I had a loaded* SA-80 pointed at my belly last year.
If I'd known how crap it was I wouldn't have clenched my sphincter quite so tightly.



_{* the chatty Royal Navy guard on the deck of HMS Ark Royal coughed and blushed and hastily swung it away from my beer gut when I quietly asked, "is that thing loaded?"}
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Tue 5 Jul 2011, 0:14, 1 reply)

Its crapness was more due to its propensity to jam in sandy/dirty/cloudy/anything other than 25 degrees and pleasant sunshine conditions.
Oh, and the magazine release catch is on the left side of the body and early versions weren't recessed, so anyone right-handed running with one could accidentally release the mag, say in the middle of some woods, without knowing it. This goes down well with senior NCOs.

Mind you, it still wasn't as bad as the L98 version given to cadets. It jammed so often it might as well have been made of soft fruit and sugar.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 6 Jul 2011, 8:50, closed)

I can attest to this
Having been a cadet and having spent more time on field exercises attempting to clear the bloody thing than actually shooting*.

*blanks, naturally. Insert joke here about infertility etc.
(Sir Itchalot has a very self-referential signature, Wed 6 Jul 2011, 15:58, closed)