Iraq/Afghan vets, report on the M16/M4.

How did your rifle perform

  • Very well, never had a problem

    Votes: 72 50.3%
  • Good, had some minor issues

    Votes: 54 37.8%
  • Bad, had some big issues

    Votes: 12 8.4%
  • Horrible, it nearly got me killed

    Votes: 5 3.5%

  • Total voters
    143
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I dont remember my unti having any problems with the Aimpoints. The only one that I can vivdly remember breaking got shot off a guys rifle. That will make you pee yourself...

So someone voted that their rifle almost got them killed, but wont tell about it.......
 
I have not deployed for combat, but I have never experienced a stoppage with any M-16 family weapon using live ammo. The only problems I have had were with blanks, and even then I usually found that if I switched out magazines, to find the newest-looking one with the best feed lips and mag release hole, it worked a lot better.

I just had a discussion at WLC with a guy who insisted that we should switch to a rifle with a piston system, because it would be more reliable. He had never fired one, but wouldn't be convinced otherwise. So I started, I told about when I had fired 500 straight rounds from a Bushmaster M-4 without a single stoppage, and went all around the room, asking guys who were various flavors of infantry, cavalry, and other combat MOSs, (Including a former Marine who had been deployed,) not one of them had ever had a stoppage with an M-16. Keep it reasonably clean, shut the dust cover, it will do what you need it to, when you need it to do it.
 
It is true that blanks suck. There is no reason in the world they should be used any more. Live ammo or nothing. Do other training with simunitions.
 
I was in Saudi, Kuwait, and Iraq the first time. In my 8 years in the Corps, I had one ftf out of countless thousands of rounds fired through my issued M16a2's in both training and combat. That includes in the jungle, and in the desert. Granted, after growing up hearing the never ending number of complaints about it from all of my fathers cronies, I kept my rifle as clean as I could at all times. I always have thought that the 5.56 is an underpowered round, and should have never replaced the 7.62.And if I had a choice, I'd rather carry one of the new piston driven uppers, than the standard gas system, but if I ever have to carry a rifle again, if they hand me an M16 of any sort, I'll do my best to keep it clean and keep her shooting straight.
 
I've got a little different take, I was in Iraq from kick off to the end of 03', got as far north as Tikrit. My company was split up and attached to "the wing" and did FARP and convoy security the majority of the time. I can't say that I trusted my A2 to fire a second shot, ever. But I should say that it usually did. The handicap for us was that all our CLP was shipped in CONNEX boxes, well guess what never showed up. That left us with whatever CLP we had in the butt stock of the rifle, which we needed to divvy up with our crew serves to keep them up. I know that a lot of you will say that's not the rifles fault, and that's a fair observation that I wont dispute, but I question if a rifle should have to be lubed regularly to function. Wars don't necessarily lend themselves to regular weapons maintenance. When the rifle is properly lubed, it's a sand magnet, and sand isn't a friend of that bolt carrier and upper receiver/chamber. Since we were rolling in the back of the pick-up style hummers we ate A LOT of sand, especially in that big sand storm at the beginning of the war, and that sand was really fine like baby powder; it got in everything. I had 3 of the Marines in my squad cleaning their rifles at all times to keep them functional. I really didn't care for the A2 unless I was on the rifle range. I did absolutly love my ACOG though, best piece of gear i ever purchased.
 
We also ran short on CLP and cleaning supplies, but knew we would. By the time I got over in 2004 I was on the reserve side of the house, and we knew something was up when we were issued brand new unfired M16A4's in the summer of 2003, but got no new cleaning gear for the company.

So all the Marines went out and bought our own cleaning supplies. My folks and wife would send me care packets with Miltech lube, and TW25b along with patches and Q-Tips. Kept my squad in functional weapons at the very least, but pisses a guy off that that gear was not provided.

In a pinch we would use motor oil, and ATF to lube weapons. It actually works pretty well in fact.
 
