A public controversy over the M-16, the basic combat rifle in Vietnam, begins after Representative James J. Howard (D-New Jersey) reads a letter to the House of Representatives in which a Marine in Vietnam claims that almost all Americans killed in the battle for Hill 881 died as a result of their new M-16 rifles jamming. The Defense Department acknowledged on August 28 that there had been a “serious increase in frequency of malfunctions in the M-16.”

The M-16 had become the standard U.S. infantry rifle in Vietnam earlier in 1967, replacing the M-14. Almost two pounds lighter and five inches shorter than the M-14, but with the same effective range of over 500 yards, it fired a smaller, lighter 5.56-mm cartridge. The M-16 could be fired fully automatic (like a machine gun) or one shot at a time.

Because the M-16 was rushed into mass production, early models were plagued by stoppages that caused some units to request a reissue of the M-14. Technical investigation revealed a variety of causes for the defect, in both the weapon and ammunition design, and in care and cleaning in the field. With these deficiencies corrected, the M-16 became a popular infantry rifle that was able to hold its own against the Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifle used by the enemy.

early malfunctions were due to the powder being used. Once they changed the powder the guns were as good as they are today the forward assist was a great step forward.

Still crazy, after all these years.

pressure from 51kpsi max to 55kpsi max (latest ammo 61kpsi), and zero, ZERO cleaing kits to US Army, and bare steel bores and chambers. AND repeating same pressure problems via higher pressure carbine system, shooting even slower bullets. The new NEW Army ammo is getting the heavier bullets back up to speed, at 3000rd bolt failure costs.

Shoot a 20", use .223 instead of NATO, use a collapsible buttstock with H3 buffer to make it suorisingly handy (or same buffer in carbine, or an even heavier 9mm buffer, which mitigates a fair amount of shorter gas system problems), and keep it wet, as in a single drop of CLP at bolt vent, bolt shank/extractor, internal rails and bottom of charging handle, whenever it appears dry and it will run 5000rds before it slows enough it short strokes and requires cleaning. Can squeeze maybe another 500rds out of it via swapping to lighter buffer when it slows.

Main problems have ALWAYS been the Army messing with ammo or gun design.

not NATO measured at distance, and not SAAMI 24"bbl. What the Army wanted right off was their 20" to equal a 24". It makes a difference in tumbling/fragmentation, moving limit from circa 100yds to 150yds.

Of course, then they went M855 heavier bullet putting them right back to 3100fps in a 20", then shortened barrel, taking them to under 2900fps, and boosted pressure (and cyclic rates). And wonder why it broke, with bolts trying to unlock while chamber pressure still high in carbines.

It needed improving, but they improved it for wrong reasons, to operate more and more outside design parameters. Shoot a new and improved material processes bolt, extractor, etc, in 20", using .223, and you have one heck of a modern gun.

Expect shorter service life with any other change or permutation.

tbe ONLY thing it does is save a live round, maybe. Think about it. You NEED forward assist if you ride the charging handle and it does not lock. Without thenforward assist, you would simply rerack the charging handle.

If it does not close fully enough for extractor to grab rim, likely no amount of pounding it forward will do anything but hopeless jam a cartridge deeper into a chamber with serious problems. Stoner was against it for that reason, as the Army problems at the time were heavily rusted and filthy chambers, lacking maint and chrome for tropics.

Personally, I like it, my time in service was the A1, trained to hit the thing, to no purpose, as most malfunctions were double feeds in heavily worn weapons ofenormous round count and hammering the assist only made it worse. But, what it does for me, past habit, is to allow absent minded charging handle riding, while not risking a perfectly new round being ejected and bouncing onto concrete.

I am old enough to remember this and my memory tells me the rifle was developed with stick powder and the military ammo used ball powder. This was the nexus of the issue. Dr-Slide was developed as a dry lubricant and this helped a bunch.

Firstly, it seems Remington inflated velocity figures, or cherry-picked lots of early test ammo, and later tests of gun/ammo were not reaching a real circa 3250fps MV. Secondly, the Army had vast reserves of the ball powder which they substituted, and it was dirtier and loaded to higher pressure.

The dirtier problem is a simple fix, which is clean the gun. The original powder gave the impression it would never need cleaning, when the only part of self cleaning to be true is the gas tube, where temps still high enough no condensation/deposits from cooling gas.

Meanwhile, the suddenly converting to M16 Army, who really wanted to stick with their M14 to point of cooking data and skewing tests, fielded the weapons without any provision for cleaning a bare steel barrel and chamber in the tropics. A big part of that was they really thought they had a program ready to sprout forth at any minute a new gun, which would eclipse both the M16 and M14, and they were buying the M16 under duress, and quite convinced it was only a short term fill-in, and paid it almost no mind at all, and set it up for failure.

