Let me see: the front sights loosen and fall off; in sandy climes the bolt rollers abrade and split until they fall off and CANNOT be replaced in the field without an armorer's tool. Front sling swivels shear off their retaining rivits, the rear sight is maintenance-intensive and the machined rails used for telescopic sight mounting have been found to be inadequate and scope mounts for the M14/XM21/M21/M25 hover the past three decades have been redesigned to use the dovetail for the clip loading slot as a third attatch point for the newer mounts- a neat adaptation, but never really designed for that purpose. Gas pistons were never interchangable between M14s, and the stocks require glass bedding [and annual reworks] to maintain minimal acceptable accuracy limits.
Unfortunately, the four manufacturers of the M14 [Springfield Armory, Winchester, Harrington and Richardson and Thompson-Ramo-Woolridge] have now all either gone out of business, moved out of or downsized rifle or government contract production, or have been absorbed in corporate takeovers. There hasn't been an M14 produced in the US since 1965, and the Springfield Armory machinery was sold off to Taiwan,who used it to begin production of the rifles as their Type 57 rifles at the 205th Armory of Combined Service in 1969, then replaced by the T65, T86 and T91 series of 5.56mm assault rifles.
We've been hard=pressed to keep our remaining M14s in service, though they've been in limited use by the US Navy due to the avaibility of the M76 grenade launcher fitting for the M14, which allows the M14 to launch a line-carrying projectile from ship to ship using a blank cartridge. Since the Carter years, M14s were given away as military aid [FMAP] equipment, to, among others, Israel, the Phillipines, Guatemala, El Salvador and Haiti. Thankfully, the Israelis set up a production line for the M14s that they used as sniper's rifles, or we'd have had no manufacturing source for magazines for our last half-decade of M14 use in OIF/OEF/GWOT. I do not know how our current chilly relationship with Israel will affect that problem in the future.
Is the M14 a servicable piece, suitavle for use as a service weapon, and capable of modification into a match or sniper's rifle? Oh yes, been there, done that.
Have I carried and used the M14 and XM21 and do I know whereof I speak? Yes, indeedy: I went through basic with am M14, carried one [sometimes] during tours on the 5KM *Iron Curtain* zone in West Germany along the Czech and former East German border, then hauled one of four M14s/XM21s I had over two tours of the spas, bars and cathouses of Southeast asia. Yep, I like the M14, and have had a couple of it's semi-auto civvie equivalents. But I am not blind to its faults, nor under the false impression that it is anywhere near state-of-the-art.
It;s still a good rifle, particularly for an individual who takes care of it, bables it, and appreciates it. As a supply-chain NSN item, it leaves much to be desired, though it's still the standard to which its eventual replacement will have to be held.
