The M-14 biggest role was to keep Springfield, Massachussets residents employed. It was an OK rifle if all you wanted to was shoot over the course at Camp Perry. The FAL was better battle rifle. That whole generation of guns that Springfield fielded in the late fifties ranged from decidedly mediocre, like the M14 and M60 to positively putrid, like the M73. THE machingun which proved decisively that it was possible to build a more unreliable machingun than the French Chauchat!