[SHOT 2026] Murdoch & Co. Launch American-Made SA80s!

It’s no small feat designing a new firearm and it's arguably even more complicated recreating one. It has to look right, it has to feel right and you’re working within the confines of expectation. This year at SHOT Show Murdoch & Co. launched one of the most ambitious clone projects I’ve ever seen. Murdoch & Co. describe their EM-85 as an improved, remanufactured semi-auto SA80. The name EM-85, is a nod back to another classic British bullpup rifle, the EM-2.

Over the last two years they have painstakingly recreated the British Army’s SA80 bullpup from the ground up. This means they’ve reverse engineered their rifle from original component parts and verified the designs against original rifles examined at the Royal Armouries museum. They’ve had to design and fabricate the stamped receiver, the internal working components and the unique furniture that is characteristic to the SA80 family of weapons.

The collector series guns will ship in a ‘deployment kit’ which includes:

• Pelican Case featuring British flag and NATO markings.
• A detailed owners manual including: Round count, logbook and more.
• H&K High Reliability Magazine.
• H&K SA80 Cleaning Tool.
• SA80 Cleaning kit Case.
• British ration pack issue brew kit.

Murdoch & Co. acknowledge and tackle head-on the reputation of the early SA80 rifles and have spec’d the rifles to the refined A2 guns (which fixed the reliability issues with the weapon) as well as making their own refinements, including the use of some AR-15 components in the action. The rifles field strip in exactly the same way as the SA80 family but engineering 'improvements for strength, reliability and longevity' have been made.

The unique nature of the collector series of EM-85s means they don’t come cheap, with a total cost of $12,000 with a down payment of $8,500 required to secure one of the 100 rifles planned.