Posted on 04/10/2008 6:59:04 PM PDT by LSUfan
Crack, crack, crack.
Three Montana Highway Patrol troopers, firing from the prone position, sent 15 rounds from their new rifles downrange in quick succession recently.
The .223 caliber bullets punched easily through the plywood and paper targets, kicking up clods of dirt from the berm behind the range at Glacier Park International Airport.
After officers from the sixth district-which covers Flathead, Lake, and Lincoln counties-qualify with the new weapon, every trooper in Montana will be riding shotgun with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle.
"They're just all-around more versatile for our day and age," Trooper Jerril Ren, one of the patrol's firearms instructors, said of the AR-15. "For the changing times, I think it's just more appropriate."
The AR-15s are replacing the patrol's old M-14 rifles, which normally are carried in a patrol car's trunk. After qualification, troopers will be required to carry their assault rifles mounted between the front seats of their vehicles.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyinterlake.com ...
20 rounds of 7.62 vs. 20 rounds of 5.56? Give me 7.62.
Now... can we buy the surplus M-14s now?
Lame article. Wonder if they’ll give me their old M14s?
Neat. I got a .22 rimfire autoload that will do the same thing.
NO M16 WILL EVER REPLACE THE M14 ......... NEVER!
I wonder when they will upgrade to a 10-22.
Why buy a weapon that will merely "wound" criminals when the police should have weapons that will KILL the criminals?
The idiots who mass purchase these target practice M-4s have clearly learned nothing from the absolute ineffectiveness of 5.56 as told by the veterans in the book "Black Hawk Down."
They will probably torch cut them : (
Yeah, I can see that... but receivers are cheaper than whole rifles, so if they torch the receivers, maybe we can get some parts kits.
The only justification for going AR-15 would be to carry more rounds into a battle as opposed to the additional weight of the M14 and .308 rounds. In a urban environment that would not be a significant factor. Seems to me they gave up a better firearm for some other reason. Go figure. Yea Tigers LSUfan. If I can buy one of the M14’s please let me know. I covet my M1A’a but I would love to have the real thing.
Most likely they will be turned in to the BATF, and they want the complete weapon. No parts missing.
True, they could auction off the complete parts kit minus the mags and trashed receiver and make mucho cash, or at least let us have the bolts and gas parts. : )
During the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery by the body-armored AK 47 toting bady guys, the cops didn’t have enough firepower and had to go to a local gun store to get high-powered rifles........ they didn’t grab .223’s.
Or how about these?
bought mine brandy new in 1987 for $735.00 and it still runs like a fine Swiss watch...
No joke.
I'd like a nice Garand, too.
.308 there’s no substitute...
.308 there’s no substitute...
I wouldn't have one in .223 unless in uniform again.
/johnny
Unless the gun store had a lot of AR-10s, some officers grabbed .223s. .308 is great, but .223 will deal with most body armor, has less danger of overpenetration and is easier to shoot.
This move makes sense on a couple of levels. First, the AR-15s can be carried in the passenger compartment, so they will be available when needed. AR-15s with adjustable stocks are better for smaller (read female) officers.
.223 is more fun to shoot, unless the target is an oncoming grizzly.
I’d rather have the M-14 in MT.
,p> How about this .69 caliber Charleville?
Most of those were bought in the 1990s from the anniston alabama arsenal for $45 a piece. I remember when a nearby dept got theirs.
Man, what a shame... When I was younger, I had a mini-14... best gun I ever owned. Since then, I’ve always wanted an M14 :/
You hit my point right on target, I am happy to have the weapon in the front...that being said I would like to keep the one in the trunk too.
That one is a bear to lug around. And the fat triangular bayonet is wicked.
Thanks for that link!
Problem is that the rounds tend to frag, which was the way they were designed, which means you have a problem firing through glass. The way AR15/Stoner Armalite was developed is always an interesting subject of discussion. The Geneva Convention mandated full metal jacket rounds, banning the hollow point from combat after WWI. Much more humane round than those hollow points. Stoner developed the AR15 to get around the Geneva Convention. By developing the .223 with a thin full metal jacket, the rifle was designed to fire the round in a manner that caused it to flip end over end. By not firing the round true, and due to the thin metal jacket, this caused the round to frag upon content, doing much more damage than a 7.62 round. The exit wounds from these rounds are quite nasty. The rounds weighed much less than the more powerful 7.62 used in the Kalashnikov and thus troops were able to carry much more ammo into battle. We won’t get into the jamming aspects of the rifle or the resistance from the Army etc. Suffice it to say that they have been working on replacements for quite a while and these replacements are undergoing extensive testing in Iraq/Afghan now.
No problem. I got one through the CMP a few years ago and it was well worth it.
I've seen bunches of those in the trunks of Sherriffs in WA state.
