Shooting
The first rifle that a cadet will be trained on is the No.8 bolt action rifle. This weapon started life as the Enfield No4 rifle as used during World War II. It was modified to have a shorter barrel and altered to fire the .22 long rifle round instead of the .303. It also no longer takes a box magazine holding 10 rounds - each round must be fed in manually.
Cadets over 14yrs old may fire the Cadet GP rifle (L98) The L98 is again a modification of an existing design, but in this case it is modified from the standard British rifle on current issue - the Enfield L85A1.
It fires the same ammunition (5.56mm) as the L85 but is manually cocked and can only fire one round at a time so it is essentially not much different from the No.8. The primary difference in operation is that ammunition is supplied in a magazine which is fitted to the rifle rather than loose to be fed by hand each time the rifle is fired.
Since the weapon is different from the No8, firers must be retrained with this weapon and go through dry training and WHT again before they are allowed to fire. Althought the round is of the same caliber the force is greater which gives a bigger 'kick' and a louder bang.
