I am late in the game here as far as information goes I suppose, but I discovered today that evidence points to the XM16E1 being the rifle that got many Marines killed on Hill 881 in early 1967, not the 604 or M16.

These rifles had forward assists, but no chrome chambers (obviously).  However, I am confused as to why, since this was the same rifle used the US Army starting in 1965 at Ia Drang, the Marines were the first to have the major problems with the rifle?

Why did the Army not have problems with it?

By the way there is a great read about first hand experience with the early XM16E1 problems here.

Edited because the original link is gone.  Replacement links: here and here

That is a reprint of a story by a guy named ROC who is generally considered to be very, very biased against the M-16.  that story has been around on the web for qutie a few years in various forums.

I've heard it all from stick powder to ball powder to Marines not being smart enough to clean a rifle, etc, etc,.  Which we all know is BS.

The answer is better left coming from the guys who have been there and done that.

Hal


ETA:  Try this too, The Ichord Report:

http://www.bobcat.ws/rifle.shtml

In reading it so far, it appears that the main issue was the chambers were too tight in Colt rifles.

Muzzle Energy at 500 yds.

Is the writer remotely familiar with firearms? Muzzle energy only exists at the muzzle, hence the term.

As a veteran of the orginal History Channel I submit:

a) non-chrome lined barrels and chambers originally for production

b) rifles pitched as not needing cleaning (lack of cleaning kits available to do it when they decided it wasn't a good idea not to)

c) armed services had huge inventory of the 'ball' shaped propellant used in the 7.62 x 51mm rounds and decided it worked just as good as the 'spherical' powder that was spec for production of 5.56 x 45mm.

d) all of the above

e) none of the above


Wow. Great article. Like the armorer fix for reaming out the chamber. New one for me. Maybe it was the later A&E owned History Channel...

The rifles were issued without cleaning kits.  Rifles that were cleaned had no issues.  Those that weren't got their users killed.

As a result, the chamber was chrome lined.

If you read the article, they state that about 50% of the XM16E1s did not work, even when clean in a sterile testing environment.

I don't believe that, and it doesn't mesh with the tales told by people who were there.

The guy claims to have been there.

Does this mean the M16 (601,602,604) was never issued to the USMC?

Dick Culver was a (relatively) young mustang Marine orificer in Viet Nam during the period in question, and his experiences with the rifle can be found by clickie the linkie, and then scrolling down to THE SAGA OF THE M16 IN VIET NAM, parts one and two.  It will not appear that the links for these are hot on that web page, but, they are.

Culver's take on the subject

This guy is an idiot. If that were the case, the M16 would NEVER have been adopted.

ETA: Just so you know, I have a 601 upper w/ original barrel that has no chrome lining at all (chamber or bore) and it runs 100% of the time in any environment I've used it in...

In the way back, I asked my step mother's brothers about the jamming.  Both agreed that they needed to be kept clean.  One went on to pontificate that it was the crappy, lazy draftees that were the REAL problem.  The other said that if maybe they'd had officers that stuck rather than guys there getting their ticket punched...

I walked away then.  They may still be arguing to this very day.  That was 1985.

His argument was that the Colt union employees were doing a shitty job of quality control on the rifles.  Also, he argues, that the chamber in the Colt rifles is slightly tighter than the Armalite rifles.  The Armalite rifles worked better, he says, because the chamber is reamed out a tad more.

If you read between the lines with both essay's, the author had a problem with the M16 "Before" it was put to use. He has/had a major inferiority complex. Didn't want to go into combat with a smaller stick My opinion is he was biased before he ever held one in his hands. That bias carried over and "Created" extra problems!! The author lost all credibility with me after the first few sentences

This pic says it all.......I LOVE the M16 but there was obviously some shit wrong with the first ones sent to Vietnam...tight chambers, or the absence of chrome lining in the chamber.

A lot of veterans i have spoken to who served in this (1966-67) Time frame have told me they had to keep a cleaning rot taped to the barrel to avoid being naked to the enemy because they would often get a stuck empty case in the chamber.

I have had WOLF ammo stick in the chamber of my new M4 and had to knock the case out with a cleaning rod

And yes Tigers really did kill US personnel in Vietnam....fuck PETA

I like the Dick Culver write-up.  I have seen it before, and while he clearly has some issues remembering timelines, I think he has reported things as he remembers them.  

