Posted on 09/21/2013 3:22:22 PM PDT by virgil283
"The story of the first semi-automatic rifle ever widely-adopted as a standard military arm began after the start of the First World War, when the inventor John C. Garand (Canadian, then living in USA) began to develop a semi-automatic (or self-loading) rifles. He worked at the government-owned Springfield armory and during the 1920s and early 1930 developed a number of designs."
(Excerpt) Read more at world.guns.ru ...
My favorite rifle is an M1 Garand collector’s grade (all original parts and finish) purchased from the Civilian Marksmanship Program. It was manufactured at the Springfield Armory in 1954.
It’s hard to put into words, but there is something very satisfying about handling a battle rifle made of steel and wood, and firing an 8-round clip of .30-06 M2 Ball ammo. The sights are easy to use, the recoil is surprisingly light, and even with its original barrel this old U.S.G.I. service rifle is very accurate.
Doesn’t matter what the barrel length is of the gun you don’t own. /grin
Since I don’t have any faith in the friends my moron nephew chooses, I decided a little preemptive lesson was in order. I took him to my private range for a little demonstration of a home defense pump. Ran some slugs through it, 00 buckshot and #4 buckshot. I let him shoot it at some treated 4x4s and cinder blocks. I then asked him if he thought some of the homes in my area owned shotguns, would he ever consider breaking into *any* home in the area. Har har. That would be a negative. My attitude regarding intruders was made pretty clear. I doubt that he would allow anyone he knows to think of my home as a potential target.
Not only a work of genius, but a work of art, as well.
That is a winning weapon. If I had to pick one rifle to go into battle the SOCOM 16 would be it, end of story.
The M-16 has whats called a ‘’selector switch’’ which can allow the shooter to fire single shots or fully automatic. The M-1 doesn't have this. The M-1 fires as long as you keep pulling the trigger. The M-16 is a lighter weight rifle where the M-1 is rather heavy. The M-16 is a high velocity weapon. This means the round(bullet) travels fast, I'm not sure of the fps(feet per second) ratio but a high velocity round hits hard, however, as our guys came to find out you could put a few rounds in an enemy and he might not go down right away. The M-1, as far as I know, I could be wrong , is a low velocity rifle however the .30 caliber round it fires is an awesome piece of ordinance. The stopping power and penetration of the M-1 is legendary. You could shoot that thing through a house or a cars engine block and it will do some awesome damage. You just need to hit someone with one round M-1 round and they're taking a permanent ''dirt nap''.
When the Marines hit Guadalcanal beach in mid/late 1942 most of them had M1903 (variant) Springfields.
Look up BAR!
I believe that there is room for both the M14 and the M16 in the U.S. arsenal. The M16 was designed for more in close fighting while the M14 is better at the longer distances and is still preferred by marksmen (snipers) for that ability.
The U.S. has machine guns utilizing the NATO 7.62 rounds because of their greater range, accuracy and stopping power.
Unfortunately, the military favored the M16 for it’s lighter weight of both the rifle and the ammo with the lighter and smaller ammo allowing the soldier to carry more of it. On the other hand, the smaller and lighter ammo just doesn’t have the stopping power of the larger and heavier 7.62 round.
During the Viet Nam war I believe that it was the larger 7.62 round which had a variation which contained two projectiles within the cartridge which when fired not only sent two projectiles down range but also caused the leading round if not both to tumble which gave the weapon much greater effect to the degree that it was capable of completely severing an arm completely.
I suggest the following links for much better info:
http://www.paperlessarchives.com/vw_m16.html
http://m14forum.com/ammunition/52047-duplex-round.html
Yep, the Marines always got the hand me downs. The M1 was adopted in 1937 as the main battle rifle of the USA but production was slow, in addition the marines didn't think any rifle was as accurate as the Springfield. Supplies went to the army, but On Guadalcanal the Marines learned the value of the M1 and when the Army showed up carrying them the Marines "acquired" a number of Garands from the army, much to the armies ire.
“It’s hard for me to find any serious faults with the 30/06. It’s heavy and has a bit of recoil. That’s about it IMO. I like 308 win for most applications but, the fact remains, anything the .308 can do, the 30/06 can do a little bit better. ...”
Each nation cooked up its own bore diameter and cartridge design preferences in the period 1888-1903; tiny differences in size and shape were closely guarded military secrets but it is impossible in retrospect to assign clear advantages to one over another. None are “inherently” more accurate, more reliable, nor more effective than any other. National pride?
