V1 Timeline is basically a continuation of the Cold War with no fall of the Soviet Union / communism, so essentially the Real Life timeline from the early / mid 1980's continued onwards into the 90's.
As such the L85A1 would have come into service as it did IRL from 1985 onwards. However, with the Cold War ongoing it's possible that a higher priority might have been given to identifying / correcting any flaws that came to light after it entered service. Defence budgets would not have been slashed as significantly as they were IRL so the money / resource might have been there to make an earlier than real life introduction of the A2 model a reality.
It's also equally possible that no corrective action was taken and when the s**t hit the fan at the end of 1996 the British Army were still using the A1 model with all its flaws (actual or otherwise). Even if the L85 was found to be lacking I'm not sure how practical it would have been to haul large stocks of SLR's out of storage and reequip the entire BAOR at that point though, so the majority of units might have had to do the best they could with the L85 at least until the nuclear exchanges.
Personally I'm inclined to go with the former scenario but either is possible
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Author of the unofficial and strictly non canon Alternative Survivor’s Guide to the United Kingdom
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