Back to the switch to the stocks of ball powders, tests were positive in getting the targeted velocity, and they were goal fixated on that velocity. It WAS noted that cyclic rate had increased, and so they changed the weapon specs to match this higher higher observed rate. Only Stoner noted the cyclic rate increase reflected a higher pressure, and how this would change timing out of spec, and eat up 10% engineering safety margin in pressure. And he was ignored.

Turned out it was so fast that bolt bounce and light strikes became common, and a heavier buffer was required. And then bolts started cracking from all the above added stresses. It also turns out early chrome plating of bolt and carrier induced embrittlement to surface of actual steel, fyi.

It was a costly lesson in buying an off the shelf item, and then mucking with it, while having no clue how it works. So, of course, Big Army cintinued to do so, reintroducing many of the exact same problems on a magnified scale, by shortening gas system for even higher pressure, and continuing to boost pressure in every type of ammo adopted since then.

Buffer weights have been progressively increased, buffer springs stiffened in the shorter guns, chroming bolts dropped, specified Carpenter 158 steel heat treated and shot peened for bolts, etc, in compensation, of sorts, to handle these ever higher pressures introduced.

Flipping back again to the powders, the fix(es) were adoption of a cleaner burning succession of ball powders, and ball is standard in all .223/5.56 loads today.

All of which why I say, if you want the gun to run the way it originally designed, and it was outstanding, including early special unit use of same, the special units actually cleaning their guns, and these the non-chromed guns, then going original 20" pressure and dwell time, shooting original spec pressure ammo such as .223 55gr FMJBT, and utilizing improved parts and processes developed for handling modern ill advised pressure hikes, will yield a smooth shooting, reliable, long lasting gun matching the original promise of all those years ago.

Any messing with shorter gas systems and/or higher pressure ammo will introduce compromises to the integrity of the system, and "fixes" never adequate for repairing the degradation of the balance. Same as installing a heavier recoil spring in your fave handgun to shoot those fave hotter loads, you may stop battering on the rearward stroke, but you also just added a huge amount of battering to the area/parts of gun which keep the slide from flying off the end. Better to operate WITHIN design.

were in feed and extraction. Higher pressure/higher cyclic rates outstripped magazine ability to feed. Higher residue pressure at extraction had extraction failure, and higher cyclic rates also outstripped extractor ability to rebound and grab, or slam shut so hard that the extractor bounced off rim.

So, of course, after fixing those, they did it again with the carbines and new ammo, and had to "fix" it, again.

They bought an off the shelf and untried weapon, which simply needed a bit more test time to find and address any weaknesses, which were few. But, they fielded it, instead, under tremendous pressure to be up to date, and truly not giving a hoot about the gun and hoping it failed.

And, again, simply by shooting original ammo in original gun, and clean when needed, and all these "problems" go away.

due to all the replicas on the market.

Only the US Army, Colt, and now FN, privy to the entire data package describing and specifying all materials, heat treats, alloys, clearances and why, and etc, same as the 1911.

Any replica is something reverse engineered, much of it guesswork, and many cheaper replicas today make no attempt to even copy spec. Even many more expensive versions go their own way, claiming radical improvement.

To date, I am unaware of any "improvement" taking the market by storm due to verifiable lasting improvment, nor has the military adopted any such thing, and they have tried bunches of them.

Meanwhile, all these "ARs" are outstripping made to spec guns in a 20:1 flood, or maybe 200 or 2000:1 ratio. As these replicas age and die, explode, whatever, and they will, a generation or two down the road will have your average person as soon hold lit dynamite as play with one of those dangerous things.

Well, I have never owned nor shot one of these rifles.I also have no desire to either own or shoot one. Therefore, most of your stuff goes in and out of my head without making brain contact.

I do have an opinion on the every popular 1911 platform that is similiar to yours. The more makers deviate from Browning design and original loading, the more problems will be encountered.

much as if the Army had suddenly, under tremendous political pressure, adopted a 1908 version of the Browning, without further testing and needed redesign. And then decided to use +P. A manmade disaster.

Replicas deviate too much to list, and most of it ordered to cost cutting. Or basic ignorance of, "This step (or process) seems a time waster, so, we can skip that." So long as it "looks like it" is all that matters, so that it sells.

50 years on, we've managed to work through most of the problems with the AR series of rifles. The bugs have been worked out, and you'd be hard pressed to find something that works as well. No gun has zero deficiencies, but the AR/M4 has very few, on the whole. I've seen many of them come through training classes, and it's easy to trace back any problems to either ammo or operator. Once those issues are solved, things get much easier.