SADJ 7#3

Dave Walls posing with the rifles he brought into the
precision rifle community. The L96 (top) was Accuracy
International’s first major contract and brought
them into legitimacy. Although the rifle has substantially
evolved since this first model, many of the features
that were introduced in it remain the same such
as the flat bottomed receiver, shape of the bolt, and
thumbhole stock (available as an option on the AICS
stocks). If the L96 brought the company legitimacy,
then the Arctic Warfare (middle) brought it onto a
world stage by winning a contract with the Swedish
military. A few changes from the L96 are a lighter
chassis, folding stock, contoured butt stock, and an
improved bolt. The rifle below the AW (bottom) is the
AE, which didn’t fare so well, being a lower cost rifle
intended for police forces in the United States.
shot. Malcolm said, “I’ll get you any gun
you want, if you want to have a look and
see if you can get any ideas from them.”
He produced about 8 rifles and I discarded
about 5 of them.
SADJ: What ended up as the design of
the magazine?
Dave: Initially I settled for a Springfield
magazine, basically because it was easier
to fit in my gun than any of the others. I
designed the magazine port in the underside
of the action body around this magazine
and it seemed to work quite well.
Then Malcolm submitted this weapon to
both the SBS and the SAS who were also
interested. After the trails on these weapons
were made an order was placed for 42
rifles with aluminum chassis’ with a wood
covering this was the predecessor to the
later developed L96A1. Then we found a
company that would make honeycomb-like
stocks with a hard surface on the outside.
SADJ: Where are those 42 original
rifles today?
Dave: Well some went to Hereford and
some went to Dorset; I don’t know where
they went from there. They might even still
be there. Following on from this after the
Falklands War the British infantry got interested
in tendering for a new sniper rifle.
This contract was for 1,212 rifles plus
spares. We decided to enter the tender, but
we didn’t think we’d ever win, but we could
use the trail to obtain feedback on our
product. At this time we were still working
from a garden shed and we didn’t think the
British Army would be interested in our
rifle. We literally went ahead, submitted
Olympic Gold medalist and world champion.
After the match we all went to a barbecue
where he was told about the replica
Colt pistols that we had made, he was very
interested and asked if he could see them.
I lived less than a mile from the barbecue
so we left and drove to my house. After
seeing the pistols he said to me, “You’ve
got the potential to design your own rifle.”
To which we replied that we already had
been designing our own action for a target
rifle. Malcolm wanted to see the action and
after looking at it he asked us if we would
make him one, which we agreed to do. He
later shot a new 300 meter world record.
Malcolm at that time was the owner of a
gun shop in Portsmouth. Dave Caig and I
formed a mutual agreement to do repairs
and re-barreling for him, as we did for
several other gun shops. Trade was building
up along with our reputation. Soon
we were taking in repairs and tuning of
rifles from top international competitors
from all over the world. Malcolm was approached
by a contact in the British Army
about a tender (contract) for a new sniper
rifle and he came along to discuss with us
the possibility of putting a magazine in one
of our target rifles. We had never made a
magazine fed rifle before as all my interest
was in target shooting which was single
Today, unlike in the 1990s, the company is not in any sort of debt,
and all the machinery in the factory is paid off in full. From a meager
2 CNC machines in the late 90s, one of which wasn’t even
working, the company now boosts over 30 of them in addition to
various other modern machine stations.
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