During the early development of what became known as the SA80 family of weapons the UK’s Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield built a bastardised bullpup Stoner 63. A new video from Murdoch & Co., the US-based company, who have just launched a line of American-made SA80 clones, has shared a video filmed at the UK’s Royal Armouries featuring the bullpup Stoner 63. Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum, explains the prototype to Evan Murdoch. Check out the video below: The prototype is fascinating, featuring a bespoke wooden pistol grip, a 1x UNIT optic (which was developed for the previous generation of British bullpups, the EM-1 and EM-2) and an external trigger transfer bar. Notably, it also has the Stoner 63’s original bipod legs clamped together. Right-side view of the prototype Famously, the Stoner 63 was designed to be adapted into various configurations including: rifle, top-fed light machine gun, belt-fed light machine gun or even as a vehicle-mounted weapon. One configuration that was not developed by Eugene Stoner, however, was a bullpup rifle. This didn’t stop the engineers at Enfield. Designed by Stoner in the early 1960s at Cadillac Gage, the rifles/carbines (XM22/XM23) and light machine gun (XM207) configurations saw some service with specialist units during the Vietnam War. The bullpup trigger transfer bar nightmares are made of Development of the SA80 began in the early 1970s with this Stoner 63-based concept rifle being one of the early firing prototypes. Eventually, the SA80 family took inspiration from another Stoner design, the AR-18. Enfield also chopped up an AR-18 as another proof of concept.It looks like we’ll be treated to a series of videos from Murdoch & Co. highlighting some of the SA80 program's developmental steps. Check out their channel for more.