16 minute read
ARMOURY: ARES L42A1
COLD WAR PRECISION
ARES HAVE REALLY BEEN ROLLING OUT THEIR HISTORICAL BOLT-ACTION PROGRAM AS WE’VE DETAILED IN PAST ISSUES, BUT THEIR LATEST RELEASE TAKES THINGS FORWARD INTO THE HEART OF THE COLD WAR ERA! BILL TAKES A VERY CLOSE LOOK AT THE L42A1, A RIFLE MODEL THAT HE ADORES, AND FINDS OUT IF IT LIVES UP TO ITS HEFTY AIRSOFT PRICE-TAG!
Ithink it’s pretty obvious to anyone that regularly reads my reviews that I’m a child of the ‘60s, and that my formative years were the 1970s and 80’s, so you could say that I have more than a passing knowledge of UK Land Forces (UKLF) equipment and weapons of that period.
I joined my school Combined Cadet Force (Army Section) in 1976 at the age of twelve, and eventually ended up as cadet “2 i/c” five years later. Thankfully our section was commanded by a rather wonderful man (and a mentor to me!), “Jack” Bird, who had been both an “original” and a Para before becoming a school teacher, and we took great pride that “our officer” would proudly wear his sand beret when we were “on camp”. His standards were fairly set but unwaveringly high, so every Friday was “drill night”, one weekend a month was usually spent with one of the regular army units or the Royal Marines stationed in our area, and summer camps were filled to the brim with adventure!
It was Mr Bird that recommended me for the UKLF Leadership Course, and for two weeks some 200 cadets from all over the UK went through some of the most rigorous training that the British Army could throw at us thanks to 3 RGJ and Cadre officers (another bloody Para for me!). We drove around in military vehicles of all types, flew in Gazelles and Pumas (bloody big Airfix kits!) and even deployed for our final 72 Hour Exercise in a Chinook! Physical training was at the fore (dawn runs and the assault course every day!) and second only to that was “Skill at Arms” with every infantry weapon in service at the time. It was a tough fortnight, and not everyone made it all the way through…
At school we still maintained an armoury of No4 Lee Enfields and BREN guns on site (oh, how things change!), but when we visited the units around us and had range days at Deal, Hythe and Lydd we had access to the L9 Browning pistol, L1A1 SLR, L2 SMG, the L4 LMG, L7 GPMG and very occasionally if we were lucky and talked nicely to the Royal Marines, the L42A1 sniper’s rifle!
Now having pretty much grown up with the No4 (and the new G&G sounds quite wonderful too!) the L42A1 was definitely somewhat of a “revered beast” to me! I’d been one of the top shooters consistently with the .303 on range days, so every time I got the rare chance to get my hands on an L42 was like a dream come true. This beautiful precision rifle was the final evolution of the Lee Enfield, and when married up with a No32 optic I really couldn’t miss when I had one in my hands… and for this I genuinely adored it. Re-chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO and with some subtle enhancements, it had the same operation as the No4 which I knew intimately, and, at least to my teenage self was just… better.
You can therefore imagine my absolute delight and excitement when I saw that amongst the new releases from ARES as part of their ongoing “bolt-action program” there would be an L42A1 springer, and finally thanks to Tim at iWholesales I’ve finally been able to get my greedy little mitts on one, and without giving the game away totally it’s a beauty of an airsoft rifle!
HERITAGE BUILT IN
Now many players out there have been waiting for a truly outstanding Lee Enfield airsoft rifle, and it would seem that these prayers have been answered, at least in part. To put this in context the Lee Enfield in its myriad forms should ALWAYS have been produced in airsoft form, as it stood the test of time in the hands of the British Army for well over a hundred years! The first service rifle was the Lee-Metford adopted in 1888, while the last was the L42A1 sniper rifle, which was only declared obsolete in 1992! In between came the famous No.1 Mk III Short Magazine Lee-Enfield and its mass production-oriented successor, the No.4 rifle that served commendably during WWII and well into the 1950s until the L1A1 was adopted in 1954!
So the story of the L42A1 was an especially poignant one, as it was the last bolt-action design based on the Lee Enfield pattern to serve with UKLF. Developed from the World War II-vintage No.4(T) rifle and mated with the same No 32 3.5 power telescopic sight (that had originally been designed to go on the BREN!) the L42 proved to be a well-liked and much respected rifle in its own right.
Interestingly, research tells me that “when the 7.62x51 mm round became the NATO standard, the British army had originally planned to convert a large part of their existing stocks of No.4 rifles to 7.62 mm for issue to rear-echelon troops, and both Sterling and Enfield manufactured kits for this purpose. For various reasons, including poor accuracy and reduced personnel numbers, the conversion process of the No.4 rifle to L8 specification was not fully pursued, but some work was done on an L8T sniper rifle version. These L8T prototypes, externally identical to the .303 No.4(T) except for the magazine, were tested extensively in 1965 but did not succeed and were never issued.”
