I recently acquired a de-banned Century L1A1 sporter built on an Imbel receiver. All parts except for the charging handle (early BSA) and furniture (Brit Marynal) are Australian.
The grenade launcher sight is marked in yards instead of meters which throws me a little. The only other ones I have ever seen were in meters. The receiver just says Century Arms, R1A1 Sporter cal.308 with their Georgia, VT address and made in the USA. Serial number is CA323XX.
I would like to know which country it would have been sold to, NZ, Malaysia etc so I can figure how I want to proceed 'resto' wise. I don't have Skennerton's book on the SLR and am awaiting activation over at Falfiles, which I understand can take quite some time. I was hoping someone on the Boards might have the book and be able to tell me where AD6105006 may have gone. Thanks in advance if anyone is able to help. All Aussie-Made L1A1 were marked 'AD' ( Australia Defence) followed by the Two digit Year date eg: AD61 The rest of the 5 digits were the serial proper. The F1 Sub Gun had a similar layout, but with a 6 digit serial after the date. They were exported to Many, Many commonwealth countries ( Skennertin's Book on the 'SLR' has details of which years/numbers went where.) New Zealand was the Major acquirer, followed by countries like Papua-New Guinea, Fiji, Nigeria, Kenya, Brunei, Malaysia, the British Caribbean Islands, etc.
So where CAI bought them is a Mystery. Except for the 'Commercial' L1A1s Produced in Australia in the Late 80s, Australia never 'Surplussed' any SLRs.they preferred to either convert them into deactivated (welded-up) DP rifles, or simply crush and smelt them into Re-Bar. ( along with the F1 SMGs when the change-over to 5,56 (M16 and AUG-F88) came in). That was well before they confiscated the Privately held ones in 1996, and crushed them as well. We have a couple in the arms room at work,one is engraved with a 60' manufacture date and FTR 71 stamped next to it.Most SLR's I see down here actually use the later style wooden hand guards.I was talking to a workmate today about them,he tells me that before the Steyr was adopted by the army here,an infantry squad (either 8 or 9 men) would be armed with usually the scout carrying a M16 A1 with grenade launcher underneath,the squad leader would also have an M16A1,and everyone else carrying a rifle would have the L1A1.The navy and airforce only used the L1A1.
All Aussie-Made L1A1 were marked 'AD' ( Australia Defence) followed by the Two digit Year date eg: AD61 The rest of the 5 digits were the serial proper. The F1 Sub Gun had a similar layout, but with a 6 digit serial after the date. They were exported to Many, Many commonwealth countries ( Skennertin's Book on the 'SLR' has details of which years/numbers went where.) New Zealand was the Major acquirer, followed by countries like Papua-New Guinea, Fiji, Nigeria, Kenya, Brunei, Malaysia, the British Caribbean Islands, etc. So where CAI bought them is a Mystery.
Except for the 'Commercial' L1A1s Produced in Australia in the Late 80s, Australia never 'Surplussed' any SLRs.they preferred to either convert them into deactivated (welded-up) DP rifles, or simply crush and smelt them into Re-Bar. ( along with the F1 SMGs when the change-over to 5,56 (M16 and AUG-F88) came in). That was well before they confiscated the Privately held ones in 1996, and crushed them as well.
Doc AV There should not be a mystery about if you get the dates right about the SLR. Century sold LEO only rifles for years before the gun grabbers got into the act. About 5 years ago I got the chance to look at 20 perfect used LEO rifles that had been cut by a band saw through the mag well.
No torch marks anywhere, the buyer from Calif was taking them apart. Installing mac os x lion on dell xps l502x. Here they still refer to it a the great grey area.I used to see them go for $1200.00.