Thread: Military style semi automatics, and not-so-automatics, over the years.

Originally Posted by Rushy

I think you understate the rate of fire for the L1A1. This was the dominant issued firearm when I was in the NZ Army and I was a marksman class shooter with it. Apart from the fact that the magazine only holds 20 rounds compared with the 30 round magazine of the AR15, in the hands of a proficient shooter it is every bit as capable of cycling equally as quickly as an AR15.

Hi @Rushy

Yes I agree, far too pessimistic. That said this is not cyclic rate of fire, but practical, aimed, suppressive fire as per british army doctrine defining suppressive aimed fire as 20/min. Rate is over a minute, to take account of mag changes. One guy on youtube at the Bruce Rifle Club fires 24 shots in a minute at 200m, starting with a full 20 rd mag.

My source of that was Self Loading Rifle L1A1: The European “Black Rifle”

I thought that 20/min was especially disappointing, compared to the Garand's 40-50/min -- which is definitely the case. The SLR has less barrel climb, but 20-round mags of the SLR are a bit slower to both remove and insert than the Garand clips - what with the bolt also not staying open once last round fired and the SLR not auto-ejecting spent mags.