First of all, welcome to the forums, there'll be loads of people here willing to help you out with all questions and queries, but for now I'll just deal with what you've asked here.
There are numerous different L96 variants within airsoft made by different companies, there isn't just one made by Accuracy International like in real life.
There's the Well or Warrior L96, there's the Tokyo Marui (more commonly referred to as TM), there's the Maruzen, the Tanaka and I'm sure there's bound to be more.
The next thing to consider is that all snipers need a lot of upgrades to be worth having, out of the box they'll be quite rubbish guns, usually running at under 400fps with quite bad accuracy and internal parts, making them inconsistent shooters.
Bad consistency means you can't effectively hit a target, as every shot will react differently.
To combat this you'll need a lot of upgrades, which will cost you around £500, give or take a few quids, if you don't buy upgrades then you'll have armed yourself with a single shot, bolt action rifle with less power and range than most automatic assault rifle airsoft guns, making your role as a sniper pointless and impossible as most people will be able to shoot further, faster and more accurately.
Also, you'll want to be shooting around 500 fps to be able to effectively out range people and when you're running at that fps there tend to be rules on how far away people have to be before you can shoot them, for my site it's 20m, if someone is closer, there's nothing you can do about them.
So you'll need another gun as well, upping costs even more.
Lastly, almost everyone on here will tell you that getting a sniper as a first gun is a bad idea, as above they're expensive if you want them to be good, most people can't afford to put that much into a hobbie they've never been involved in before and if you buy the rifle as it is and it's the only gun you have, you'll have a sh*t time, because everyone's gun will be better than yours by quite a long way, which will just put you down, make you hate the sport and then you'll find you've wasted about £200 on a load of kit you don't want anymore.
From experience looking around forums and airsoft Facebook pages etc etc. Two tone sniper rifles are THE MOST common type of gun selling on the second hand market.
In short. Buy an AEG first, (that's an automatic/airsoft electric gun,) you'll have more fire power, more usability out of the box, often you'll be able to cope perfectly fine with no upgrades whatsoever and you can get a good set of kit for around £200. Much cheaper than sniping, much more accessible to all players and most importantly it's more fun.
Look at hiring guns from your nearest site for a bit until you get your UKARA, it's so so so pointless to buy a gun in stupid colours just because you're too lazy to go airsofting 3 times. It really annoys me, use the three visits to make sure you're committed to the hobby before you buy anything.
Once you've been airsofting a few times, got your UKARA sorted out, perused the forums more over the next year or so and you know more about the hobby, that's when I'd recommend you to comfortably look into buying a sniper and you'll have the benefits of all our accumulated knowledge, as well as more money available to splash out on a rifle worth getting.
The worst thing you can do in this sport is rush into things, if experienced players tell you something, you're probably best off trusting their judgement as any horror stories they tell you are probably their own.
Just my 2 pence.
