St. George developed a selective-fire version called the T2 (including a carbine version of the T1 Leader) which attracted the interest of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps, as well as foreign arms companies, including Luigi Franchi (a subsidiary of Beretta) in Italy, Fábrica Militar de Braço de Prata in Portugal, and foreign militaries, such as the Sultanate of Oman Armed Forces.

Luigi Franchi were very impressed with the Leader and wanted to purchase a manufacturing license with customers in Europe and Asia.

Unfortunately, Jack Allen and Brian Shaw, the two other partners in Leader, were not able to conclude a satisfactory contract with Luigi Franchi.

The Leader was originally imported into the U.S. by Ed Hoffman and Tim Painter of World Public Safety, California.

The cocking lever, like that of the Heckler & Koch G3, ran from the forend to the bolt, was non-reciprocating, and could fold forward out of the way.

The receiver was a simple 16 gauge steel square tube readily available and saved thousands of dollars in die costs.

Charles St. George had to convince Australian engineering companies that it was possible to make gun parts and that close tolerances were not imperative, as is the common belief.

The barrel blanks were imported from Parker Hale in the United Kingdom with H&K providing the chamber machining details and Chartered Industries of Singapore supplied the 20-round M16 magazines.

[1] Simple spot welds were used throughout the fabrication and full use of early powder-metal parts that were used for the rear sight system and magazine latch.

The cylindrical flash hider was rated as either insufficient or ineffective[2] and was usually replaced by an aftermarket Colt AR-15/M16 A2 "birdcage" model by owners.