Hi.It was a great rifle, a fantastic rifle! For some! For it allowed Margaret Thatcher to privatise and then sell off the Royal Enfield to her cronies at British Aerospace for about £6 Million who then immediately closed the site and sold it for building for £36 Million whilst ensuring continued profits for them saddling the British Army with a sack of cack. It is interesting to look at who else bought the thing. Except you'll have to look pretty hard as apart from the Jamaica Defence Force who were given theirs free (whereas the Jamaica Police who had to actually pay cash money for their weapons chose the American M16 system BTW) I don't think anyone did. But Thatcher's cronies did very nicely thank you.
Fwiw.
The British SA80 Assault Rifle: Was it ahead of its time?
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
'Another interesting point to highlight is that there are a number of users of this platform, which enhances its credibility as a weapons platform. As part of British Aid, Zimbabwe had the SA-80, it has been used by Bolivia, in particular by its Special Forces, by Jamaica since 1992, Mozambique, and Nepal both part of British military aid, and Papua New Guinea. Over territories include Gibraltar as it’s the standard rifle for the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, and also used in Bermuda by the Royal Bermuda Regiment'.