However, civilian shooters of the era had mated the No4 action with a heavy-profile, commercially manufactured barrel mounted in a shortened foreend as the heavier barrel did not require support. These innovations were not lost on the designers at Enfield who soon incorporated similar features into a prototype rifle called the XL42E1. The XL42E1 was “extensively tested in competition with offerings from various rifle and scope manufacturers, and was found to offer the best combination of reliability and accuracy.”
Obviously the fact that a new military precision rifle could be created by converting the huge stockpile of existing No.4(T) rifles may have had some bearing on the decision taken; with a few minor specification changes, the XL42E1 was christened the L42A1, and production commenced in 1970. The specification of the trial rifles and the eventual production rifles was almost exactly the same, so much so that at least a few XL42E1s were later found on issue as regular sniper rifles!
The barrel was a hammer-forged unit and was 27.5” long and made from high-quality EN19AT steel. The magazine was a completely new unit to cater to the 7.62mm rimless round. The receiver was slightly modified in the magazine well to ensure the correct fit of the magazine and reliable feeding of cartridges. The L42A1’s fore-end was shortened, partly to save weight and partly because the heavier barrel did not require
support. A modified handguard from the No.8 .22 training rifle was used along with either a new or original butt and the same cheek rest as the No.4(T).
The L42A1 served with the British Army for nearly 25 years, and it reportedly gave excellent service wherever it was used. Deployments included such disparate theatres as the Falklands and Northern Ireland (where the STARLIGHT sight proved invaluable!), and it saw sterling service with the SAS (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) in the deserts and wadis of Oman. Although probably the most famous images of the L42 are of with SAS, it is said that; “during the Falklands War in 1984, a particularly savage action was fought between the British 2nd battalion, Parachute Regiment, and the Argentines at Goose Green. It was arguably the longest and toughest battle of that brief but bloody war. The British Paras numbered 600 and were up against 1,400 Argentine soldiers. They were fighting over open ground in daylight against prepared positions, were low on ammunition and lacked adequate fire support. The British won the fight but lost 17 of their soldiers against some 200 Argentine dead. Their L42A1 equipped snipers are known to have made a significant contribution to that grim toll.”
You can say what you like to me about the L42A1, but the real rifle is without doubt the zenith of a distinguished family of Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles that served the British and Commonwealth forces with such distinction for more than a century, and as such rightfully deserves its place in firearms history!
TURNING REPLICA TO REAL
So, with the heritage of the real L42A1 and my personal recollection of this fine military rifle in mind, it was initially with great trepidation that I approached the ARES replica; this was an airsoft rifle that I had dreamed of owning one day, but for many years the only way of doing so was by buying an insanely-priced custom creation. I dearly wanted an L42 to complete my collection of replicas that the UKLF had fielded during the late 1970s and 1980s, to sit alongside my Browning, Sterling and SLR proudly and be used in themed games (okay, I also want an L4 LMG, but “dream on”…).
When the ARES rifle arrived with me I sat for some time just staring at the green “faux-wood crate” it is shipped in, but finally I gathered the courage to open this up and wrapped in “greased paper” was the very rifle I had dreamed of in
airsoft form for so long, along with a magazine and a box that contained the replica “No32” optic. With great care and some reverence I unrolled the paper to reveal an utterly drop-dead gorgeous airsoft rifle.
As I have said elsewhere in this issue I am no sniper, but having shot the real L42A1 what lay in my hands was obviously a thing of great beauty; now ARES describe this rifle as being “Museum Grade”, and although I am unsure exactly what they mean by this phrase, their finished replica is undoubtedly worthy of such display. If I saw it in a cabinet in an Infantry Museum in virtually every way I’d be hard-pressed to say that this was not an example of the rifle I had shot myself!
The ARES genuinely IS stunning! Weighing in at 4400g and at 1140mm overall this is indeed a real beast of a rifle; the real L42 was 4535.92 and 1181mm, so ARES have this pretty much bang-on to start with. The woodwork is said to be “High Grade”, and with a slightly “used” patina it certainly feels spot-on, and looks amazing… I have a genuine wood butt on my airsoft SLR and the tone is almost identical! The L42 butt features the correct cheekriser, and has the correct three sling swivels as per the real.
When it comes to the metalwork there is certainly no “monkey metal” anywhere in evidence from what I can see, as the 95% of the parts are made from Grade 304 Stainless Steel with QPQ Finishing, and it certainly feels “right” to me. The outer barrel does not have the “snakeskin” finish found on some L42s, but there is most definitely a slight texture to it, which is a very nice nod to realism. A functional leaf sight is fitted to the rear of the rifle, with the again-correct shrouded post at the front. Okay, I’ll get a couple of tinyyet-utterly-forgiveable gripes out of the way at this point, and the first of these definitely puts me into “stitch-bitch” territory. The magazine should be re-shaped “to cater to the 7.62mm rimless round” but is in fact the same 35 BB magazine used in their No4 rifle; this is by no means and dealbreaker for me, and makes complete commercial sense as they can use the same design in three airsoft models, but in fairness it does need to be pointed out.