Exactly why the jamming problems occurred has been a topic of debate for decades.  The official report by Sen. Ichord has little credibility to most people, so that leaves us scrambling for real answers that nobody has.

I have formulated my own theory based principally on stuff written in The Black Rifle, Culver's comments, and info posted on this board by RKI's such as Ekie and Capt. Richardson.

TBR notes that the severe problems with both the 603 and 604 (principally the 603, since they were used in combat a LOT more) began after Westmoreland promised that every combat soldier in Vietnam would have the M16.  This meant two things:

- Colt would have to greatly up their production.  Colt had produced about a quarter million AR-15s from 1959 to 1964,  Now they would be expected to make 300,000 per year.


- A lot of rank and file soldiers who had very little familiarity with the M16 would be carrying it into combat.

Prior to 1966, the AR-15 was made fairly slowly and carefully, and was used by well-trained professional soliders such as airborne troops and special forces.  By all acounts, these rifles worked very well and the troops were happy with them.  It is worth noting that the majority of the ammo they were shooting was loaded with Olin WC-846 ball powder.

Starting in early 1966 the AR-15 was made at a much higher rate and used as often as not by draftees and some very average grunts.  Quite often, the first time they ever saw an AR-15 was the moment they were handed one to take on patrol.  Problems arose almost immediately.

Was some of the problem operator usage and maintenance related?  Certainly, it had to be.  The quality of the operators was taking a big hit at this point.

But, based on Culver's write-up and some notes in TBR, I think the quality of the rifles coming from Colt was the bigger problem.  It was very interesting that some of Culver's people found they could make a bad gun good by honing the chamber.  Especially when you look at TBR pg 293, where there is a table showing that of 150 M16A1 rifles surveyed in the fall of 1967, the vast majority had out-of-spec chambers, with 77% being out of spec in the rearmost diameter.  They do not say how many were undersized or oversized, but a chamber that has an in-spec front dimension and an undersized rear dimension is going to have reduced taper, and taper is one of the most important factors in reliable extraction.  Admittedly, the chambers were chromed by this point in time, so it is hard to say what dimensions earlier chambers would have had based on this, but it shows that Colt did not watch such things closely.

That is my arguement.  Sloppy quality control at Colt was the principal cause of the problems.  It did not help that the rifle was also suddenly being issued to some of the most disinterested and uninformed soldiers the US Army has likely ever produced.  Ball powder was used successfully prior to 1966 and has been used successfully ever since, so it was definitely not the problem.

The US Army had 191,354 M16 type rifles on hand in Vietnam as of 31 December 1967.  If you found me 2000 individual stories and pictures of people who kept their cleaning rods close at hand, that would still be ~1% of the rifles in Vietnam.  I think the thing here is not the number of people who swore by the cleaning rod, as the number who likely did not.

The problems no doubt existed with early XM16E1s, but from most accounts this was relatively quickly rectified for production M16A1s.

EDIT- I think the above post also has a lot of really good points, and the problem may not have been totally rectified because of the need for additional production.  What this means is that there was likely a lot of variability in the quality of the weapon used, even within the 1966-1967 time period.  One can also debate how much difference a chrome chamber would make on the ability to extract even with poor taper.  Furthermore, no one's made any comments about the fact that the environment changes widely between the lower Mekong and the Hue, and there's been no mention about mags and the general storing of ammunition either.

Excellent points to bring up.

After reading this new information, I am convinced that Colt caused the problems that occured with the new M16 with an overly tight chamber.  After chroming the chamber, the friction was reduced too much for the Edgewater buffer to handle, hence the need for the heavier buffer.

I also think that if Colt would have not screwed the pooch on the tight chambers, the M16A2, A4, M4, MK18, etc. might still not have chrome chambers and bores today.

The heavy buffers came out several months before barrels with chrome chambers became available.  The rifles the Marines had in the Spring of 1967 may or may not  have had heavy buffers, which were only introduced into production rifles in mid-December 1966.  Their rifles definitely did not have chromed chambers, which were introduced into production rifles in September 1967.

