As you may remember from one of my earlier stories, I kept my M14 long after everyone else got stuck with the M16.
Every time my company commander (the best man anyone could ask for to lead them, Tom Pratt - who died last year) would ask why I still had my M14 (fed by stripping M60 belts) and I told him “I’m in artillery, Sir and we don’t have them yet”. And he’d tell me, “well, get one when they do”.
When I went to my battery to see if I had mail, the armorer would yell “Chainmail, I’ve got your M16” and I’d yell back “no thanks: the grunts want me to keep my M14”.
I ran that scam quite happily until I got hit - and my lieutenant crawled up to me and said “I’m sorry you’re hurt Chainmail - but can I have your rifle?”.
I feel guilty as hell for laughing at that...
I own a registered M16A1.To me it’s little more than a high powered submachinegun.
To me there’s nothing like a .30 rifle.
The 7.62x51 and .30-06 cartridges were years in development and they just flat out work.