The M-16was originally designed as a survival weapon not a standard infantry weapon. When first issued the thing would rust overnight and the tight tolerances would cause jams Chroming the breech and the bolt helped. The weapon was designed to use fine grain powder but instead was was using a more coarse grain which caused a rapid carbon build up and jamming. Until those got fixed we lost a lot of people that way. I my opinion 5.56 is too light a round. 7.62 much better
Thanks. I didn’t know those two problems. I remember there was always controversy about the small/ light bullet at high speed didn’t have enough stopping power. The old Pop Sci article mentioned problems w lightweight magazines causing jamming. Was the mag strengthened?
It was outrageous losing our men to bad weapon design.