American Maker’s L85 Clone Puts Britain’s Rifle Through Live Fire
The British L85 has been a video-game and movie fixture for years, but actually owning one has never been possible since the UK military destroys its surplus rifles instead of selling them. In a video from Garand Thumb, host Mike sits down with Evan Murdoch, founder of Murdoch & Co., to look at the company's American-made, semi-automatic recreations of the SA80/L85 family and put them through live-fire testing.
Snapshot
Murdoch explains his team worked with the Royal Armouries and the UK Ministry of Defence to build the rifles from a blank slate, engineering every stamping die rather than importing kits or surplus parts. The crew runs the L85A1 and L85A2 through close-range drills and distance shooting, with Murdoch noting an L85A3 is also planned, and both he and Mike come away calling the action unusually smooth for a service rifle.
Key points
- Built from scratch: Murdoch says every stamping die was designed in-house to match original dimensions, markings, and furniture, since no real MOD rifles could be sourced.
- Trigger feel: Mike measures the mil-spec trigger at roughly 5.5 to 6 pounds, which Murdoch confirms lines up with the 6.3 to 7 pound spec on real L85s.
- Drills tested: The pair run Bill Drills at seven yards and a Mozambique drill, landing consistent hits and clocking sub-two-second total times.
- Distance performance: Shooting a 20-inch-barreled A2 out to about 300 and 550 yards with an issued-style ACOG setup, Mike calls the rifle flat-shooting and easy to hit with at those ranges.
- Cycling feel: Both describe the action as glass-smooth, comparing the recoil impulse to a 5.56 AK rather than a typical AR-15.
Quick take
For anyone who always wanted a piece of British service rifle history, Murdoch & Co.'s recreations look like the first real shot at it, according to the hands-on impressions in this video. The build process and range results suggest a faithful, well-finished reproduction rather than a novelty clone.
Watch the full video: Garand Thumb