From:
http://www.jouster.com/articles30m1/M16part2.html


"Hey Major" said the Gunner, "I've got something down here you need to see!"

"What's that Gunner," I replied.

"Major, we've got bullets sticking in the target faces!" said Luke.

"The hell you say Gunner?" sez I, "wait one, I'll be right there!"

    I called a cease fire and headed for the butts in the safety vehicle. When I got there I could hardly believe my eyes!  Sure enough, there were a number of projectiles that hadn't completely penetrated the multiple target faces at 500 yards. For a moment, I considered that the Gunner might just be pulling my chain, and inserting spent projectiles in the bullet holes for a joke. Two things changed my mind. First, while Dave Luke has a sense of humor, it doesn't run to things like that, and secondly all the projectiles stuck in the target faces showed no evidence of having struck anything more solid than a thick piece of paper. Not only that, but Dave was a professional range officer and we were conducting practice for a Battalion requalification program. Any undue delays would have reflected unfavorably on Dave's ability and he was not one to have allowed anything to interfere with his duties unless he considered it extremely important.

Same page and it gets better.

An Analysis by the Bad Guys:

    During my latter days with 2/3 I served as the Battalion Intelligence Officer. One of the reports that came in was an intercepted message from the Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists). The VC were not as well equipped as the NVA (the North Vietnamese Army - the regular Vietnamese Army people who operated primarily in the North just south of the DMZ).

    We as Marines, usually policed all (or as much as we could find) of our equipment left on the battle field by our wounded. Most of course, was sent to the rear with the wounded man, but there would occasionally be items on the battle field by the departing units. The VC used this recovered equipment to equip there own rather meager supplies as would any good guerilla force. The intercepted document reinforced this practice, exhorting the VC troops to police the battle fields for usable equipment. This document however, had one telling exception to the rule. It stated that all equipment was to be picked up with the exception of "the little black rifle" which is useless to our cause!

    I knew exactly what they were talking about!

RIGHT!

TOTAL B.S. !!! The enemy called the M-16 the "Black Stick" and valued it as a status symbol, because they as REAL WARRIORS appreciated the things that make it the best: lighter weight, higher firepower and rugged reliabity(!). Don't believe that last one? In the course of the investigation of the M-16 failing in combat, Colt field techs found that the VC kept the weapon much cleaner than American soldiers, because the enemy was more disciplined than we were...source: Ezell, "The Great Rifle Controversy".

What's that sound I hear?  Oh, my bullshit alarm is going off again.

That article wasn't written by Hackworth was it?

You biased losers. The article was written by a real Marine who saw real service in Vietnam. He's not making it up. Your bullshit alarm is defective.

M16 sucks! M14 RULES!!!!

Buy a real rifle. Dump your toy.

M16 sucks! M14 RULES!!!! Buy a real rifle. Dump your toy.

Then why are you here? AR15.com Get it!
GO TO M14.com where you will fit in.

Quoted: You biased losers. The article was written by a real Marine who saw real service in Vietnam. He's not making it up. Your bullshit alarm is defective. M16 sucks! M14 RULES!!!! Buy a real rifle. Dump your toy.

I already did! I have my AR-10!

Damn, my father still maintains that his M16 had "Mattel" on it.

Here we go again.

From a ballistics standpoint it doesn't make sense.  All the bullets that hit target would have maintained a certain amount of velocity.  Some not punching cardboard would imply that there was no velocity behind the bullet.  If the bullet had no velocity it would have never hit paper at 500 yards(fired from the same trajetory as the rest that did).  Just my 2 cents.  Perhaps a person with some ballistics or physics background can elaborate.

Quoted: You biased losers. The article was written by a real Marine who saw real service in Vietnam. He's not making it up. Your bullshit alarm is defective. M16 sucks! M14 RULES!!!! Buy a real rifle. Dump your toy.

This one really makes the BS alarm go off.  Who says he was a real Marine who saw real service in 'nam.  The part about the NVA being mostly in North Vietnam or the northern part of South Vietnam shows he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Uh, I think the BS in abundance here.  Anyone who has worked the butts during rifle qualification will tell you that the 5.56 is still supersonic at 500 meters (you hear the little sonic boom as a "crack" sound).  Rounds that hit the wooden strapping target frames don't seem to have any problem penetrating them.  Plus any round moving slow enough to be stopped by the paper, would be in the dirt long before 500m.  Think of the trajectory of a BB gun.

Quoted: From a ballistics standpoint it doesn't make sense.  All the bullets that hit target would have maintained a certain amount of velocity.  Some not punching cardboard would imply that there was no velocity behind the bullet.  If the bullet had no velocity it would have never hit paper at 500 yards(fired from the same trajetory as the rest that did).  Just my 2 cents.  Perhaps a person with some ballistics or physics background can elaborate.

You do NOT need to be a rocket scientist to see that this is true.

Anyone here would realize that a bullet travelling at a 'much less than normal velocity' would not even make it to a 500 yd target, let alone stick into the target and stay there.

A bullet with a velocity high enough to keep it 'on target' would have penetrated as normal.

Complete BS.

Quoted: You biased losers. The article was written by a real Marine who saw real service in Vietnam. He's not making it up. Your bullshit alarm is defective. M16 sucks! M14 RULES!!!! Buy a real rifle. Dump your toy.

OK, if you believe it, then why don't you go out to 500 yards, hold up a target, and let me know if the bullets penetrate.  Sound good?  And to give you a better chance, I'll even be using a 16" barrel as opposed to the 20" they would have been using in the "story".  That means even LESS velocity.  

You should be totally safe, right?  Right?  

What pisses me off is that there is no M14.com.
Type in that url and you end up at some racing site.  Gee, and I thought where was another good gun site to hang out.

  Vulcan94

The story that I've always heard was from early advisors using m16s prior to the powder change and jamming problem, was that the rifle was very desirable on both sides and the terrible wounds inflicted by the lightly stablized bullet from the 1/12 twist barrel had the VC referring to the rifle as the "Black monster".

People talk shit all the time, the fact that some one was in the military and served in a combat zone doesn't mean they know shit about a weapon other that it was issued to them.

How many of you have a father or uncle that served in WWII or Korea that will tell you the 45 kicked like a mule and you could hit the broad side of a barn with it. I had an uncle that used to tell us that the 12 pound thompson was uncontrolable but the m2 carbine was the finest killing machine ever developed.

Knowning what I do about firearms I think his bias in favor of the M2 had more to do with its light weight and ease of handling  more than anything else.

The black rifle was and is a first rate killing machine. Its not the only good weapons system out there, and it may not be the best. But it is certainly one of the best.