Some folks may want to consult a couple of articles I have written related to the subject:

5.56mm Timeline
The Great Propellant Controversy

OK, so I talked to my dad again about the rifle in Vietnam.  

Here is what he told me today:

He arrives in Vietnam in June 1967 and immediately goes north to the DMZ area.  He is with Kilo Co 3/9 Marines.  He is issued a NIB XM16E1.  He says it has the forward assist, 3 prong flash hider, and parkerized BCG.  I have a pic of it and it also has a partial fence lower.
Attached File


He is in a rifle platoon and sees his share of combat but has no trouble with his XM16E1.

About 1/2 way through his tour (I am guessing Dec 67 or Jan 68), Kilo Company is told to report to an area where there is a truck with two armorer in it that are inspecting rifles.  They wait in line to get the rifles looked at and everyone in line was excited to possibly get issued a brand new rifle.  They observe a pile of old rifle in the truck and another pile of boxes that contain new M16A1s with birdcage flash hiders.

When it is his turn, they inspect the barrel of his rifle and say that it is OK and hand it back to him.  He really wanted a new rifle because he thought that would be cool, so he bent the cleaning rod and started scraztching the chamber and bore all to hell so that they will give him a new one.

He goes through the line three times and each time they say his rifle is still OK.  At that point he thinks to himself, "Oh shit I hope I did not fuck up the barrel with my cleaning rod."

Several in his company got the new rifles with the birdcage, but not him.  He goes on to say that he did "go through" 5 or 6 rifles during his tour but it was not the function that was an issue.  I guess he broke some in combat or whatever.

He returns from Vietnam in July 1968.  He spent the entire time in country near the DMZ at places like The Rockpile, Ca Lu, OP Texas, Con Thien, Cam Lo, the hills surrounding Khe Sahn, and Camp Carrol.

Attached File

Not meant to be a flame against anybody in particular, and I wasn't a jarhead and hold no particular reverence for the infallibility of Their Beloved Corps, but......

I think we tend to forget that every rifle the United States military has fielded had issues of one form or another that got people killed.  Maynard tape primers on muskets were unreliable.  The extractors on the trap door Springfields would jam when hot, and the Krag was slow to reload in combat conditions.  The heat treatment on the low-numbered M1903 Springfields may, or may not, have caused them to blow up.  The fabled M1 Garand's original gas system had to be totally redesigned shortly after adoption, despite nearly two decades of development prior to its adoption.  It was also prone to freezing in extreme cold weather, and its rear sight had to be redesigned several times before it was considered reliable, all with a world war in progress.  The M14, to hear some folk talk, was just about perfect, but it only took the Army about 15 years from start of development to adoption in 1958, and even then, and now, it was pretty much uncontrollable in full auto fire, despite what you saw Tom Cruise do with one in the movie Born on the Fourth of July.

That the M16 was rushed into service and had issues when adopted is a fact, but the causes of those issues will be debated about as long as the low-numbered M1903 issue, which, if one cares to bop over to Culver's M1903 board and innocently inquire as to the safety of the low-numbered M1903, will still cause the fur to fly.  But what cannot be debated is that the rifle has served well for over 40 years, a record in U.S. service surpassed only by the M14 rifle, the M1911 pistol, the M2 machine gun, and the B-52 bomber, all of which went thru several upgrades through their service lives, and of course the M14 has been no where to be seen for several decades, until very recently.  

I had personal experience with the rifle that included monsoon conditions in the southern provinces of Viet Nam, dusty dry in the Central Highlands and way below zero temperatures in Alaska.  I can honestly say I experienced not a single jam, misfire or breakage, but by the time I showed up, we were taught to be psychotic about cleaning our rifles, and psychotic about making our people clean their rifles, and looking back I think also that most problem rifles were likely out of the system by that time as well.  But I respectfully defer to the experience and judgement of Major Culver and anyone else who happened be around when the rifle first started showing up in the field, without proper cleaning equipment and almost certainly without proper training in a war-time situation, confounded by bad ammo and likely problems with manufacturing tolerances and material specifications (chrome chamber, etc.).  Those problems were eventually correctly, but I would respectfully suggest that anyone who dismisses out-of-hand the experience of those such as Major Culver, who were force-fed the rifle under those early wretched conditions and saw some of their people get killed because of it, should consider reconsidering their position.  

