Posted on 07/15/2020 3:47:21 AM PDT by AggregateThreat
Given that, the effectiveness of infantry rifles is a slippery question and rating one against the other is certainly a subjective one. Our choices are based on a number of factors; innovation, effectiveness, service life, impact on history and small-arms development. These are the choices of our editors, no doubt you have your own, perhaps better choices. We don’t expect it to be definitive and hope only to spark debate and interest among our readers.
Omissions from the list will no doubt provoke the most questions, so I will try to explain the absence of some of your, and our, favorites. Some innovative wonder guns like the Stoner 63 and the FG42 were dropped because of their limited service history.
One of our personal favorites, the M14, was dropped because we decided that when two comparable contemporary guns were on the list, like the M14 and the FN FAL, the tie had to go to the gun with the greater historical impact and longer service life, rather than the gun we liked best. Even if, when all is said and done, some of us would rather go into harm’s way with the M14.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanrifleman.org ...
For 6 months I carried an M14 that always worked, then they took it away and gave me an M16 that jammed in fire fights.
First came the rock.
A Marine I know...who was in Hue during the Tet Offensive...has told me about the many problems of the M-16.
Of course it worked. The m-14 bring an updated Garand. The m -16 would have worked too if the politicians would have allowed it to be put out the way Stoner designed it. But they had contracts with Olin who made ball powder that was filthy and gummed up the works. Had they used DuPont as indicated by Stoner there would have been no jams. So they eventually chromed the chambers and installed that little round pusher button to overcome the powder problem.
Politics
I carried an M16, CAR15, M3, a Thompson, an M79, and an M14.
The M14 was my hands-down favorite.
The 1886 French Lebel should have made the list. It was the first rifle to use smokeless powder and fire a smaller caliber bullet. It was the daddy of the Mauser and Lee-Enfield.
Carried the M-14 for 13 months in VN. Many hundreds of rounds during countless firefights. Packed with mud, rinsed in rice paddies and never a jam or miss-fire. Saved my life and I loved that rifle.
Forward assist.
And stuck with it for 55 years. The M16/M4 must really be a piece of crap for it to have lasted that long.
I kept my M-14, thanks to some awfully permissive leaders and stayed alive.
Or the Army is just stubbornly sticking with it because we have so many and a mountain of 5.56 ammo in stockpiles.
We're just lucky that we haven't been involved in a major war against a first-line combatant during that period.
“Did the M-16 have a 3 round burst fire option?”
“In a sense, yes”
Yes: “3 only”.
The original M-16 had full auto and semi-auto. The 3 round burst feature came later.
Basic Training we were training with original M16s, yes they jammed a lot - especially with blanks. But I liked the brand new M16A2 issued when I got to my unit. In a sense the training was pretty good because we HAD to keep our rifles maintained to get off a few shots.
M-16 served me well from 69-72. As long as I did my part it did it’s, light, quick, sleek and accurate. I could carry twice as much ammo as somebody hauling around the M-14 and even grab some extra grenades.
M-16 was full auto.
I cannot understand the non-inclusion of the Mosin-Nagant. This list is heavy on European and American favorites, but the Mosin-Nagant probably had more to do with real shifts in geo-political power.
http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinHumor.htm
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