Its a good thing that the US Military is getting rid of the M14 ????

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  • photoracer

    Competition Shooter
    Oct 22, 2010
    3,318
    West Virginia
    I think he hit the nail on the head myself. AR10 should have replaced the M14 a good while ago. Or at least an AR shooting some caliber well above 5.56mm anyway. And with plenty of NATO .308 around its still a great cartridge.
    And on that note, Patton's opinion on the M1 Garand was sound at the time. However if the Wehrmacht had been fully equipped with the Stg-44 on D-day it would have been a bad day to be an Allied infantryman from that day forward.
     

    jawn

    YOU TROLLIN!
    Feb 10, 2011
    2,884
    INTARWEB
    All M14's should go to the CMP for distribution to civilians.

    There's a small problem with that.

    m14_switch.jpg
     

    Boss94

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 15, 2013
    6,945
    Shoot a Scar17 and a M14 back to back, and tell me that the M14 is still relevant.

    I have both ( M1A1 , Sold my M14 to buy a nice beltfed) . And believe me the SCAR is much more of a Cadillac . But to say that by bumping the forend you will bust the M14 is crazy in my book . Not everyone shoots a M14 in full auto all the time. I can see were times have changed , And that there is better equipment available now. but to call the M14 a inaccurate unreliable rifle I think is hog wash . Ok ill step off my soap box now. you may proceed . lol
     

    nedsurf

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 8, 2013
    2,204
    I believe the author's criticism in the article was aimed at its use as a DMR claiming it was a role never intended by its designers. Perhaps a valid point.
     

    mopar92

    Official MDS Court Jester
    May 5, 2011
    9,513
    Taneytown
    The author gets two things wrong. The M14 is less reliable than the AR-15/M16 series of rifles and the .308 is only marginally better at penetrating cover compared to the 5m56. Add in the criminal rigging of the test trials by the Army that showed the M14 as inferior to the M16 and AK47 and you have a rifle only fondly remembers by those with early onset Alzheimers.


    *steps back to get the marshmallows for the flame war*
     

    lazarus

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 23, 2015
    13,678
    The author gets two things wrong. The M14 is less reliable than the AR-15/M16 series of rifles and the .308 is only marginally better at penetrating cover compared to the 5m56. Add in the criminal rigging of the test trials by the Army that showed the M14 as inferior to the M16 and AK47 and you have a rifle only fondly remembers by those with early onset Alzheimers.


    *steps back to get the marshmallows for the flame war*

    Not sure if being sarcastic or serious? No idea on reliability. To penetration...isn't the .308 significantly better than the 5.56? Especially at longer range. Also better damage again especially at long range where a 5.56 isn't likely to tumble and fragment.
     

    DaemonAssassin

    Why should we Free BSD?
    Jun 14, 2012
    23,970
    Political refugee in WV
    The author gets two things wrong. The M14 is less reliable than the AR-15/M16 series of rifles and the .308 is only marginally better at penetrating cover compared to the 5m56. Add in the criminal rigging of the test trials by the Army that showed the M14 as inferior to the M16 and AK47 and you have a rifle only fondly remembers by those with early onset Alzheimers.


    *steps back to get the marshmallows for the flame war*

    Oh boy, now you done it.

    Not sure if being sarcastic or serious? No idea on reliability. To penetration...isn't the .308 significantly better than the 5.56? Especially at longer range. Also better damage again especially at long range where a 5.56 isn't likely to tumble and fragment.

    Yea... About that.

    That depends on the bullet that you use and the distances you are shooting.

    A 556 62gr penetrator (M855/SS109) will punch though a barrier and neutralize the target that is taking cover, within a specific distance. But it will have around 1200 ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle. The bullet is designed for that specific application.

    A standard 150gr in a 308 has roughly 2200 ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle and it translates to lethality downrange, but it does not have a steel core or a steel tip to penetrate hard barriers. If you look at a 308 AP round, it has the ability to punch though barriers, with greater efficiency than a 556, at longer ranges.

    What you are doing is trying to compare apples to turnips with your line of thinking. If you look at it from the reloading standpoint, with velocities and energy at the muzzle, you will be able to see that with the right bullet, a 308 is actually a superior caliber for longer range engagements, against targets that are behind cover. You can't look at the 556 and say it is better because of ____. You are operating on the velocity of the bullet, but not looking at how much energy it retains as it goes down range, as distance from the muzzle increases. The kinetic force, imparted on impact is the key to the whole issue.
     

    Biggfoot44

    Ultimate Member
    Aug 2, 2009
    32,881
    These type of discussions are always two different discussions intertwined.

    5.56 ( & eventual commie copy) vs 7.62x51 ( and essentially all full power battle rifle ctg).


    The actual M14 itself.
     

    K31

    "Part of that Ultra MAGA Crowd"
    MDS Supporter
    Jan 15, 2006
    35,632
    AA county
    Interestingly, postwar investigations suggested the M1 Carbine’s light weight and high cyclic rate of fire were more responsible for this lack of stopping power than the cartridge itself — meaning, most soldiers simply missed their targets because of the gun’s recoil.

    WTF?
     

    tallen702

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Sep 3, 2012
    5,102
    In the boonies of MoCo
    The author is wrong on a lot of points, but he's right in the overall crux that the M14 isn't all it's cracked up to be and could/should be replaced by a more modern arm given the current and foreseeable situations that will face our military.

    It should be pointed out that the M-14's adoption was dubious in the first place. The military were straight-up lied to by Springfield about tooling. It was said that they could produce the M-14 on M-1 tooling, but that turned out to be patently false. The main competitor (FN-FAL) lost out to the M-14 and one of the main reasons cited was overall cost since Springfield stated that there wouldn't be any costs associated with re-tooling which was supposed to keep the overall project costs down. Furthermore, the M-14's prototype was given an unfair advantage in arctic testing thanks to the military graft of the 1950s. I think the development of the M-16 and its adoption would have been much different had the Army chosen the FAL.

    From what I understand the use of the M-14 as a DMR grew out of two things. The necessity for such a weapon as realized in the Vietnam war, and the need to offer such a weapon based on modified current stock (we had lots of M14s, why not use them instead of buying all new rifles). In short, we were caught short and in need, and we had to make it happen on a budget, so the M14 filled the role. Everything since then has just been the mindset of "that's the way we've always done it." That's not to say that they're bad rifles. They're very good at what they do thanks to the major modifications over the years, but they aren't the BEST at what they do and they've been surpassed in both reliability and ability by newer platforms.

    Honestly, I expect to see us make major changes in the next decades with the advent of telescoped ammunition and the LSAT program.
     

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