We completely rebuilt better than 20,000 of them at the Crane Small Arms shop around 1979-1980 when I was working there as a Navy civilian armorer, anticipating a transfer of them to the Nicaraguan Contras, who it turned out preferred AK47s instead, and got new Polish AKMs and captured Israeli ex-PLO equipment. the M14s went back to storage in Warehouse A, two to the carton, until the 1991 war when US units that hadn't received SAW or M21/M24 Sniper's rifles found that the old M14 made a pretty fair substitute.
I'd happily take a 45-year old M14 over a ten-year-old M16A2/M4A1 any day.
Yep. I purchased my National Match M1A from a gentleman going through a divorce about 15 years ago. I paid the outrageous sum of $500.00 for it.
Best money I ever spent.
Since then I've glass bedded it after I replaced the fiberglass stock with a with a Tiger Birch stock I got from Fred before he ran out. I stripped it bare, sanded it till I couldn't sand any more, and then hand rubbed it with 15 coats of Tung Oil.
Then I topped it with the SA Rangefinding scope.
I had a guy offer me $3,000.00 cash for it at the range one day. Turned him down flat.
The only way I'm parting with that rifle is passing it to a loved one after I've assumed room temperature.
L
The subject of the thread is whether one would trade a forty year old M-14 for a new out of the box M-16/M-4 series.
I’ll take the new out the box.