Like the bumper sticker says, "if you didn't go, you wouldn't know"........it's not for nuthin' y'all see all those photos of rifles with cleaning rods taped to the side......

You still see cleaning rods taped to rifles because the rim on the cartridge is too thin and the case can be left in the chamber.

Evidence?

Older cousin taped his cleaning rod to his weapon.  I also recall him writing and asking for containers of anti-seize.  I also recall seeing photos of dead GI's and many times if you looked close, their weapons were open.  I believe it was a big problem.  I turned 18 in '72  and even back in Jr.High and high school, I had subscriptions to gun magazines.  Their consensus was the use of incorrect powder which caused a rise in cyclic rate beyond Stoner's recommendations, higher operating temps, and excess powder residue.  Improvements were made which consistently improved the weapon.  The powder was not changed but the charge was lowered to slow the cylic rate, first chrome chambers then full chrome bores.  It's my opinion they should have designed a new cartridge - one with more taper to the case making extraction much less of a problem in less than clean environments.  Just like JFK, we'll never know the whole story.  Another fiasco, in a long list of fiasco's, in a piece of crap war, that should make those who served there that much more deserving of our gratitude.

Of what?

The cleaning rods being taped to rifles that you indicate you still see.

Army Times article:



He did this because a Sergeant of his taught him to do so.

Do I see it?  Not with my own eyes.  But it does still happen.

That's what you think.  Maybe not 50% but a lot. M-16's and jungles just did not play well I assure you. A lot of good men died.  Just because someone was in a hurry to meet a deadline. Massive failure on a global level in my book.

The Army was well aware of the failures,  Dont let them BS you.  Nuf said.




 
 

Those are M4 carbines, but it seems limited to them. I haven't heard the same trouble being reported on the M16A2 and M16A4 rifles. Even the Marine test showed a much higher failure rate on the M4's than on the rifles.

I found what Mr. Stoner had to say to congress verry interesting. I found an excerpt here,,,,,  http://www.bobcat.ws/rifle.htm

I guess my info was, more or less, correct.  Higher operating temps and higher cycle rate caused by the use of incorrect powder.  All caused by the military.  I guess they thought they knew more about ammunition than the weapons designer.  The old right way, wrong way, and the army way thing again.

As I said, the Ichord report holds very little water.  In the bit of testimony that I believe you are referring to, Stoner is talking about the effect of cyclic rate on extraction when a case is momentarily obturated to the chamber wall.  He points out that this is a rare occurence he had only seen under limited conditions.  It certainly was not the principal problem in Vietnam.

No credible study or report has blamed ball powder for the extraction problems of 1965-67.  The switch to ball powder was the right thing to do.  I will also remind you that the switch to ball powder was not forced by the military, so it makes no sense laying the blame on them.

Did WC846 have issues? Sure. But there wasn't some huge Army conspiracy to force its use like the Ichord Subcommittee (and later authors) implied.

Frankly, too many people latch on to the name Improved Military Powder. "It is 'Improved'! It must be newer and better than the stuff that the Army was using." IMR is just a trade name. In 1914, it began to replace DuPont's turn of the century 'Military Rifle' (MR) line of powders. IMR 4475, the specific powder used by Remington for the early .223/5.56mm was introduced in 1936. The choice of a DuPont IMR type was pretty predictable given that DuPont owned Remington.

When Remington could cherry pick lots of IMR 4475 for loading small batches of .223, there wasn't a problem. However, when the USAF began ordering in bulk, the ammo began to show signs of excessive pressure such as dropping primers. The USAF was the first group to call for a change from IMR 4475 to an Olin Ball Powder (WC846), based on recommendations from Remington itself.  When the primary ammo manufacturer, who helped develop the cartridge, tells you that they need to switch powders, folks tend to listen.

The USAF and later the Army had used Remington's commercial TDP when drawing up the military specs. Yet, when it came time for the Army to order its first batches of ammo, all of the commercial ammo companies, including Remington, turned around and refused to bid. They all claimed that they could not stay within the pressure limits with IMR 4475 to achieve the velocity specs. What to do? They could have lowered the velocity, but the OSD shot that idea down (reportedly at the instance of the USAF). They could have raised the pressure specs, but they were already showing signs of excessive pressures. Ultimately, the Army caved in and agreed to temporarily raise the pressure specs.