The other slight head-scratcher for me is that the ARES is clearly marked “No MK*1 LONG BRANCH 1942”… now Long Branch Arsenal did indeed produce Lee Enfield-pattern rifles along with STEN guns, but for the Canadian, British, and Chinese militaries. It was said in the Canadian firearms magazine “Calibre” of the No4 (T) rifles that “all the guns Canadians carried throughout the Second World War are cherished by their collectors, but none are as highly prized as this: The Long Branch No. 4 Mk. 1* (T)… these rifles were hand selected due to their accuracy, and would then undergo a variety of modifications before being encased in secure transit boxes and shipped to their respective users. While just over 25,000 Lee Enfield rifles underwent this treatment, those from Canada’s Long Branch arsenal remain the rarest, with literally just a handful every year being produced”. This would make an L42 bearing the LONG BRANCH stamp a VERY rare beast
“I GATHERED THE COURAGE TO OPEN THIS UP AND WRAPPED IN “GREASED PAPER” WAS THE VERY RIFLE I HAD DREAMED OF IN AIRSOFT FORM FOR SO LONG, ALONG WITH A MAGAZINE AND A BOX THAT CONTAINED THE REPLICA “NO32” OPTIC. WITH GREAT CARE AND SOME REVERENCE I UNROLLED THE PAPER TO REVEAL AN UTTERLY DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS AIRSOFT RIFLE.”
indeed and it makes me wonder if ARES didn’t use a Chinese rifle for their template.
However, this is pure semantics, and to be honest in no way detracts from what is a very, VERY fine airsoft rifle, and in no way diminishes the fabulous job that ARES have done in their replication.
ZEROING IN
One thing that I haven’t yet mentioned fully is the fact that the ARES L42A1 comes as a complete package, and that with the rifle you actually get a replica of the No32 optic and mount that is correct for the platform. I initially tested the L42 using just the leaf/post combo, and chrino’ing on a .20g gave me a highly respectable 1.65 Joule/422fps, along with solid feeding from the magazine, and excellent accuracy out to 30m; while shooting prone I was able to group 10 BBs at 220mm.
However, re-setting the hop to .30g BBs and fitting the optic transformed the rifle further, and that grouping crept down to 137mm at 50m! As well as being a splendid reproduction of the No32 and mount visually the optic provided has some of the clearest glass that I have seen on a stock model, with the correct reticle, and crystal-clear magnification! It is a delight to use, and although I would give warning that the thread on the mount screws does seem a little weak, I would ask as to why you would need to remove this with any regularity given that rifle and optic are made to be together!
The operation is super, super-smooth with the bolt sliding “into battery” with a satisfying yet very audible “click” if you are going to use this rifle in the sniper role then I’d suggest that you’ll want to carry it pre-cocked with the safety applied until you’re ready to take your shot lest this very audible signature gives your position away!
But this aside, am I happy with the ARES L42A1?
You’d better believe that I am! It is a stunning replica that if you are a collector like me as well as an airsoft player you will want to own, and indeed I believe if you are a “Cold War Brit” player you’d sell body parts to acquire one of these fine rifles for your “gun wall”!
It is another rifle however that will carry a hefty price-tag that on the face of it may put some doubters off, but I would urge you to consider the package on offer as a whole. I’ve seen that the L42A1 is now appearing on certain websites with an asking price around the UK£700 mark, and I would agree that this on the face of it seems a lot of money for a niche rifle.
However, given that you get a solid gun case to kick off with, that re-lined with something like Shadow Foam could carry more than one rifle, and that you get the excellent No32 optic replica as well starts to make this price-tag somewhat more palatable. If you search online for a No32 optic what you’ll find in the main are “repros”, and one of these will set you back somewhere in the region of $US350, with another US£150-200 for the mount! If you want to find a genuine No32 then prices appear to start at around US$400 with US$600-700 being what you’ll pay for a decent one… and that’s before you start to factor in shipping and import duties!
So, as I say you need to look at this magnificent ARES offering as a complete package, and I genuinely believe that for players like me that have lusted after this model for so long, the price will not be offputting. As a standard, from-the-box airsoft rifle the ARES L42A1 is a wonderful replica of a much-loved service rifle, and I also believe that with just a little light fettling this elegant rifle with a rugged optic from a bygone era could prove to be an undoubted winner in-game to this day!
As always, and especially this time a huge THANK YOU to Tim at www.iwholesales.co.uk and the ARES L42A1 should be arriving with all good retailers VERY soon! AA
