Just finished reading the book “The Last Enfield – SA80: The Reluctant Rifle” by R. Blake Stevens. What a tragedy, although not to the same degree that we experienced with the rollout of the M16, but horrible nonetheless.
The whole tragedy stems from the yardstick they used to measure performance, and Enfield just found ways to work within the “system” to push up their numbers to make the rifle look as if it was actually a well performing rifle. By claiming they would include a spare bolt with the rifle (which they never did) they were able to re-classify “critical” failures as non-critical. Then they managed to find themselves being judged ONLY on critical failures which was defined as any failure that cannot be addressed in the field and has to go to the armory. So things like failures to feed, extract, fire, eject. Failures of trigger re-setting, magazines falling out, sights falling apart, safety getting stuck in the ON position and any number of other issues that the rifle had on a regular basis were just written off completely. When you use a REAL measurement of MRBF (Mean Rounds Between Failure) the rifle when issued had a MRBF of around 1 in 28 rounds…meaning, you can expect to have to deal with some issue with EVERY magazine you fire from the weapon.
Just shocking that no one went to jail over that.
The whole tragedy stems from the yardstick they used to measure performance, and Enfield just found ways to work within the “system” to push up their numbers to make the rifle look as if it was actually a well performing rifle. By claiming they would include a spare bolt with the rifle (which they never did) they were able to re-classify “critical” failures as non-critical. Then they managed to find themselves being judged ONLY on critical failures which was defined as any failure that cannot be addressed in the field and has to go to the armory. So things like failures to feed, extract, fire, eject. Failures of trigger re-setting, magazines falling out, sights falling apart, safety getting stuck in the ON position and any number of other issues that the rifle had on a regular basis were just written off completely. When you use a REAL measurement of MRBF (Mean Rounds Between Failure) the rifle when issued had a MRBF of around 1 in 28 rounds…meaning, you can expect to have to deal with some issue with EVERY magazine you fire from the weapon.
Just shocking that no one went to jail over that.
