I’ve read that the M16 would jam a lot from the dust in Vietnam and that the AK was better for that type of war.
But since I know #### about military weapons, maybe some with actual knowledge can chime in :)
Not much dust in the tropics of Vietnam.
In Iraq the a1 and a2 would getting dusted up and cause misfires. The best prevention is maintenance and putting a condom over the barrels flash suppressor.
“But since I know #### about military weapons, maybe some with actual knowledge can chime in”
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You’re still better off than me - I didn’t know the “M” family (or modern variant) wasn’t standard issue anymore.
The M16 was plagued by corrupt procurement problems. They were feeding it the wrong ammo.
The government did not follow Stoner’s spec requirement for the M16, removing the chrome lining in chamber and barell resulting in caking of dust and mud there. Also they did not issue a cleaning kit, saying the rifle was self cleaning. There was a couple other things they did not do.
Nowadays the M16 is up to Stoner specs and better and is ultra reliable. You still need to clean it, unlike the AK. They are arguably more reliable that the M14 that US soldiers wanted back in the jungle (also the 7.62 bullet would not get deviated by shrubs as much as 556, however, a video on Youtube iraqveteran88 shows that lever action in 30-30 is best bullet for brush gun as it is the least deviating round and would be even better than AK for survival in a bad Vietnam like scenario).
The Army made the same mistake also with the M9 Berreta. Berreta said to use smooth blueing on the mags and not mate. The army used mate and it caked up dust again there too.
The only good AR-10 that would contend with the M-14 as battle rifle is the SR-25 from Knights Armament or the HK716 and maybe the LMT the British snipers. The rest of AR-10 are not reliable, although Daniel Defense is supposedly excellent too in trials compared to SR-25. For lighter weight the special forces use the SCAR Heavy.
I think the Army should really consider the 6.5 mm Creedmoore. It has excellent long range ballistics due to a very good ballistic coefficient. They only would have to change the barrel of the SR-25 as it is the same exact cartridge except for the bullet, although some say getting a Scar in 6.5 would be problematic somehow.
IIRC (If I recall correctly) the early M-16's, their slides were not "chromed plated," after the trouble was properly diagnosed, they started to chrome plate them, and it seemed to solve the problem.
I was never in the military, but just someone involved with working with metal(s) (autobody / welding/ home machinist.)
The early model M16s suffered from several problems, the most serious being that the Army substituted inferior steel in the firing chamber for the high chrome alloy required by the designer. Coupled with a dirty gunpowder and a lack of cleaning kits and proper instruction, the result was that early M16s in Vietnam were prone to fouling and jamming.
It was the mud that jammed them :p
The early problems with the M-16 in Vietnam came from the troops not being trained in how to take care of the rifle, the lack of cleaning kits (the cleaning rods for the M-14 were too big to fit through the smaller M-16 barrel), and to a lesser extent, its needing modifications that came out in the M-16A1.
Those early problems have haunted the M-16 in legend ever since. It is similar to early problems with the M-1 Abrams tank that were discovered and corrected — critics kept harping about the problems and ignoring that they had all been corrected when the actual production tanks came off the assembly line.
I've carried the first M16s when they were first issued, and have run AKs since 1965. Yes, the first early ones, AK and M16 alike, had teething problems. The early GI M16s had been issued without cleaning equipment so the best that could be had was a piece of brass brazing rod or a section of parachute cord with a knot in it for a cleaning rod. And then the rains came, the monsoons, not hard, wind-driven rain, but constant drizzle day and night, that washed away all traces of oil, when there was oil to be had. The AK was a little better, but had its faults too. The early AKs had chrome-lined barrels, which helped control rust and corrosion if cleaning was delayed, the early M16s didn't share that feature. When the M16A1 came along, it did.
The M16 became the M16A1, which became the M16A2, which became the M4. Every time it's been changed, little improvements in strength and reliability have come along. And from the first time I carried a loaded Air Force M16 [not M16A1] in January 1968 till now, I've never felt badly about carrying an M16-family weapon...if it passed my initial inspection and there was good ammo and magazines for it; if not, I'd find something else. Same deal with AK47s. And AKMs. And AK74s and four or five other versions. If it's a good one, it's a good one; if not find a better one.
But I'm much more concerned about the condition of the individual weapon than its particular design, most of the time; there are some poor choices out there, but the M16 and AK are the gold standards of the world's trouble. And whatever I have, I'll keep it and its ammo and its magazines as clean and serviceable as I possibly can.