That's reassuring
“the cops didn’t have enough firepower and had to go to a local gun store to get high-powered rifles........ they didn’t grab .223’s”
On the contrary. The after action reports that I read stated that the weapons the officers initially obtained were indeed garden variety civilian model AR-15’s in .223, which was far more firepower than the sidearms and riot shotguns that the PD originally had available to them. As others have pointed out, .308 may be fine in sparsely populated areas, but in urban environments the possibility of that high powered a round going somewhere it shouldn’t becomes problematic. You may check with your local SWAT unit for a discussion of the benefits of .223 in densely populated areas vs. the problems of using .308 or even 30.06. Please understand that .308 or 30.06 both have their place in a SWAT teams set of tools (ie. punching through glass), but in a hostage situation, where one does not always know what the backdrop is, or what is behind the backdrop a well placed round in .223 has fewer collateral problems.
Even .223 can be too much firepower in very densely populated environments. I can remember that immediately after 9-11, my airline was one of the few carriers hauling pax’s as all of the others took up to a week to come back from an understandably “shocky” standstill. I had heard that the government had been posting National Guard sentries at the concourse security checkpoints armed with M-16’s. Given the fact that the M-16 is a fully automatic weapon, and the constuction material used in modern concourses is hardly more substantial than cardboard, a number of the pilots at my carrier thought that this was a remarkably ill advised weapon, if it actually had to be used (especially in fully automatic mode). Seeing one of these fellows standing beside the checkpoint I decided to address the issue. After all, he was in uniform, I was in uniform. What could be the harm in a few discrete questions between a couple of professionals?
After the usual pleasantries (one sided in this case as the NG was rather ..... stern), I addressed my concern directly. “So, do they actually allow you guys to keep rounds in that weapon?”. All I got was a fleeting grimace, which was answer enough for me. I nodded, and quietly allowed as to how a burst from that weapon, directed down the concourse would quite probably wipe out far more passengers than the terrorist could. Even fully jacketed military .223 would be devastating on a densely populated concourse. The soldier carrying the weapon certainly did look impressive, even though all he could have done was club the terrorist with that (probably) unloaded M16.
There is no magic bullet/round. It all depends on the environment it is to be used in, and the training of the professional carrying the weapon.
When and where will they be selling the M-14s?
And smaller males
Sounds like in that case, an MP-5 would have been ideal.
“Sounds like in that case, an MP-5 would have been ideal.”
That is basically what they use in European terminals (Frankfurt comes to mind as it was the first airport terminal that I noticed police equipped with fully automatic weapons.) Granted, European terminals needed the additional firepower long before we did in the US. Unfortunately, we have always been too PC and lacking in the political “cajones” to stop problems before they are reported with headlines written in human (American) blood. Were it otherwise, the Twin Towers would still be standing and the little matter of 3000 fatalities would not have happened.
We are still too timid in my opinion, but my judgement is “clouded” by working on the pointy end for most of my adult life. YMMV
I was thinking the same thing. In that case it must have been a Liberal who wrote the article.
I was doing some reading on the M14, and I saw it was only in large-scale service for about 5 years. That’s an awfully short time. And about the AR-15: why would they be using only 20 round magazines? There is no reason to use 20-round magazines outside of training, unless maybe you are extremely short on space. An extra 10 rounds for police might not be critical, but I wouldn’t want to take the chance. 20 rounds goes by very quickly.
The 5.56 round, just like the 7.62, tumbles upon contact.
this caused the round to frag upon content(sic)
contact
I think there is a mistake in thinking these M-14’s are in good shape. I seriously doubt that. They are probably all worn out so any reasonable replacement is a good idea.
The M-16 series isn’t a bad choice since only hits count.
According to Wikipedia, the M 14 ceased production over 40 years ago - so definitely not of recent manufacture. If I was issued a 40-year-old M 16, I would probably refuse to sign for it, especially if I was going to a combat zone.
I'm pretty sure you're right. I know that the Montana state prison guards use Ruger Mini-14 GB models, and a couple of years back there was a news article about a Montana State Trooper who'd emptied a 20-round magazine from his *M-14* into a Grizzly, which annoyed the bear, which then walked away. I don't think that would have been the case with 20 rounds of 7.62 NATO from a GI M14, even with ball ammo.
There IS quite a difference between the teo....
We completely rebuilt better than 20,000 of them at the Crane Small Arms shop around 1979-1980 when I was working there as a Navy civilian armorer, anticipating a transfer of them to the Nicaraguan Contras, who it turned out preferred AK47s instead, and got new Polish AKMs and captured Israeli ex-PLO equipment. the M14s went back to storage in Warehouse A, two to the carton, until the 1991 war when US units that hadn't received SAW or M21/M24 Sniper's rifles found that the old M14 made a pretty fair substitute.
I'd happily take a 45-year old M14 over a ten-year-old M16A2/M4A1 any day.
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