ARmy Rumour SErvice

for anything like that to work you need a good domestic market first, so you would have to design it, get an american to make you a hundred prototypes then give it out for testing. not so easy.

Accuracy International wouldn't have gone bust if it had had local grown target shooters to buy its wares. I think the last things we made on our own which was actually any good was the small metal gun and EM-2 which fell victim to politics, everything else was just tinkered with and we cant count the sa80 as that was just cruel.

and we would have to set up the factory in a bunker with maximum security to satisfy the happy clappys which would make it expensive. FFS we cant even make decent toy guns anymore without questions in parliament

Manroy are building and selling .50s without much issue. The problem is you will never sell a small arm successfully without a domestic market. Frankly there is little chance of that till the US decide what their next bullet will be. SA80 is good enough for delivering 5.56mm to the Queen's enemies for now. No it isn't perfect,but there isn't the money to replace it until the US decide where they are going.

not if we can actually supply ourselves with enough of our own stuff. we wil probably end up buying canadian next

If you see a market for gats with a built in fax machine, I'm sure Lord Sugar probably already has some in stock or else could knock some up in no time.

Some clever twat once said that the next war will be fought with nuclear weapons and the one after that with sticks and stones.

British Arms manufacturing policy was brought into line with this concept by an MoD steering group. That's why we have nuclear weapons available now and we will have sticks when needed, contracts are in place and they will be supplied via stores system 3 supplied just in time! Due to the constraints of the defence budget in a future crisis British Soldiers may be expected to provide there own stones though!

To make most bits of a rifle you just need a decent CNC machine shop, its making the barrels in large number which would be a problem!

Getting all licenses to make section 5 parts isn't easy to sell the mod you need iso 9001 quality assurance. then you get accountants involved and the whole thing grinds to a hault!

Originally Posted by 307

Aside from the obvious countless legal hoops to jump through, is there any reason why a company that designs and manufactures small arms could not come into existence and operate from the UK? The fact that we have nobody to rival HK / Colt / Beretta / FN seems ridiculous.

Given the pedigree that exists in the UK for world leading, break through design and innovation, coupled with an abundance of recent, relevant and expert end user input that would be available to any new design, it seems stupid that we lack the capability.

So, I put it to you fellow ARRSErs that we form a consortium, there are enough of us here to fund it with relatively little input, a broad background of expertise amongst users and enough operational experience and expertise, to allow the design of something remarkable. I saw that they are inviting applicants for next year's apprentice, I wonder if Alan Sugar would get into the arms business...Amshooters it could be called.

What do you want to manufacture ? theres plenty of sporting shotgun and rifle manufacturers around as well as custom gunsmiths , quiet a few airgun manufacturers as well .

As I pointed out on another forum a while back there simply is not the market here in UK to take on the likes of Remington, SAKO et al.

The UK is good at building high-class and high-precision and high-priced specialist rifles, but the lower orders on the scale are beyond reach. Remington makes more rifles in one day than the UK 'makes'/assembles in a couple of years. Or, to put things into perspective, I'm reminded that over in Oregon, the eleventh in size state in the US of A - the 3.7 million population are rumoured to have at least one million firearms of one kind or another. Thirty-two of them are 'mine'.

IMO the UK should stick to what it does best - producing high-quality rifles in small numbers, and leave the big-hitting production lines well alone. Remember that there WERE a couple of makers of standard-style rifles - Parker-Hale and BSA.......where are THEY now? One is a fond memory, although still flogging gun-cleaning brushes, and the other makes toy guns for plotzing tin cans.

tac