L85A2

The British armed forces’ 5.56×45 mm NATO bullpup assault rifle — a compact individual weapon with a long 518 mm barrel, rebuilt by Heckler & Koch to overcome its notorious early-life reliability failures.

Overview

The L85A2, commonly referred to as the SA80, is the standard-issue individual weapon of the British Army, Royal Marines, and RAF Regiment. Produced as an original bullpup design by the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield and later comprehensively re-engineered by Heckler & Koch, the A2 variant fires the 5.56×45 mm NATO cartridge from a 30-round STANAG magazine. Its bullpup layout places the action behind the pistol grip, delivering a full-length barrel (518 mm) inside a compact overall length of 785 mm, which keeps the rifle handy in mounted and dismounted roles. The early L85A1 suffered from severe reliability and ergonomic problems; the A2 upgrade rectified these and turned the weapon into a dependable combat rifle, now supplemented in service by the further-modernised L85A3.

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