2003
360 pages, 382 illustrations

In typical Collector Grade fashion, this book presents the entire, in- depth story of its subject firearm, in this case the controversial British SA80, right from the founding of what became the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) Enfield in the early 1800s; briefly through two World Wars with Enfield at the forefront of small arms production for British forces; and covering the adoption of the 7.62mm NATO cartridge in 1954 and the L1A1 rifle in 1957. That's where this book begins to differ from the normal saga of a successful small arms development, for even though the SA80 has been the issue small system of the British Armed Forces for almost twenty years, the controversies surrounding it have never let up. The 5.56mm SA80, consisting of the L85A1 lW (individual weapon) and L86A1 LSW (light support weapon), was the last weapon system to be developed and produced at RSAF Enfield, which was closed down in 1988 and later turned into a housing estate. Ironically, the brand- new Royal Ordnance facility in Nottingham, purpose- built to manufacture the remainder of the SA80 contract, suffered the same sad fate within a decade. Meanwhile, Heckler & Koch GmbH, then a subsidiary of British Aerospace, were awarded a controversial E92M contract which saw the entire small arms arsenal of the British Armed Forces shipped to Germany for modification and retrofit into the L85 and L86 and L86 A2 versions. While it appears that the unpopular LSW is being phased out in favour of the belt-fed FN Minimi, no plans have yet been announced to replace the L85A2 lW.