Fabrique Nationale "D" Model...
Posted on 07/05/2002 2:09:04 PM PDT by knighthawk
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:00:48 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
LONDON, England -- A British army rifle which has just undergone a
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Thats why non-engineering people SHOULD NEVER be in a position to change the technical aspects of anything.
And a well used el-cheapo AK-47 that can be had for $25 on the street in Trashcanistan works perfectly and never jams or misfires....amazing.
They told them that the weapon was 'self cleaning'.
As far as I'm concerned that's reason enough to send McNamara to hell.
L
But they always are.
There were major teething problems with the M16 and in Vietnam the rifle initially received a semi-official cursing, acquiring a terrible reputation for stoppages and jams in action; firstly, the spring in the magazine was weak and filling it with the capacity 30 rounds could lead to a jam. Troops soon learnt by experience that loading only 27 or 28 bullets into the magazine rather than filling it helped solve that. The big problem, however, lay with the gun's firing mechanism. To keep the gun light, the Ml 6 was designed with neither a piston nor a bolt handle. Instead, the hammer was operated by gas pressure.
This meant that the gun, especially the chamber and gas tubes, had to be kept very clean. The mud and dust of Vietnam's battlefields made this task difficult enough. To make matters worse, US ammunition factories changed the propellant powder without troubling to tell anyone. The new propellant caused much more fouling since the slow burning ball powder ammunition was notorious for leaving calcium carbonate deposits in the gas tube. When this happened, the gun jammed instantly, often in the middle of a firefight. Since the early Ml6's did not possess a bolt handle, it was almost impossible to clear the barrel in combat especially as many soldiers were not issued with proper cleaning kits. The only way the gun could be cleared was by ramming with a cleaning rod.
This unreliability assumed almost legendary proportions, caused a congressional enquiry and cost many lives before the problem was finally solved by redesigning the gun with an easy-to-clean chrome chamber and issuing troops with appropriate cleaning kits.
The reason the powder caused problems was tied in with the peculiar method of operation of the M16. Most gas-operated weapons tap gas from the barrel into a cylinder, where it drives a piston backwards to operate the bolt. But the M16 simplified things by simply piping the gas back and allowing it to hit the bolt carrier and, literally, blast it back.
The carrier moved backwards and a curved slot, holding a lug on the bolt, caused the bolt to revolve and unlock from the chamber, after which the carrier pulled the bolt back and ejected the spent case. Two springs then propelled the bolt forward again to collect a new round from the magazine and re-load.
During the backward stroke a hammer had been cocked, and a fresh pull on the trigger now fired the next round. Automatic fire was achieved by the bolt carrier tripping the sear as the bolt finally closed, and so squirting the bolt carrier full of fouling-laden gas was bound to cause problems. Some education of the troops, prolific issue of cleaning kit, and modification to the propellant cleared up that problem, and since then the M16 has been trouble-free.
With the problems ironed out, the Ml6 proved itself to be a reliable and hard hitting weapon.
They told them that the weapon was 'self cleaning'.
As far as I'm concerned that's reason enough to send McNamara to hell.
If that's true, then I coudln't agree with you more.
Fabrique Nationale "D" Model...
That SA-80 has been a huge piece of crap for almost 20 years now. It's not going to get any better, I don't think.
Why the Brits didn't follow Australia's lead and use the Austrian STG-77 (AUG) is something that only politics can explain.
The biggest they make at H&K is 40x53mm:
Hope that will do.
An AK might be a reasonable thing to have on you in a place like VietNam where you see the enemy at 50' but Afghanistan is mountainous and a lot of the firefights, as I've heard it, were taking place at 400 - 600 yards distance. An M16 can hit and kill people from that distance; an AK can't.
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