On today’s episode of TFB’s Behind the Gun Podcast, I’m happy to welcome Evan Murdoch, founder of Murdoch & Co, the only company building a true-to-spec, stamped-receiver semi-auto version of Britain’s SA80 service rifle here in the United States. Today we’ll dig into how a personal quest to own an SA80 turned into a company, why real Ministry of Defence parts are capping the EM-85’s Collector Series at just 100 rifles, and what it takes to fix a design with a notorious early service reputation. Please give a warm welcome to Evan from Murdoch & Co to the show!
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TFB Behind the Gun #233: Keeping Britain’s Guns Alive in America
In this episode of TFB’s Behind the Gun Podcast, I’m happy to welcome Evan Murdoch, founder of Murdoch & Co, the first company producing a fully stamped, one-to-one semi-auto version of Britain’s L85/SA80 in the United States. Evan grew up in England wanting to own an SA80 of his own, and when he couldn’t buy one, he built one instead, founding Murdoch & Co in 2022 and working with Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum, to verify the EM-85 against original service rifles.
We dig into the EM-85’s use of genuine Ministry of Defence and Enfield-made parts, why that scarcity caps the Collector Series at 100 rifles for $12,000 apiece against a $4,500 base EM85A3, the engineering fixes addressing the SA80’s early reliability problems, the A1, A2, and A3 configurations tracing the rifle’s real service history, and where Murdoch & Co is headed next with Cadet and Light Support Weapon variants in development.
Murdoch & Co website: https://murdochandco.com
Murdoch & Co on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murdochandco
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