But then Remington threw another curve ball and refused to load any more 5.56mm ammo with IMR 4475. The only other choice was to look for other powders. Candidates included DuPont's CR 8136 (another IMR type), Hercules' HPC-10, and Olin's WC846. The Army ultimately picked CR 8136 and WC846. Predictably, Remington chose to use CR 8136, while everyone else stayed with WC846. However, CR 8136 also proved to be twitchy from lot to lot, and Remington eventually pulled it from use in their 5.56mm ammo.

This led to yet another search by Frankford Arsenal for an alternate powder. While Olin declined to participate, two other propellants were submitted: DuPont's EX 8208-4 (yet another IMR type) and Hercules' HPC-11. The Army chose to qualify EX 8208-4 (later renamed IMR 8208) alongside the existing WC846. Again, everyone but Remington stuck with WC846.

LOL!

The problem was an empty case would stick in the chamber and the only way to get it out was to ram it with a cleaning rod.

There are two things that can lead to this problem, a bad chamber, or bad brass.

BTW, IMR powder is no longer authorized for use in M193, and has not been since extensive testing in 1968.  Only ball powder is authorized.

Ichord was a politician, not a firearms expert.  Someone had to take the blame.  Pinning it on the Troops was not an option, and pointing at Colt could also cause a political backlash from Connecticut’s Representatives.  The U.S. Army was a natural to take the fall, and they did make many mistakes, over, and over again.  However, mistakes were made by all involved parties.

Yes, chamber corrosion was a big problem for the unplated barrels, and Frankford Arsenal had not been allowed to dictate case hardness standards.  For the first, Stoner and the OSD are to blame.  Stoner didn't think chroming the chamber was necessary given the good grade of steel he had selected,  The Army wanted chrome chambers anyway, but taking Stoner's cousel, the OSD was too cheap to spend the extra ~$1 per rifle.  As for case hardness, the original military ammo TDP was based on Remington's commercial specifications.  Odds are that Remington used the same case hardness specs that would be appropriate for hunting or target ammo for a single shot or bolt action, but not for military ammo for an automatic weapon.  Combine corroded chambers with soft brass, and you get failures to extract.

If I'm not mistaken, 5.56x45mm has more case taper than a 7.62x51mm.  No one complains about extraction with 7.62x51mm military rifles and machineguns.

FWIW: FN experimented with a heavily tapered 5.56x45mm case back around 1968.  It you can see, it didn't go anywhere.

Increasing case taper will increase bolt thrust.  Combined with a high enough chamber pressure, this will make the bolt harder to open.  Easy extraction doesn't mean much if you can't get the bolt open in the first place.

Good discussion here:

http://archive.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=118&t=267601

I've read that you actually get better extraction from straighter cases.

High intensity, small caliber automatic weapons were a new frontier. There was a lot to learn. All the problems are nothing more than what you would expect when breaking new ground. The problem is that the weapons system was adopted too hastily.

The testing was done in VN. The cartridge and rifle were rammed down the Army's throat. The top brass didn't want it therefore their 'testing' of the rifle was not done with an eye toward adoption. Just the opposite, their 'testing' was done with an eye towards making sure the rifle was not adopted. When it was rammed down their throats by McNamara I think the Army brass said 'F**k it' and didn't give a damn what happened after that. If it failed it would be McNamara's ass not theirs.

It was the soldiers' asses that were on the line and they are the ones that paid the price for the country's civilian and military leadership not doing their job.

The US military learned the value of chrome-plated chambers during the Pacific campaign of WW2.  The Japanese Arisaka rifles have chrome lined chambers and bores, which resisted rusting much better than the unlined barrels of the US weapons in the humid jungle environment.  Due to this experience, it became an ordnance requirement for all new US military rifles to have a chrome lined bore and chamber.  

The next US military rifle was, of course, the M-14, which has had a chrome-lined chamber and bore from day one.  The result of this design feature was the M-14 has never had functional problems associated with rusty chambers.  No matter how good the grade of steel, if exposed to constant water and humidity, steel will rust.  Rough, rusty, pitted chambers will "grip" onto a cartridge case while under pressure, and will hold the case in the chamber, rather than let the extractor do its job.  This is what happened with the XM-16E1, when exposed to the severe climate in Vietnam, with no cleaning kits, and no hardness-spec. for the brass cartridge cases as added issues to compound the problem of "stuck" cases.

The M-14 and AK-47 both have chrome-lined bores and chambers and had no problems with extraction/stuck cases in the humid jungles of S.E. Asia.  The M-16A1 and newer M-16 variants also do not have these problems, due to the fact that chrome lining is now standard on these rifles as well.  It should've been that way right from the start.

If rusty chamber were the cause then why did this start in late 1966? How did it happen to newly issued rifles (as described by Culver).  In addition we had fought the Japs in the Pacific without benefit of chrome chambers.

By 1966 the weapon had almost ten years of testing completed, the majority of it showing that it was a better weapon than the M14 that it replaced.

As I said before, cleaning was the major issue.  Chrome lining the bores was an improvement.

To my mid, there have been around 20 changes between the M16 and the A2 version, only about five of which were real improvements.

The rest has been fixing something till it is broken.

The chrome chamber is an asset.

I personally think a lot of it was the out of spec chambers. Culver speaks of weapons issued in '65 IIRC. I thought Culver's remembrance of checking various specs on various ammo from different providers later on was very telling. Basically, I don't think the weapon was quite ready for use on the two-way range when it was issued. I also agree the Army brass wanted it to fail. Until the last few years I was never an AR guy - I have really learned respect for them. FWIW I have an early XM16E1 upper - very few rounds by the look of it. Wish I had the tools to gauge the chamber and compare it to my other ARs...

The early troop issues were to Special Forces and Airborne units, many of whom had a chance to train with their rifles prior to deployment to Vietnam.  By 1966, regular Infantry units were receiving them, many making the transition in country.

Rust doesn't take long to start in humid climates if you aren't taking care of it.  One of the archive items you sent me had a 12/3/67 article from the Baltimore Sun.  It stated that from one USMC battalion, 286 of 445 rifles inspected were going to need their barrels replaced due to corrosion in the chamber.  It also claims that when they were issued their new rifles in the Spring, Marines were told not to oil their weapons after cleaning.  This order was not rescinded until June.

We'll never know how many small arms were wrecked in the Pacific due to corrosion, or if troops died as a result.  In his book "Ordnance Went Up Front," Roy Dunlap indicated that when he served in the Pacific, he saw plenty of rifles that were turned in to Ordnance teams due to rusted bores.  In one of the official Ordnance Department histories of WW2, there were comments that many rifles were wrecked in the Papua New Guinea campaign.  Green US troops had tossed away their cleaning kits and oil bottles to save weight during their long march through the jungle.  Once they finally made contact with the enemy, problems arose with their weapons due to the lack of maintenance.  These troops were then forced to scrounge cleaning materiel from the corpses of Japanese troops killed in battle.  

In May 1967, John Garand was interviewed about the problems the M16 was having in Vietnam.  He noted that the M1 had also had problems in early combat.  Production quotas had been ramped up so quickly that Springfield was forced to use parts that would have otherwise been rejected.   He was quoted as saying "I questioned this and was told that it was better to have a gun jammed once in awhile than to have no gun at all. The answer shocked me."

Certainly the Army General Staff wanted nothing to do with the rifle.  However, judging from "The Black Rifle," AMC commander General Besson seemed very interested in Project Manager Colonel Yount's progress.  Moreover, some of the folks on the Technical Coordinating Committee, like Frankford Arsenal's Bill Davis, appeared to be selected specifically because of their previous SCHV work.  One of the biggest impediments to the rifle's development seem to have been the Secretary of Defense and his staff.  They had drunk the Kool-Aid that the AR-15 and its ammo were a fully developed, perfectly perfect, Commercial Off the Shelf product that needed no additional work prior to issue.  They wanted the rifle issued, and they wanted it done NOW.

Dunlap's comments are on Pg 215 in my copy:

"The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront", Pg 81: