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Posted: 1/11/2015 2:00:33 AM EDT
Link Posted: 1/11/2015 9:23:31 AM EDT
[#1]
good job posting that here,I normally would have missed it.
Link Posted: 1/11/2015 12:15:43 PM EDT
[#2]
The history channel had a special on the M16 with early interviews with Eugene Stoner. It was very interesting. The US Army brass set the M16 up for failure during tests in the Arctic by using oil that they knew would gum up. It never would have been adaopted by the US if it had not been for SecDef Robert McNamara and his "whiz kids" forcing it.
A survey among 1500 combat troops in Viet Nam in 1968 revealed 39% of them felt the M16 was highly unreliable and almost 20% had jams with them
The Army kept that information classifed for decades.
Link Posted: 1/11/2015 12:26:20 PM EDT
[#3]
This lays it all out.

 

it's the standard reference of Retro Heads.










if anyone , it's LeMay that forced the issue,(all SAC had to protect our B-52's were M1 Carbines, Grease Guns, Thompsons, and 1911's) McNamara, et al. did their level best to "improve" it to death.










TBR and Black Rifle II are must haves. (hey, it's only money)










The guy most shat upon by the powers that be (starting in 1936!) was Melvin Johnson.

 

 
Link Posted: 1/11/2015 4:08:42 PM EDT
[#4]
Link Posted: 1/11/2015 8:28:05 PM EDT
[#5]
tip of the iceberg.


but it's not REALLY like that.



it wasn't JUST ball powder, ball works well in AR's.(H335 is ball)






more of a case of left and right hands not communicating, plus ignorance, arrogance and blind faith in a design that sat untested and unchanged since about 1959.



Armalite sold the rights to Colt in 1959, Stoner moved on to other weapons and the design was "frozen".(ignored/neglected/ridiculed/passed over, take your pick)

















Stoner stated before the Ichord committee  he found it inconceivable that he (Stoner) could have hit the best bullet/powder combination first time, yet any attempt to change the design was met with "that's not how Stoner wanted it" {AllHail Stoner}










M16's were brand new to everyone, and were touted as self cleaning.(there's a picture i can't find of the tag attached to a SP-1 that states so)



there didn't even EXIST (in the Armed Forces) a cleaning rod small enough to go down the bore, they couldn't be cleaned if they wanted to.



McNamara nixed the chrome bore and chamber to save money.



coupled with a draft Army and terrible conditions in S.E Asia, well...



it's all laid out in TBR, with documentation.








 
 
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