Stephen has sent in some rumours he heard from KingArms:
Hi there, just thought I would pass on some very good news from King Arms that I received after enquiring about their long promised L1A1 SLR replica.
As you may know, King Arms have long been promising the release of this AEG, right off the back of their popular FN FAL range in fact, but everything went suspiciously quiet on that front for a long time. In the meantime, STAR Airsoft released their L1A1 (and now Gun WorkShop has announced their custom L1A1).
So I contacted King Arms, and the good news is that the KA L1A1 AEG should be with us by Easter!
Quote: “Since Star Released their L1A1. Our engineer finally change their mind and add features. So , the release date is postponed again.
Last nite I talked with them. They said L1A1 is really under massive production period. Hope that the L1A1 will be released before Easter.
Thanks for your support. Best Regards…King Arms Sales.”
Quite what the changes to the King Arms SLR – motivated by the STAR release – will be is hard to say, since the KA SLR is based on their already proven and successful FN FAL series. One can only surmise that perhaps they were waiting to see if STAR was going to replicate the original weapons ‘semi-auto only’ mechanism (which it has), or whether STAR was going to fudge the design by adding a ‘skirmish friendly’ full-auto facility.