#L4a1

As a Professional Hoser, I can tell you that the Lee-Enfield is the greatest bolt-action fighting rifle ever made—sorry, Mauser fans, but the record is 2-0. And while you could argue about the respective merits and strong points of all Lee-Enfields ever made, one model stands out for its fighting career at a time when bolt-actions were long fallen from favor. The L42A1 served the British military from 1970 through 1990 and now, Jeff John has a new book published with the life story of this sniper rifle.

After World War II, the UK sought to modernize its small arms, many of which were based on designs originating from before the First World War. For its medium machine gun, the British were still using the reliable but increasingly obsolete Vickers water cooled gun in .303 caliber. With the adoption of the 7.62 NATO by the UK, trials were held to select a new air-cooled general purpose machine gun, which resulted in the adoption of the excellent Belgian MAG. In these trials, however, was tested a belt-fed variant of the magazine-fed Bren gun, called the X11E4. This gun is the subject of an article over at The Armourer’s Bench, as well as an accompanying TAB video, embedded below: