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To: Shooter 2.5
I have a book with pics of shattered AR-10s with blown up barrels in them. I'll get you more info on that.

The US Army did want the M-14 and nothing else -- and I know the rest of the story of the rifle boondoggles from pre M-14 through the M16/A2 -- but the Armalite AR-10 failed on it's own. To look at the Fairchild/Armalite video from 1957, you'd think the AR-10 was everything a soldier could ever want, but in reality it had all sorts of problems.

The revolutionary multi-piece muzzle brake that looked like a tubular spaghetti collander was the part responsible for barrel blowups, along with ultra-lightweight Stellite barrels. The huge brake was the part that kept the AR-10 from bucking like a bronco on F/A, but when they removed it and replaced the hi-tech barrel with one made of iron, it experienced all kinds of jams, was front-heavy as sin, weighed more, and bucked worse than an M-14 on F/A.

The AR-10s ultra high-tech design was actually a liability, and the Army officers in charge of selection weren't about to get caught up in the late 1950s 'Space-Age' craze after just so recently fighting off human waves of Communist Chinese in Korea. They wanted a variation on something that they KNEW worked -- an accurized M-1 Garand. There have been grumblings about set-ups and rigged competitions, and though some of it must be true, it's not the whole story about why the AR-10 wasn't chosen.

Only the Dutch, Sudanese, Portuguese, and Tunisians adopted the Armalite AR-10, and I think that every one of those nations got rid of it after only a few years. The Dutch didn't even keep it for one year, I don't think.

I don't know by my own experience, but I hear that even the new Armalite civilian AR-10s are "Bang, Bang, JAM" in operation.

131 posted on 08/06/2002 5:49:11 PM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: The KG9 Kid
It sounds like they rushed them into the trials. I'm sorry to hear that they really did have problems.
The AR-10's right now do have a problem with jamming but that's because of the magazines. Sending in a brand new, in the wrapper M-14 mag, then paying an embarrassing ammount of money to have it reworked and finding out it doesn't work can be trying. My son's AR-10 is flawless except for one or two magazines that he still has to tweak.
I have a picture of an M-14 that blew up because of a crystalized barrel.
137 posted on 08/06/2002 6:15:36 PM PDT by Shooter 2.5
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To: The KG9 Kid
I forgot to mention that the reason that so few countries adopted the AR-10 was because the rest of the world was caught up in the Cold War. It was hard for a gun manufacturer to offer countries a firearm while NATO, and on the side, Russia and China, were offering freebies.
139 posted on 08/06/2002 6:24:01 PM PDT by Shooter 2.5
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