[PalmettoMason]

In the Reagan Army in the 80s, I’d go years without even smelling an M-16. Army brass, for good reason, don’t often trust their troopies with live ammo. They were probably filling in range qualification scores for me & shuffling the training budget numbers around. Didn’t matter much, anyway, ‘cause the 16s were really .22 rimfire - special magazines, bolt adapters, and scaled targets on a 25 meter range.

Hmmm... I was there in the 80's and actually remember an IMPROVEMENT in training under Reagan, after the disaster during the Carter years.

I never, ever even SAW a "16" that was "really .22 rimfire", and I was a Drill Sergeant during the 80's. We burned through a LOT of ammo during BRM training. Seems to me that if anyone used .22 rimfire, it would have been available to us for extra training.

Did your experience have something to do with your MOS?

[csmusaret]

We used .22 adapters in M-16s in Germany in the 80s at an indoor range. It was a good economical training device, but it was only used to augment actual range time not as a substitute. We also used to use frangible ammunition in our coax machine guns occasionally to utilize local pistol ranges for tank gunnery training. That was to maintain some profiency between trips to Graf.

[flowerplough]

“experience have something to do with your MOS?” Must’ve. TRADOC - Instructor in a commo school at Fort Gordon, usually on second shift (RHIP).

[nicko]

...agreed...served in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and on into 2000...I can tell you the best years were under Reagan, no doubt...more money, better training, more stability...things began to go downhill around 92’...