Back in the '60s, my school CCF only had an Army section. We had a few ancient Mauser rifles, about half a dozen old SMLEs, dozens of Lee-Enfield No4 rifles, a jungle carbine, half a dozen DP Bren Guns and a few Sten Guns. Plus a couple of revolvers modified to fire only .22 blanks, some 2" mortars and 3.5" rocket launchers and some .22s for range firing. All were originally housed in a pre-fab building, but later rules meant that they were moved into a purpose-built armoury in which live and blank rounds were also stored.

On Field Days we would be bussed to the Quantocks with our .303s, although we also took the DP Brens plus old-style football rattles which the second man on the Bren would whirl furiously to simulate firing sounds. The .303s also went with us to Summer Camps on Exmoor - no-one thought twice about teenagers toting rifles around the hills back then.

The Stens also had some blank-firing barrels - these were basically a barrel with an internal tapered constriction which would allow gas pressure from a blank to chamber the next blank round, simulating the real weapon - but of course a Sten with a blank barrel couldn't be used to fire real 9mm rounds.

One of the blank barrels had developed a crack, so one of our number took it to a local gunsmith for repair. When it was ready, I went with my colleague to collect it. Little did I know it, but in his briefcase he also had the rest of the weapon. So there we were in the local gunsmiths, in school uniform - and my chum pulled out the Sten to check that the barrel fitted OK. It did, so off we went back to school with a Sten gun in a briefcase! No-one else in the gunsmiths thought anything about this, but I've always wondered what the local rozzers would have said if they'd known. Back to school, down to the bottom fields with some blank 9mm ammo to test the thing. It worked briefly 'da-da-da-clunk', but the barrel had broken again and that was that!

But it wasn't the most hazardous item we had at school. That was actually a 1955-era Switchboard Magneto Mk 10 portable telephone exchange, which had replaced the WW2 'Universal Caller 10 lines' exchange, which was like something out of Blackadder and weighed over 30lb. The reason the SM10 was so dangerous was that it had a lot of luminous painted labels over the line sockets, which meant that it was more radioactive than anything kept securely in the Physics Lab.

These days things sound a lot safer, but perhaps more boring?

Got to love Ian "gun Jesus"! Follow it on a weekly basis and there's always lots of interesting information passed on.

Thank you. Yes, pleasantly surprised. Well done and long may it continue.

correct, sorry - typo

Jumping in with trepidation. On the Deacts, there is an EU directive which exceeds our requirements and makes the exercise rather pointless. I am deacting a front loading revolver, and apart from milling a slot in the barrel and welding in a hardened steel rod, the walls between the chambers have to be milled out, connection of trigger and hammer ground off and both welded to frame. Cylinder also has to be welded to frame, no moving parts left.. The mess all this welding makes means you would be better off making a mould of the whole thing and casting a solid repro in spelter or Mazac.
I hear coming down the line is another directive banning the use of lead ammo on environmental grounds. No, not just shotgun, everything. Ranges are going to try claiming that the butts stop all shot, and it is reclaimed and recycled. What air gunners will do I can't imagine. It will end my shooting as I use 19th century pieces, and their barrels will not take anything other than lead, rifling on long guns dependent on powder blast expanding bullet into lands. I presume the military will get away with using jacketed ammo.
Few thousand jobs lost around the Country, but must be worth it, eh?

So true for all youth organisations. Long ago I took along some aviation bits and pieces to illustrate chats to casual gatherings; they can't have been that bad as the youngsters sometimes wouldn't let me away until 11pm, to the extent that my dear wife thought I was conducting other activities (I wish ...)

A decade ago when I was still fit enough to do so :hmm: I offered a repeat performance only to encounter such an obstacle course of risk assessments, police inquiries etc that I didn't bother, and that was before mention of my WW2 sectioned ASI and altimeter with the dreaded luminous paint.

Being a former 'Peeler' I was not impressed when that system was introduced, as I suspected that it would become the fail safe method of character checking. The danger is that we come to trust such mechanisms alone and even allow a 'clean' result to override a gut feeling judgement. My view was that it only proves you've not been caught, nothing more.

The attitude of some RAFAC staff in reaction to apparent guidance is often laughable. Had you offered to come along to my Sqn (back in the day admittedly) there would have been no CRB/DBS requirement as you wouldn't have been given unescorted access to the youngsters. A commonsense approach using Bader's "...guidance of wise men....obedience of fools" is what is missing from the ACO in particular.

That said - and getting back towards the topic - I remember a good few years ago a nearby ATC Sqn having its .22 rifles stolen. Armourers arrived to carry out the routine six monthly inspection and servicing, but needed to take the weapons away for some remedial work. The Sqn staff were somewhat taken aback when the real armourers from the PU turned up shortly afterwards....... To be fair, we weren't 100% certain we wouldn't have fallen for the same con.

Similar but an exercise happened at Odiham if I remember correctly. Landrover with pongoes turns up at gate one evening, officer says taking his chaps out for end of exercise pint so can we secure their weapons in the armoury, duty armourer called out and opens up shop, that's when they revealed they were not real pongoes, but a security check, Landy had tax disc in window etc

The L98A1 was a complete dog... the reworked L98A2 is better but the whole design is flawed... so much so that if you look at the history of the L85/86 (SA80) family you will see that it was based on the 'concept' of the XL65 and XL70 series of bullpup prototype rifles. But the actual SA80 series had it's bolt and gas system 'copied' from a commercial Sterling Armaments licensed built ArmaLite AR18/180 rifle.

A lot of the failures to feed with the rifle were down to the stupidity of the design team at RSAF Enfield to 'copy' the bolt cam angles correctly, that and the fact that NONE of the design team had any experience of firearms design at all... some of them had never shot a firearm either!

Have a look at our website and YouTube channel for some interesting and cool smallarms history....

www.armourersbench.com

Cheers,

Vic

What a fascinating site.

Is that a requirement from the legislation, or some internal RAF rule? I ask because armourers for the film and TV industries quite commonly travel around with section 5 firearms (with special permission to work with them, of course) and as far as I know have no such requirement.

I'm unsure wheter it is a RAF or Joint Services rule - I'm guessing the latter.

ISTR JSP 440 Security Manual.
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