Originally Posted by
Jump Complete
They told us the Lee-Enfields had to be decommissioned as 22s were one thing, but heavy bore weapons like the .303’s getting stolen would have been quite serious!
They were decommissioned owing to the lack of readily available .303" ammunition.
They were replaced by the L81A1 Cadet Full Bore Target Rifle (adopted around 1981 and updated to current A2 status in around 1994), a shortened barreled variant of the Parker-Hale Model 82 sniper rifle chambered in 7.62 NATO.