In the realm of sporting cartridges, the 30-06 has the edge over the 308 in capability to fire the heavier bullets, up to 220 gr weight. The 308 is generally recognized to top out with 180 gr bullets; beyond that weight, the bullet’s rear portion begins to intrude on the propellant charge space, limiting powder capacity.
It’s said that the 308 enjoys an edge in accuracy. My own experiments tend to confirm this; when I installed a 7.62x51 chamber sleeve in a very old, very rough, very tired 1917 Enfield, group size shrank by 50 percent at 50m, the only range I tested.
The late Jeff Cooper, USMC reservist, gun writer, tactical innovator, and sniper wannabe, asserted on paper in the early 1980s that the 30-06 was “15 percent better all around” than the 308. Very feasible when it comes to sporting rounds, but the military ammunition situation was an entirely different story.
Immediately after NATO was formed in 1949, all WWII combatant nations were still looking for more modern weapons and cartridges to issue to their ground forces. Many favored the approach the Nazis had taken nearly 20 years earlier: a cartridge of the same bore diameter and head size as the prior-standard “full power” round, with 1/3 less bullet weight, and a cartridge case just over half as long.
Everyone wanted a rifle-size arm (11 pounds or lighter, 40 inches or shorter) with a large capacity (20 rds plus) magazine, capable of full auto fire at need. During WWII istelf, demands from US front line forces (PAC theater especially) grew very loud for a rifle shorter than the M1 and lighter than the BAR, with a 20-shot magazine and full auto capability. Ordnance Corps designers made up several test pieces, but were still struggling when peace broke out in 1945.
The UK was notable in looking at smaller bullet diameters, but the US - then the biggest big dog in the Free World - insisted on 7.62mm, and a cartridge case just 1/2 inch (12.7mm) shorter than the admittedly admirable 30-06. MIL STD 7.62x51mm loads use a very slightly lighter bullet (officially 147-149 gr, most 7.62 NATO bullets tip scales at 145-144 gr, all boat tail) than the 30M2 (then still the current 30-06 rifle round, 152-153 gr flat base), but both at a muzzle velocity of 2750 ft/sec.
So the 7.62 NATO was still a “full power” cartridge; its size, weight, and energy pushed most early auto rifle designs to the very limit. The CETME 58, HK G3, and FAL all began as rifles sized to the 7.92x33 Kurz of StG44 infamy; when uprated to handle 7.62 NATO, all are strong and durable enough, but are gruesomely heavy, clunky in handling, and only marginally capable in full auto. Beretta’s BM59 - an M1 development - was the only rifle to deal with the handling headaches, thanks chiefly to the shorter 7.62 NATO cartridge and a much shorter barrel. It’s brawny but still quite heavy, muzzle blast from the stubby barrel is truly exciting, and full-auto fire is still pretty marginal.
Bumbling about longer than any other nation, the US Ordnance establishment was nevertheless unable to come up with anything more imaginative than the M14: a “product-improved” M1 tipping the scales at 11 pounds loaded, yet a little longer than the M1 despite a shorter barrel, and a shorter action made possible by the new shorter-than-30-06 cartridge. It never really measured up as a full-auto arm, and the weight limit was beaten (barely) by paring down the dimensions of many other components, to the point where it seems a little too spindly and fragile to some users. The wishes of the front-line forces of 1943-45 never came to much.
The half-inch shorter cartridge case of the 7.62 NATO compared to the 30-06 matters little to the average sporting rifle shooter, but it made entire universes of difference in the domain of military armaments: rifles and machine guns could all be made shorter, and lighter. Very, very important in cost and soldier battle loadouts - with no loss of effectiveness.
jmcusa posted:
“...The M-16 is a high velocity weapon. ... a high velocity round hits hard, however, ... an enemy and he might not go down right away. The M-1, ... low velocity rifle ... stopping power and penetration of the M-1 is legendary....”
dglang posted:
“...The U.S. has machine guns utilizing the NATO 7.62 rounds because of their greater range, accuracy and stopping power.
Unfortunately, the military favored the M16 for it’s lighter weight of both the rifle and the ammo with the lighter and smaller ammo allowing the soldier to carry more of it. On the other hand, the smaller and lighter ammo just doesn’t have the stopping power of the larger and heavier 7.62 round. ...”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Stopping power” is a concept worshipped by most of US civil gun culture, but it has no formal definition and has resisted all attempts at quantification.
