The Firing Range

At some point during our six weeks of training, we were introduced to the then Royal Navy weapon of choice for small arms, this came in the guise of the L1A1 SLR rifle.  The 7.62mm SLR, SLR standing for self loading rifle, was a British variation of the Belgian FN FAL.  Manufactured in Birmingham and Liverpool it was a very robust and accurate rifle, simple to disassemble and reassemble in the field.

We were instructed in the correct firing procedure, where to point your weapon, what to do if you have a misfire, when to fire, how to aim etc etc.  You have to have enormous respect for the gunnery chief, there he is with about 25 - 30 raw recruits most of whom are below the age of 20 and all carrying a loaded weapon capable of killing someone over a long distance; anyone of which could have pointed it at him and pulled the trigger.

Then came time to load and fire the weapon, we were all given a number of 7.62mm bullets and shown how to load the magazine; this is just a matter of pushing them down into the mag.  The mags were then loaded into the bottom of the weapon ready for our first attempt at firing, standing position.  I was nervous at this point as I'd never fired a weapon other than a pellet gun at a travelling fairground, live rounds in a 25 metre range would be different, nonetheless I buried the stock into my shoulder took aim an fired.  A hole appeared in the plywood target, get in!  We then had to fire in the kneeling position before finally firing in the prone position, all rounds successfully despatched we took our positions at the back of the range after first having our weapons checked to ensure they were empty.

The next group stepped forward to start their turn, one recruit who we had christened "Spock" didn't seem to be able to get the hang of aiming quite right.  Most of his rounds missed the target which at 25 metres away seemed huge, when he came to the prone position it got worse.  All of his rounds fired ended up buried in the soil mid way between the firing point and the target, even with one on one instruction this guy was incapable of raising the barrel high enough to hit the target.

Our next task was to strip and reassemble the weapon, not to its component parts but just enough to enable cleaning of the barrel with a bit of 4 by 2 ((a piece of material soaked in OM13 oil, clean and oil the other moving parts; a simple task for most.  Once again "Spock" who's real name escapes me found the simple task of replacing the breech block cover impossible, after numerous attempts at replacing the cover - which is simply slid along two slots one either side - he was removed from the range.  I'm not sure if he ever went back on it or mastered the art of firing a weapon, I was just grateful he was a stoker and not an armourer.  Throughout my time in the Andrew I would end up servicing innumerable SLR's, I just wasn't aware of it at that time.