An interesting, and rather negative, look at the M-14 rifle

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SPEMack618

New member
I thought we sent most of our old M-14s to an ally.

Taiwan maybe?

Also, thanks to GCA '68, "once machine gun; always a machine gun" and President Clinton, some 750,000 M-14s were destroyed.

Good link here:
http://www.pagunblog.com/2008/12/18/more-on-cmp-and-the-m-14/

I cringe thinking of those rifles being crushed when I couldn't beg, borrow, or steal enough for every squad in my platoon to have one.

And I would have stolen them from the ladies auxillary of militant wing of the salvation army if the opportunity had presented itself.
 
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eastbank

New member
as we have then in storage, its much cheaper just to issue them where needed and not be stingy with them. a m-16-m-4 is a poor rifle when shooting at a goat farmer firing from behind a mud hut at 300-400 yards firing at you with a brit mk4 in 303. as a young man i bought that same rifle mk4 303 for 14.00 with 50 rounds of ap ammo and with that ammo i shot thru a 12 inch locust road guard post at 300 yards and i would bet dollars to donuts a AP .223 round would not do that. eastbank.
 
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44 AMP

Staff
I thought we sent most of our old M-14s to an ally.

Taiwan maybe?
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We may have sent a few, but what we mostly sent was the machinery for them to make their own.

Back in the 70s, I heard that we had approx. 2 million M14s in warehouses. Considering all that has happened since, including the Clinton administration, I wonder if we have half that many still left. Less?
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
"Back in the 70s, I heard that we had approx. 2 million M14s in warehouses."

Kind of hard, I'd think, given that total production was somewhere around 1.3 million.
 
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Kaylee

New member
Regarding Afghanistan - that seems a commendation not of the rifle, but of the cartridge.

Assuming logistics allowed, would not the same job have been done as well or better by any .308 class scoped semi combat rifle?

Don't get me wrong, I love the M1A/M14 platform as a rifle. It's surprisingly comfortable for such a beast.

But I don't think (starting from scratch) I'd be eager to equip an army with 'em.
 
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SPEMack618

New member
The M-110 used by the Sniper Section is a superb rifle.

It'd work well, too. In fact, better, given the similar controls to an M-4.
Not all my Troopers were gun guys, some of them only knowing how to work guns they'd been trained on at AIT/OSUT.
 
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eastbank

New member
not a army, but enough that they could be used in certain fights. and yes any good semi auto or bolt action in .308 would do. i shoot a remington 700vls in 308 with a 6.5x20 leupold target scope and it would take care of any goat farmer out to 600-700 yards with ease. eastbank.
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
"Regarding Afghanistan - that seems a commendation not of the rifle, but of the cartridge."

There ya go.

But many people simply won't, or can't, make the differentiation between the cartridge and the platform.
 
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44 AMP

Staff
"Back in the 70s, I heard that we had approx. 2 million M14s in warehouses."

Kind of hard, I'd think, given that total production was somewhere around 1.3 million.
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I'd have to agree with that Mike, today. Back when I heard it (from ARMY/Marine instructors) I was a young and dumb kid who pretty much believed what the Sgts told him, unless my real world experience (I did have some, ;)) told me otherwise.

I've had a number of NCOs and Officers tell me things that I later learned to be untrue. Some of them were just mistakes. Some of them were just repeating the BS stories that go around endlessly. Some of them, I'm certain, were deliberate. At the top of the "deliberate lies list", I'd have to put the Sgt that was my recruiter. :eek: :rolleyes:
 
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SR420

New member
SPEMack618 The M-110 used by the Sniper Section is a superb rifle.
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Maybe so, but I've never seen any real world evidence
showing it to be substantially superior to the M14 EBR.

Both the M110 & M14 EBR fire the same cartridge...

10009293_835566236460566_1052623104_n.jpg
 
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Erno86

New member
When the M14 was introduced for service in 1959, it was deemed to be the official replacement rifle for the BAR.

On the other hand...I do like the looks of the new and improved Browning Automatic Rifle {BAR} --- with a 30 round magazine instead of the original 20 --- from Ohio Ordnance Works and would favor that rifle over the M-14/M1A by a country mile.
 
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SPEMack618

New member
The M-110 is a superb rifle in and of of itself, not just compared to the M-14/M-21.

The advantage I was talking about was that it had similar controls to the M-4/M-16 series. Easier to cross train. One of PDMs had never fried a weapon of any sort until BCT.

Honestly, either/or would nice to have in more numbers than the few M-21s we were able to scrounge.
 
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Erno86

New member
SR420 --- Good point...but if introduced into service --- it will probably still be issued to the smallest statured soldier on the squad --- like they seemed to do with the old BAR.

Still...you can put a lot more hardware on it and it might absorb recoil better --- but overall --- it's just another toy that I want to play with on the range.
 
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Surculus

New member
Erno86 said:
When the M14 was introduced for service in 1959, it was deemed to be the official replacement rifle for the BAR.
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No, the replacement for the BAR was the M15 [an M14 w/ heavy barrel, special in-line stock to reduce muzzle jump & the happy switch] which was never fielded.

If you look at the BM-59 Nigerian model, you've got a good idea of what the M15 would have looked like...
 
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wogpotter

New member
When the M14 was introduced for service in 1959, it was deemed to be the official replacement rifle for the BAR.
Click to expand...
I thought that was supposed to be the HB version with the E2 stock & the slide on muzzle brake, the M-15?
*edit*
Sorry, posted before reading to next page.
 
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