Australia's Service Rifles Over The Last Century

These are all of Australia’ standard service rifles over the last century

Starting off with the Short Mag Lee Enfield Mk III. This entered service in 1908, was a bolt action, fired .303 and had a 10 round mag. It was the primary rifle for ww1, ww2 and the korean war undergoing a few variants in that time.

However, in 1959 Australia made a big jump to the L1A1 SLR. This was very similar to Belgian’s FN FAL firing 7.62 but was only semi automatic. It was used in multiple conflicts, including the vietnam war.

Up until this point you may realize these are just the British Standard service rifles and that’s because although Australia’s road to independence started in 1901, it didn’t really have autonomy to choose its service rifle until they adopted the L1A1 which was a trend amongst commonwealth nations.

But in 1987 Britain adopted the L85A1 with Australia saying sod that, adopting a different bullpup, the F88 Austeyr in 1989, a slightly modified version of the Steyr AUG. It was chambered in 5.56, could fire full or semi auto, made use of modern materials such as polymers and aluminum components and had an integrated 1.5x telescopic sight.

This underwent a few further variants in the A2 and EF88 versions. These got rid of the integrated optic, added picatinny rails for greater attachment and sight customisation and made improvements to its reliability and performance.