5.56x45 NATO in US M193 loading (original M16): 55 gr bullet, 3250 ft/sec
US Rifle Cartridge, cal 30, M1906 (30-06): original loading 150 gr bullet, 2700 ft/sec. 30M1 loading: 172 gr bullet, circa 2550 ft/sec; 30M2 loading: 153 gr bullet, 2750 ft/sec
7.62mm NATO, US M80 loading: 147 gr bullet, 2750 ft/sec.
So muzzle velocity varies some 20 percent, highest to lowest.
All three are “high velocity” in that they leave the barrel at multiple times the speed of sound (nominally 1140 ft/sec at sea level, varies with temperature).
Peter G Kokalis, longtime gun writer and one of the few military shooters who has attempted to discuss small arms ordnance in terms the average civilian gun owner can grasp, claimed circa 1990 that the 5.56 was more effective inside 100m than either 30 cal round (we can likely take 30-06 and 7.62 NATO as identical, in issue ammo); effective against unarmored human targets, that is. This was, he stated, because the M193 bullet would fragment on impact, where the 30 cal bullets would go clean through. The best predictor of incapacitation of an enemy hit by a bullet is energy transfer to the target; the 5.56 thus gave up most of its 1290 ft-pounds on fragmenting, while the 30 cal bullet (roughly three times as massive) gave up a small fraction before exiting the target to dump whatever remained of over 2300 ft-pounds of energy on the background.
Please note: “best” predictor does not mean “perfect”.
Tradeoffs are unavoidable.
The 5.56mm round has a far shorter effective range: 450m compared to 600m for the 7.62mm bullets (1100m for high-accuracy and tripod-mounted machine gun applications). No terminal-effects research has come to light, to confirm (or deny) the “harder hitting” theory. Possibly because humans vary so much in size, organ and bone mass and positioning, metabolic state, state of excitement, and the impossibility of collecting repeatable data.
Each 5.56mm round weighs only half what a 7.62mm round weighs; hence, any given soldier could carry twice as much ammunition while humping the same weight. This dovetailed with the firepower theories being promulgated in the 1950s, in US Army training and doctrinal development circles. Namely, aimed fire means little, therefore put as many rounds into your target’s general vicinity as possible. With this constraint, a bullet that was “good enough” on hitting was the key. All in all, it was deemed better to carry more shots than to risk running dry. Most fired rounds missed anyway.
US machine guns chambered 7.62mm NATO because that was what was being issued at the time of their development. Considerations of shot-for-shot effectiveness and range did not drive the situation.
Various agencies did undertake various projects from about 1960 onward, to improve the effective range and terminal effectiveness of the 5.56mm bullet. Many were built with use in machine guns in mind. The variety of possible “improvements” was pretty broad, from higher-velocity needle-like projectiles, to bullets of larger diameter loaded into the 5.56x45mm cartridge case, to cartridges of different calibers and sizes (23 cal, 243 cal, 257 cal, 264 cal, 27 and 28 cal to name just a few). Telescoped ammunition (bullet inside case), flechette rounds, and multi-bullet rounds were tried out, as dglang pointed out.
No increase was discovered in effectiveness, at least not to a level that would justify the expenditure of adopting a different rifle and cartridge, then rearming the military.
The US M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (developed from FN’s Minimi) was developed on purpose, chambering 5.56mm NATO, to give US foot troops more of a sustained fire capability without forcing soldiers to carry mutually incompatible ammunition. Primary feed device is a disintegrating link belt, but M16 box magazines can be used instead, enhancing interoperability inside the fire team.
The 30.06 is the standard for American big game rifles, the .223 is illegal for deer in most states.
Someone will pick a nit with all that no doubt.
The lighter weight of the M16 and the ammunition means one can carry more rounds with them. The shorter effective firing range of the M16 was not handicapped by firing lots of rounds at a hidden enemy in the jungle. I'll take the M14 in open plains warfare.
Good to know. What is the official nomenclature? I’d like to learn more. Thanks.
Agreed. I has been pretty good in most situations.
I'll take the M14 in open plains warfare.
Agree, but I will have to settle for an M1.
I have shot plenty of 30/06 bullets. I have never noticed it to be inherently inaccurate. Same for the .308 win of course.
“... the ability to shoot the heavier bullets gives it an advantage; the extra case capacity gives it an advantage; the ability to stick a chamber insert into a 30/06 chamber and shoot the NATO round out of a 30/06 rifle gives it a big advantage in terms of ammo availability; the designation as a hunting round also gives it an advantage as far as ammo availability goes. ...”
Let us first be clear on military versus sporting applications.
Few civilian users care about the greater length of the 30-06 cartridge versus the 308, but the military cares a very great deal about such details. Pure considerations of rifle action length rarely bother non-military users, but it is an accepted engineering fact that any given receiver design can be manufactured shorter for a shorter cartridge, hence stiffer for a given weight. Stiffness improves accuracy potential. There’s a reason that fewer serious competitors use 30-06 rifles every year, compared to 308 (or 5.56mm).
The 7.62 NATO/30-06 chamber insert was developed for the US Navy, to convert M1s to the shorter cartridge before M14s were available in any quantity for shipboard arms lockers. It was abandoned in very short order, as it was found that no one could make the insert stay in the rifle, except by radically altering the original chamber (FN provided the “final solution” by reaming out the 30-06 chambers and installing oversize inserts, under cryogenic prep if I recall correctly). Such conversions rendered the rifle permanently incapable of firing the original cartridges. Most experienced people recommend avoiding the inserts today, for safety reasons: they have a bad habit of staying with the shorter case on extraction, even in bolt action rifles. No practical advantage in terms of ammunition flexibility exists, set against that sort of safety risk.
Every military organization abandoned the heavier bullets (180 gr and higher in 30 cal) before 1940, for standard issue rifle cartridges (US, Germany, France and UK did so well before WWI). They simply could not be driven fast enough to produce a usefully flat trajectory, and their effective range was actually less than the lighter, pointy bullets. “Full power” rifle cartridges were abandoned as military rounds after 1930 because average troops simply could not estimate range closely enough to exploit the extended ranges possible.
Note to shooters: even little bullets like the 5.56mm run out of effective range because the trajectory becomes so curved that few users can score hits. Even tiny errors in range estimation cause the projectile to fall short or go over. The bullets still have plenty of steam and can do serious damage at extreme ranges (4000m plus), but that matters little to military users, if there are no hits.
Nearly every military organization is now equipped with heavier weapons, that offer higher hit probability at range, fire warheads that can do much greater terminal damage, and can be controlled in action far better than can individual troops armed with rifles. No matter how effective an individual might be, armed with an older style rifle and “full power” ammunition, it is simply no longer worth it in a military sense.
None of this applies to an individual armed with a rifle, for hunting or defense situations.
Heavier 30 cal bullets find US military application nowadays only in specialist situations, as with the Army’s Marksmanship Training Unit and its program for snipers armed with 300 Winchester Magnum rifles.
Incidentally, AR10 platforms cannot chamber the long standard-head cartridges like 25-06, 270, or 30-06; they are simply too long to fit. 7.62mm NATO barely makes it, and the platform still has to be enlarged above the M16 size receiver components. 300 Winchester Mag is out of the question.
Very short centerfires like 22-250, 250 Savage, or 300 Savage still won’t work in an M16 dimensioned rifle: case head diameter is still “Mauser standard” (rim size 0.473 inch), hence too big for an M16 size bolt. Upper limit for an M16 size bolt is around 0.422 inch, that of the 6.8x43 or 30 Rem.
“The US military has quietly re-adopted a scaled-down version of the M-14 using the .30 caliber round. ...”
Scaled down? In what dimensions?
One presumes they’re using 7.62 NATO, as the M14 never did chamber any more “original” 30 cal, neither the 30-40 nor the 30-06.
Various industry sources surmised that the frantic search for individual weapons with greater effective range began circa 2006. By then, the M14 was out of the NSN system and MIL STD parts were not to be found anywhere.
Modular style stock systems have been developed by enterprising US manufacturers, but they weigh far more than any original stock, and cost more than a basic rifle.
But then, no one has ever accused USN of system procurement that is either straightforward, speedy, efficient, or cheap. And when it comes to USSOCOM, no one will ever know what they’ve done, nor why (certainly not the average citizen). One hopes that the public does not react with an angry backlash, and that the effectiveness enhancements have been worth it.
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