In the 1950s the British army introduced an update to their cotton ammunition bandoliers. The end of World War II had seen the MK 3 bandolier introduced with a light webbing carrying strap, the MK 3/1 added an extra row of cotton across the bottom edge to reinforce it. Originally issued to carry .303 ammunition, these bandoliers remained in service for the 7.62mm rounds as well. This example is typical of the post war bandoliers:
The bandolier has five individual pockets, each secured with a brass wire hook, passed through a hole in the cotton and folded over to secure it:
Each pocket would carry two five round chargers, giving a total of fifty rounds per bandolier. The webbing strap is 1 1/8″ wide herringbone twilled webbing:
The reinforcing strap is clearly visible across the bottom:
The bandolier has a number of stamps, this one dates the bandolier to 1967 and shows it is a MK 3/1:
A stamp on the rear shows it was filled by Radway Green on 20th June 1967:
There is also a random circular stamp which is poorly stamped so impossible to read:
These bandoliers remained in service throughout the SLR era, the rounds being used to refill magazines during quiet periods. Here troops in the Falklands War can be seen with the disposable bandoliers slung over their chests:
This account from the Falklands by Vince Bramley describes using these bandoliers:
The weight of the webbing was cutting into my shoulders, the bandoliers cutting into my neck. By resting the SLR on my webbing, I could reach up and pull then straps from my neck to help relieve the agony they gave me.
About three kilometres into the march, we stopped. I sat down quickly and swapped the bandolier straps over to my other shoulder, longing to rest for those vital five minutes we were given.
This was designed to slip over the front sight and attach to the barrel to keep it in place:
The connection to the barrel was through a stiff spring clip:
This clip was notorious for damaging the blueing on a barrel with repeated use and following advice from my fellow collectors I have decided that mine will not be going back on the rifle after these photographs were taken.
The stores number and date are stamped across the back of the cover, here dating it to 1960:
In this photograph of a corporal of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment at Buckingham Palace in 1971, the sight cover can be clearly seen on his rifle:
Each magazine holds thirty rounds of 7.62 and is made of pressed steel. One important feature of the magazines insisted upon from the earliest development of the L4 was that they were to be interchangeable with those of the SLR. Side by side the L4 magazine is clearly larger:
But the attachment points and feed lip geometry remain the same between the two designs with identical feed lips and follower design:
Primarily this was designed to allow troops to put SLR mags in the LMG, but this worked equally well in reverse and an L4 magazine will fit in an SLR:
Unfortunately as the L4 is designed to feed downwards, assisted by gravity, the spring inside it struggles to feed rounds upwards and into an SLR although it was not unknown for troops to modify the springs by stretching them to better work with the SLR. The magazine when sited on the L4 sits vertically above the main receiver:
The L4 magazine has a locking tab on the front:
And a corresponding hook for the magazine catch on the rear:
The base of the magazine has a button that can be depressed with a cartridge tip to allow it to be disassembled for cleaning:
At least two variations of the L4 magazine can be found. Early examples are seamlessly welded, whilst later production examples have a faint seam down the rear where the two stampings have been welded together:
The magazines are each marked on their bodies with their designation, date of manufacture and the combined ‘E’ and ‘D’ logo of Enfield:
The L4 magazine lacks the iconic status of its forebear, however it is a hard to find magazine now and commands high prices on the collector’s market. Filling a full 12 magazine box with L4 magazines therefore presents a much harder challenge than it does for the earlier Bren box.
This material had a distinctive shine to it, making it easy to distinguish from the earlier patterns which had a Matt finish. The brass fittings at either end of the sling remained unchanged except they were now blackened rather than being left as plain brass, they were however still attached with a pair of brass rivets:
Like most rifles, the SLR had a pair of sling swivels. One securely attached to the butt which could only move back and forth:
And a second one towards the front of the rifle, just in front of the gas block, which was on a swivel so could rotate around the axis of the barrel:
In Northern Ireland it became common to attach the sling to just the rear sling swivel of the SLR, the free end being strapped around the soldier’s wrist to prevent someone from snatching the rifle and trying to run off with it. Alistair Mackenzie was a soldier in Northern Ireland in the mid-1970s with the Parachute Regiment and in his book ‘Pilgrim Days’ he remembers:
The heads of each round are crimped, with a waterproofing agent to seal the end of the round from moisture entering:
The head stamp of the round indicates it was made by Radway Green in 2011 and is the L18A1 round:
These rounds were issued in cardboard boxes, each holding twenty rounds. These boxes were broken open and magazines loaded from these. The SA80 has specialist blank magazines that only work with blank ammunition and cannot take ball rounds for safety purposes. In order to load it was typical to empty the rounds out into a safe receptacle such as a helmet or beret so they didn’t get lost or dirty before the magazine was filled.
The wallet rolls up and is secured with two staples and tabs:
A number of pockets are inside the wallet to hold the various contents:
Inside the wallet are a number of different accessories:
Like the earlier Bren wallet, there is a pocket for the oil bottle:
An un-flapped one for the pull-through:
One pocket for the takedown tool:
And one for the spare parts tin:
The spare parts tin is now made of plastic rather than metal. The big change from the earlier design however, is that there is a pocket to carry the multi-piece cleaning rod:
The L4 had a chromed barrel so no spare was carried and the spare barrel bag often ditched in favour of just the spares wallet, hence the need for a multi piece cleaning rod in the spares wallet to allow it to be maintained with just the smaller wallet.
The ammunition box is identical to the .30 cal version we looked at 
The top of the can has a large pull out handle that allows it to be carried:
A large catch is fitted to one side of the can to secure the lid:
This also allowed the box to be mounted alongside a GPMG when it was used aboard a vehicle in a special mounting. Beneath this the box’s designation, H82, and the year of manufacture 1964 are stamped into the metal:
The contents of the can are marked on the side in yellow paint, 200 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition:
The markings indicate that for every four ball rounds there is a single tracer round and that the rounds are linked together. The ball ammunition is L2A2 whilst the tracer is L5A3. These markings had been overpainted with the same brown as the rest of the can, careful scraping with a sharp blade revealed them again, but has resulted in a rather jagged appearance to some of the markings.
The H82 was a remarkably strong ammunition box, even when the ammunition within was subject to intense heat. One former soldier remembers: