The British L85 is one of the more unusual stories in modern military small arms.Conceived during a period when Britain was attempting to develop a new generation of infantry weapons around a domestically designed intermediate cartridge, the project eventually produced the L85 rifle.This advanced but deeply troubled weapon would later become one of the most extensively reworked service rifles of its generation.The origins of the L85 go back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield began developing a replacement for the 7.62mm L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle.