Comments

1. On May 3, 2023 at 10:44 pm, The Ecstasy of Gold said:

   Two of the best ever.
   Got to shoot at a Garand as a youngster at water filled anti-freeze containers which were vaporized.
   Probably the best shooting day ever for me.
   We also got to fire an automatic .45 UZI as HS bud’s family were gun shop owners.
   Pumped rounds into a huge mound of dirt and a mag would go within seconds.

2. On May 3, 2023 at 11:27 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

   There are skeptics and fans of modern designs who scoff at the M-14, calling it no more than a “Garand with a detachable magazine.” This view is perhaps understandable, but it is short-sighted since the improvements made to the design are actually more far-ranging than that.

   As author and firearms expert LeRoy Thompson writes in his Osprey Military title (Weapon #37) “The M14 Battle Rifle,” it is not possible to assess the rifle and its design without taking into account the era in which it was conceived and the controversy which sometimes surrounded it. And indeed, the post-war era of the late 1940s and 1950s was a transitional era in the design of military small-arms.

   At the time NATO was formed, the U.S. was both its biggest source of funds and the keystone member of the alliance, the one nation essential to its existence in the first place. It was joked back in those days that NATO was formed “To keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out…”

   Naturally, since the U.S. was the big duck in the puddle, our ordnance people’s views held sway much of the time, a fact not always to the liking of our allies such as Great Britain.

   During that time, Fabrique National-Herstal and the Brits were working on the design that became the famous FN FAL battle rifle, as well as some other designs – including the EM-2 bull-pup rifle – along with some advanced ammunition for them to fire. The British had designed a number of intermediate or near-intermediate cartridges, most notably the 280 British, which featured a 139-140 grain projectile with a muzzle velocity of about 1545-2550 fps.

   American ordnance authorities, most notably Colonel Rene Studler, head of the Small Arms Development Branch – Army Ordnance, voted down the 280 British, telling the British and Belgians that if they accepted the 7.62 NATO, that the U.S. would adopt the new FN FAL. FN converted their new rifle to use the new cartridge. The FAL took part in the mid-1950s service rifle trials, and acquitted itself well – but the U.S. decided upon the M-14 instead.

   The new 7.62x51mm 147-grain M80 cartridge delivered ballistic performance equivalent to the old M2 Ball 30-06 round, but out of a case which was 12mm shorter.

   Studler was vindicated in the sense that the 7.62x51mm M80 round did turn out to be an excellent, even superb, battle rifle and general-purpose machine gun cartridge, but even its fans could not claim it was in any way an intermediate cartridge on par with the German 7.92×33 Kurz or for that matter, the Russian 7.62×39.

   Why the British did not stick to their proverbial guns and keep developing their 280 remains a mystery to firearms historians. Sooner or later, recalcitrant arms experts in the U.S. and British arms development establishments would retire and/or be replaced by more-forward looking officers… and perhaps then, the fresh thinking on their part would get its day.

   In any case, despite its somewhat tempestuous beginnings, the M-14 proved to be a very good service rifle. Detractors claim that it is too traditional in its appearance and features, and find it lacking in comparison to the FN FAL, the German G3 and other competitors. These criticisms have some merit, but they are also ahistorical, meaning that they do not take into account the historical milieu in which the M-14 was developed.

   The U.S. Rifle, .30-caliber, M-1 rifle, a.k.a. the “Garand,” was and still is one of the most-important service rifles ever designed and one of the most-important small arms developments of the 20th century. It is hard to overstate the impact that it had on the thinking of U.S. ordnance experts, especially given the fact that M-1 was still being used operationally – and used successfully and well – when the search for a replacement began in the latter part of the 1940s.

   Against this background, it is perhaps unrealistic to expect that the war-winning Garand would not supply much of the impetus for the next generation service rifle. Military ordnance people – in particular the senior officers in that field – tend to be conservative in their outlook on technology. Because the consequences for failure are measured in blood and men lost in battle, what works tends to be repeated or at least copied, and there is no denying that John Garand’s self-loading rifle had worked, spectacularly in fact.

   The now-infamous Colonel Studler is – in certain circles – now roundly criticized and dismissed as a pompous lightweight, an aging officer whose prejudices got in the way of common sense. That view is again perhaps understandable in retrospect, but it does not dovetail with common sense or what history tells us.

   The senior officers of that time, your field-grades and general and flag officers, were almost without exception men who had been born in the 19th century (or at most, the early 20th) and who came of age in the Great War and the other wars of the first half of the 20th century. Expecting these men to adopt futuristic looking designs which to them looked like something out of a Buck Rogers serial film, is probably simply a bridge too far.

   To give you an idea of how backward these men were, relatively-speaking, concerning new trends and developments in small arms design, the Army Ordnance Dept. still referred to the AK47 as a “submachine gun” even in 1960!

   Like its parent firearm, the M-1, the M-14 has superb sights, a superb trigger and is capable of excellent accuracy if the user does his part. Most firearms authorities consider it the most-accurate design of the three major Cold War era battle rifles, namely, the FN FAL, H&KG3, and M-14.

   All three are high-quality designs, but the American service rifle proved itself to be the most-accurate right of the box, and the U.S. Army proved it by making an accurized M-14 their standard-issue sniper rifle of the Vietnam War. The top-scoring U.S. sniper of that conflict, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Adelbert “Bert” Waldron, used one while he racked up 109 confirmed kills. Including a confirmed enemy KIA from the prow of a moving riverine patrol craft against a V.C. on shore later measured to be over 900 yards away.

   Ironically, the proponents of small caliber-intermediate cartridges and weapons for them, got their pound of flesh eventually. Defense Secretary McNamara abruptly cancelled the M-14 production program in 1964, in favor of the new Armalite AR15, known as the M-16 in U.S. military service.

   Although the AR15 later became an excellent platform, its introduction into service in Vietnam was an unqualified disaster, so much so that Congressional hearings were held in 1967, the so-called Ichord Hearings- to investigate the fiasco.

   What can be said about the legendary M-1 Garand which has not already been said?

   The M-1 soldiered on with the U.S. Navy – who did not adopt the new M-14 immediately, but instead elected to re-barrel their existing stocks of M-1s in 7.62 NATO (a short-lived period with chamber inserts did not work out), until the 1980s and beyond, and the M-1 also saw extensive service with reserve and National Guard units, as well as with allies overseas, well into the 1980s, and in some cases, the 1990s, before finally being retired.

   The Danish and Greek Armies used Garands until the 1990s, and even today, surplus “lend-lease” M-1s are still being repatriated to the U.S. from those and other places. Up until maybe a decade ago, it was possible to buy Greek HXP 30-06 M2 Ball surplus ammo in bulk for very reasonable prices.

3. On May 3, 2023 at 11:28 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

   Sorry about that…

   “most notably the 280 British, which featured a 139-140 grain projectile with a muzzle velocity of about 1545-2550 fps.”

   Should read “2545-2550 fps”…

4. On May 3, 2023 at 11:43 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

   Re: “The thick jungles of Vietnam, a conflict the U.S. was only entering, is one of the principal reasons for that small number. The gun’s heft and long length made it less than optimal in the thick cover and fast-moving engagements. In 1964, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered the M16 to replace the M14. The M16 is a shorter, nimbler platform that lives on today as the M4 and its variants.”

   (From the “Wideners” article cited)

   I am personally acquainted with 6-8 somewhat older men now in their seventies, who served in combat in the Vietnam War, as U.S. Army soldiers, Marines or in one case, a Navy FMF Corpsman. At a BBQ & party some years ago, to welcome home the son of one of the men who had just competed a tour as an army 11B in Iraq, I took the time to ask these men what they thought of their service rifles as-issued during that conflict.

   To a man, they all hated and despised the “black rifle,” which they started off by terming “that poodle shooter,” and moved on to harsher and more-profane terms I won’t repeat here. They also called it “the Mattel Rifle,” after the famous maker of plastic model kits. On the other hand, they all spoke very highly of the M-14, calling it a weapon they would trust their lives to if it ever came to that again. In particular, they praised its knockdown power, range, accuracy and reliability under harsh conditions.

   They said that the intermediate 5.56x45mm M193 55-grain round fired by the M-16 could be effective, if one could get the rifle to run reliably, but that it was inconsistent in performance and was too-easily deflected by the heavy vegetation of the jungles in SE Asia. They also said that the much-ballyhooed larger ammo load often turned out to be a wash, since it often took multiple shots to bring down an enemy “tango” for good, whereas the hard-hitting 7.62 NATO M80 Ball brought ’em down and kept ’em down for good, as they put it.

   The coda to the story came when the son, the just-returned-from-Iraq soldier, walked by. We handed him an adult beverage and asked him about his issue weapon, a late model M16. He said it performed well, did what it was supposed to do, and never let him down.

5. On May 4, 2023 at 6:57 am, jrg said:

   My Uncle, now deceased served in Europe during WWII in Italy. His rifle was the Garand.

   Many years later, I purchased a Garand and visiting him, handed him the rifle case without telling him its contents. “Its not a gift – just for looking at’ I explained. Unzipping the case, his eyes lit up and a involuntary smile crossed his face. I’ve never seen him so happy in all my Life. The way he examined it, I could see the years melt away.

   Made that old soldier happy.

6. On May 4, 2023 at 7:08 am, Latigo Morgan said:

   Not a bad article. There were a couple small errors in it, but it was otherwise fair.

   As someone who owns both, I’d say from a soldier’s perspective, I’d prefer the M14 for the ammo capacity. But, as a civilian militiaman, I’d be confident with either one.

   I was into the M14 years before I ever messed with a Garand, which I greatly regret as I’ve found the Garand such a pleasure to shoot, and know I could have stockpiled a mess of them when they were much cheaper to come by. They say with age comes wisdom. I think wisdom took the long way around, and stopped off for dinner before it reached me.

7. On May 4, 2023 at 12:23 pm, Ozark Redneck said:

   I think both are great guns. I enjoy shooting both of them, also carried the Springfield Armory M1A Socom 16″ in the woods a few seasons before the Ruger SFAR came along. That’s another nice gun, although still heavy. A few years back one of my former boy scouts was back from basic training, and wanted to come shooting at my range. He was a big fan of playing ‘Call of Duty’, so he wanted to shoot WWII guns. My M1 Garand shooter was a ‘Blue Sky’ import from the late 1980s- early 1990s I think I paid $300 for, I replaced the barrel with a new one. He shot that gun all afternoon. It got so hot it was dripping cosmoline out of the front hand guards. Such a joy!

8. On May 4, 2023 at 1:15 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

   @ JRG

   “My Uncle, now deceased served in Europe during WWII in Italy. His rifle was the Garand.”

   An uncle on my wife’s side of the family, who died a few years ago, was in the U.S. Army and served in the Korean conflict in combat as an infantryman, during 1950-1951. I had the chance to ask him about the Garand one time, if memory serves, one Sunday afternoon when a bunch of us were gathered around the dining room table.

   Uncle Charlie grew silent for a moment, and then said “If it wasn’t for my M-1, I doubt I’d be sitting here today.” He went on to say that his Garand was the reason he was able to survive combat against the human wave tactics of the Chi-Com forces.

   In my many years (five decades now) of doing military history, I have never run across a man equipped with a Garand who later spoke badly of it. That’s a pretty heavy-duty endorsement, if you ask me.

9. On May 5, 2023 at 5:37 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

   A few odds-and-ends gleaned from reading about the histories of these and other famous military-pattern small arms….

   A frequent criticism of Cold War-era battle rifles chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO is that they are difficult if not virtually impossible to control when fired on full-auto. This criticism is valid, because the 7.62 NATO M80 cartridge is in no sense of the word an “intermediate” or reduced power load in comparison to similar loads used in the latter part of the 19th century or the first half of the 20th century.

   The Rhodesian light infantry – such as the famous Selous Scouts – fielded by that nation during the communist insurgency of the 1960s and 1970s, are widely regarded by military historians and other authorities as among the finest units of their type ever fielded. They termed their small units “sticks” and within these squad or fire-team sized units, they generally armed the men with FN FAL battle rifles and at least one general-purpose machine gun, such as a BREN (7.62 NATO modified, usually) or an FN FALO – the select-fire version of the basic rifle, equipped with a bipod and other modifications to enable to be used in such a role.

   Despite the presence of a GPMG, these patrols found that they could often prevail in encounters with the enemy simply by using accurate and rapid semi-automatic fire.

   “Drake shooting” was stressed; the idea was to fire into the ground at or just in front of the feet of the enemy formation, since the dry ground of the African savanna was so hard that it would ricochet or deflect the shots upward into the mass of enemy soldiers, as well as dirt, stone chips, vegetation debris, and so forth. This would not only act as fragments or shrapnel, but would often blind the enemy, too, thereby delaying his response that much more.

   The GPMGs were typically used in select-fire to establish contact or to break contact, or in emergencies. Otherwise, these gunners also tried to conserve their ammunition as much as possible.

   In other words, even though the ordnance people might have classed their select-fire FALOs or full-auto Brens as general-purpose machine guns, the troopers tended to use them sparingly more along the lines of a true automatic rifle, like the Browning Automatic Rifle. Full-cyclic operation only infrequently, and always limited in duration so as not to burn out the barrel. Brens were sometimes preferred since the design had a QD barrel replacement feature, and the FAL did not come with this feature.

   An old WW2 infantryman told me once that the way a man would tame something like a BAR would be to turn the automatic rifle on its side as it was brought to bear on the enemy target. The idea was to pull the trigger and let the recoil impulse “pull” or draw the muzzle across the target and through it. This method also worked with submachine guns.

   A like method can be used for harnessing the potent recoil impulse of the 7.62 NATO round, if firing a FAL, G3, M14 or BM-59 or similar weapon.

   Obviously, it is not always feasible or safe to stand on the battlefield, but if conditions permitted standing, an automatic rifle could be cradled in one’s arms and braced against the hip. Slung with the strap or not.

   Trigger control is paramount in using one of these powerful rifles. That’s how smaller, less-heavy men managed to tame these hard-hitting weapons and even become expert with them.

   The biggest mistake modern designers made in trying to make the post-war generation of select-fire battle rifles – the M14, G3, FN FAL, etc. – was to make them too light. In physics terms, there is no free lunch: If you are going to fire a powerful cartridge from a relatively lightweight and relatively unsupported weapon, it is going to result in greater real and felt recoil and more difficulty in controlling the muzzle.

   John Browning, that great genius of firearms design, knew this well …. which is why the BAR weighed what it did. Browning knew that sometimes, a bit of extra weight or heft is your friend, when it comes to shouldering a rifle.

10. On May 5, 2023 at 10:41 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

    One other note: The “sticks” – which usually fielded with at least one GPMG – not only used select-fire FALs and Brens, but the FN MAG as well. Which is of course one of the preeminent general-purpose machine gun designs of the latter half of the 20th century.

11. On May 6, 2023 at 3:23 pm, PGF said:

    Thanks for all great comments. I’m gonna re-link this on social to recommend the comments.

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