Been rereading Blake Stevens’ The Black Rifle. Several times, he makes reference to the M14, which was the M16’s predecessor/competitor. He says that, whatever the M16’s problems, the M14 was not without its own. He even claims that the M14 might not be as good as the Garand.
Any knowledge about this? The M14 ended up stillborn, and was never in use for long. What says the group?
Thnx,
Moon
I Googled, “M14 problems,” and this was the first thing that came up: The M14, Not Much For Fighting ( A Case Against The M14 Legend ) • LooseRounds.com.
One of the things listed is a .mil pdf from the late 1960s auditing the M14 program: M14 RIFLE COST ANALYSIS REPORT.
The M1 Garand was a good rifle in 1936. And an excellent rifle in 1945. Serviceable but obsolescent by the time the FAL hit the market in c. 1954. The M14 has all the problems the M1 Garand did and brought some of its own.
The M14 was very much a big gov ordnance department dinosaur, not horrible, not great, the TRW rifles were the best of the lot due to using modern manufacturing techniques to produce an archaic design. The biggest scandal of the whole program and the main reason for it’s early demise was the insistence on sticking with a full caliber round, if they had gone with something like the British .280 the M16 would have had a much harder time gaining traction.
I agree with mack7.62. My thoughts have always been that if they had went with a case that took a small rifle primer and a bullet in the .250 to .280 range, it’d still be our standard issue rifle. The M14 magazine is possibly the most reliable ever made from a design standpoint. Had they just scaled everything back just a little bit, it would have been what the M16 platform is today.
What’s funny is that John Garand himself, prior to the introduction of the M14, stated in an interview that the future US service weapon would be a light weight weapon which would be made using new alloys and fire a small caliber, high velocity round.
Fast forward to the 9:00 minute mark.
[video=youtube_share;UX7Nf5q1A0o]https://youtu.be/UX7Nf5q1A0o&t=9m0s[/video]
‘Raven, thnx, the included reference in the Hitch report is what prompted me to ask the question. Your link makes it clear that not everyone was a fan of the M14, tho’ a Dr. Carsten helped in its development, and wasn’t a fan of the small caliber high velocity concept.
After the German midrange assault rifle proved the vitality of the concept, it’s not clear to me why the full powered .308 was our response. I do recall the debates back in the day, including our insistence on the .308 as the NATO standard, to the consternation of our allies. We didn’t like the FAL, either; not invented here.
BTW, one of 'Raven’s links makes reference to full auto rifles that fired from an open bolt. Shifting gears entirely, were cook-offs ever an issue with the M16? I don’t recall us being trained to clear the chamber after a long burst of full auto, but then we weren’t trained to usea big burst of full auto.
Moon
It’s funny that the Russians got it right using the German STG 44 design concept with our M1 Garand bolt and carrier group all based around a mid-range cartridge.
Had we been thinking more technologically we would have seen the light a lot sooner or at least adopted the FAL and ended up with the FNC.
The only reason the M14 existed is because some crusty old farts with brass doodads on their collars didn’t want to let go of the M1 Garand.
[video=youtube_share;mby4hOq-DpI]https://youtu.be/mby4hOq-DpI[/video]
My impression was, back in the day, that the Army was not impressed with the FAL. Whether there really was an issue, or just that it wasn’t our rifle, I’m not sure. The FAL was a long way from the conventionally stocked Garand, which may have been part of the problem.
There were certainly reservations from our own military (especially the Marines) to the Matty Mattel M16 shooting them durn little bullets.
Moon
The biggest issue that Army brass had with the FAL is that it wasn’t a U.S. design.
Thanks, Doc. That was a good watch. It includes many of the points in The Black Rifle, with the added notion that the Army wanted the AR to fail…lack of a chromed bore and chamber, ‘no maintenance required’, lack of cleaning supplies…
Oddly, I arrived in basic training in 1970, by which time the maintenance issue was being addressed, but not the now-current wisdom of keeping the rifle wet. I recall cleaning hardened carbon from my issued-in-basic M16dashnothing, something I don’t find in my own ARs today. Kept wet, it’s just black gunk to be wiped out.
Also, as I was NG, we fired the M14 for familiarization because some Guard units were apparently issued them. I never saw another one after AIT.
Personally, the M14 seemed a harsher weapon to fire, even compared to the Garand. I’ve fired them, and own one…despite the only slightly greater weight, and essentially the same ballistics, the Garand is much nicer to shoot.
Thanks, guys. I’m enjoying the responses.
Moon
Tex, that was at the heart of a lot of the problems…things that weren’t invented here.
Moon
FIFY.
IIRC, Ordnance tested the M14 and the FAL (T44 and T48) with tests intended to favor the former. The FAL still managed to tie it up.
(In later Ordnance tests intended to favor the M14 against the M16, the M16 still out-performed the M14 - but Ordnance declared the M14 the winner and they got caught when McNamara’s boys and the Army reviewed the data. IIRC.)
The Garand was originally supposed to be chambered in .276 Pedersen (7×51mm) and with this used a 10 rd enblock clip. MacArthur shot the caliber change down due to the massive stocks of 06 on hand. Garand was smart or lucky enough to make his receiver long enough to convert to 06, Pedersen’s rifle could not be converted so he dropped out of the competition.
As far as the FAL, it did not do so good during Arctic testing which was the main reason for going M14.
"The T48/FAL competed head to head against the T44 rifle, basically a product-improved M1 Garand with detachable magazine and select-fire capability.[2] Initial testing proved the T48 and the T44 roughly comparable in performance.[2] In December 1953, both rifles competed in the arctic rifle trials.[2][3] Springfield Armory, anxious to ensure the selection of the T44, had been preparing and modifying the test T44 rifles for weeks with the aid of the Armory’s Cold Chamber, including redesign of the T44 gas regulator and custom modifications to magazines and other parts to reduce friction and seizing in extreme cold.[2][3] The T48 rifles received no such special preparation, and began to experience gas system problems during the trials.[2][3] FN engineers opened the gas ports in an attempt to improve functioning, but this caused early/violent extraction and broken parts as a result of the increased pressures.[2][3] As a result, the T44 was ranked by the arctic test staff as decidedly superior in cold weather operation.[2]
In the end, the T44 was selected over the T48/FAL primarily because of weight (the T44 was a pound lighter than the T48), simplicity (the T44 had fewer parts), the T44’s self-compensating gas system, and the argument that the T44 could be manufactured on existing machinery built for the M1 rifle (a concept that later turned out to be unworkable)."
Never heard Garand’s voice before. He has an accent, but it doesn’t sound Canadian (he was a Canadian by birth).
Okay, read a Wiki piece on him and he was French-Canadian (born in Quebec) so that would explain the accent.
Actually, John Garand designed his rifle in both 276 Pederson and 30-06. When the decision came down to stick with 30-06, he had a rifle ready to rock and roll. Pederson was so certain that his rifle was going to win, in his cartridge that he’d gone to Europe to hock the rifle there - and so not only did he not have a rifle in 30-06 ready for testing, he wasn’t even in country to redesign his rifle for 30-06.
So Garand won by default.
(In retrospect, while the Pederson rifle is mechanically interesting, I think the decision to go with the Garand was wise, as it didn’t require lubricated cartridges. And Gen. Hatcher felt that from a logistical perspective that sticking with 30-06 was the right choice in retrospect, even given the generally better performance of 276 Pederson.)
St. Jean le Baptiste Cantius Garand was born in Quebec. One of six boys, all named St. Jean le Baptist, all his brothers differentiated themselves by using their middle names while John Garand went by, “Jean”.
[i]siiiiiiiip…[/i] yep good old M-14. I killed fitty zips with in ‘Nam. If they hadn’t switched to that POS mattel made M16 we woulda won.
I tell ya wut…
Yeup, the old wood and steel crowd. I have some old friends that have sniffed too much Linseed oil and Ed’s Red. There’s many reasons why that rifle was one of the shortest lived ones in our history. What I find funny is what is new is old in regards to calibers, design and fielding of weapon systems. While short lived in a sense, the Germans where on the right track on the topic.