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I asked my Ranger Dad about M-16 reliability problems.
He enjoyed Indochina tropical vacations in `66-67 & `71-72.
“As long as you kept it clean it was reliable.” And he shot the hell out of it.
Yeah Colt had some problems at first with the Armalite and that’s all you hear about now.
A problem was an ammo maker using left over ball powder for .30 caliber in 5.56 cartridges. The M-16’s action is smaller, lighter and cycles faster than the old M-1 and M-14 action slamming back and forth.

And the Army and Marines didn’t like the M-16, everything about it from the sights to the `Buck Rogers’ look. Colt didn’t provide cleaning kits. All they had for cleaning for quite a while were .30 caliber kits.
Colt started chroming the barrels, added a forward assist, a thicker barrel and some other improvements and it was fine.

I’ve got three AKs and bought a CORE M4-orgery when the prices came down. Staked key, all that good stuff, milspec circa 1963, but not that expensive prancing pony.
Nothing wrong with the AK at all but owning both now, IMHO anyone saying they would take their AK-47 or 74-orgeries over the AR-15 is just fooling himself.
God bless Eugene Stoner.