The Sterling Bullpup was a bullpup assault rifle designed by UK-based firearms company Sterling Armaments.
Overview
During the early 80's, Enfield's SA80 rifle was nearing completion and was set to be trialed with the British Army. Sterling, Enfield's main rival, soon found out about the SA80, which internally shared a lot in common with the AR-18 rifle (some of which had been made at Sterling). In fact, some early bullpup prototypes from Enfield were, in fact, Sterling-made AR-18s configured as bullpups. Somewhat irritated by Enfield's failure to acknowledge their AR-18 in creating the SA80, Sterling jokingly created a mockup rifle to "rival" the SA80, comprised entirely of AR-18 parts. The result was extremely crude, though reportedly a sound design, very similar to the SA80; Sterling was perhaps pointing out that despite the SA80's higher funding and modernized appearance, internally it was almost exactly the same as their humorous mockup.
References
- The Guns of Dagenham - Collector Grade Publications,Canada (5 Jan 1996), ISBN 0889352046
- Last Enfield - SA80: The Reluctant Rifle, Steve Raw, R.Blake Stevens, ISBN 0889353034