They didn't have the mail up and running all that smooth for a while, about a month or two to get letters, packages who knows. So what we packed on our person or in our seabags was all we got. Everything was so fluid there was no good way for them to get the mail to us. Crew serves didn't like motor oil all that much, ATF not a lot better. but better than nothing. We kept our cleaning gear on us, but were ASSURED that the CLP would be plentiful and waiting when we stepped off the bird. I can't believe that I fell for that one! They couldn't get us the right gear to train half the time, why would it change going across the globe.
 
magazines

APIT50 said:
Did one of my deployments as an armorer... Mags were 99% of the problems

1. Would moving to something like the PMAG reduce the magazine-related failures? What if they used thicker metal?

2. In an old promotion video for the AR-10 (when it was squaring off against the M14), Armalite advertised the magazines as being thrown away while in combat. That seems like it would reduce the mag-feeding problems, the expensive of cost and logistics.
 
7 months in Somalia in 1992 as a Marine (1371)

2 years, 9 months in Iraq as a Security Contractor.

M-4's take care of you if you take care of them. Run em wet and they'll shoot all day. 9-10 problems are magazine related or shooter induced due to poor maintenance/carelessness. They don't lend themselves to dirt all that well but does anything <non THR content removed>?

The major components don't break. I've been a competitive service rifle shooter since 1991 in addition to this other stuff. I've seen catastrophic failures 3 times and all were on very very old rifles. (two were recruits at Edson in 93 and any Marine will attest to the age of a Boot Camp rifle)

Cheers,

C~
 
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^ I can only imagine the time those poor recruits had to spend in the "pit" or on the quarterdeck for blowing up their rifles....

I remember the one I had issued was so old and worn out the hand guards would pop off, and the ejection port cover would not stay closed. It did shoot strait though, so the barrel must have been somewhat fresh.
 
I experienced multiple malfunctions with my FN M16A4 ("Emily") when attempting to use after getting sand in the receiver while on the range at Benning.

The M4 I took to Afghanistan liked to be run dripping wet. I do have an AR15 carbine for home defense, but that's mostly because I've now put more rounds through the M16 family than through all other weapons I've fired combined.

John
 
My M16A2 wouldn't chamber a round if it got too hot. I kept it clean (I cleaned it every night) and dry. Kept it dry so sand wouldn't stick as bad. On one convoy up to Baghdad, I went to chamber a round and it only got half way in. That said, it was 120+ outside, and 140+ under our vests (guy I was driving with had a thermometer on his watch, I think it was a gshok). That was the only time I ever had a problem, and it was about 8 hours into the convoy so there could have been dust in the chamber from a sandstorm we had driven through. I voted bad, because if it really was heat related, then that could have killed me if I needed that rifle.

I also hated how hot the hand guards would get on escort duty in the summer. They really need to make them from a polymer that doesn't absorb as much heat in my opinion.
 
^ M16's do not like to run dry at all. If you had been using lube I doubt you would have had chamber issues as even CLP will help displace the grit so the rifle can function. Also cleaning once a day, especially a day spent in the vehicle is not nearly enough.

Under the same circumstances I would clean the bolt/carrier group and chamber area several times per day. Just as any crew served or belt fed weapon would get the feed pawls and chamber area cleaned too. On belt fed weapons we even made it a point to brush off dust and sand from the ammo/belt.

Heat had nothing to do with your malfunction, poor maintenance did.
 
Coal, how exactly do you clean a weapon while in a convoy? I am honestly interested as we only stopped to fuel once and there were no other stops. There was only I and the driver in the vehicle, so I didn't see much sense in disassembly of the only weapon the could be used in a hurry. I had cleaned it just before we left and everything was running smooth then. We were told to keep our weapons dry and no clp was made available. That could be chocked up to not being combat arms or having leadership that had actual combat experience. I had a small supply of my own, but I only used it while cleaning.
 
scythefwd,

Typically any time we stopped the squad would take turns cleaning weapons, if no stops were in the cards we would still take a moment to scrub them down in turns.

Of course a muzzle cap and keeping the ejection port cover closed were also a big help, keeping a magazine inserted also helped.

It is a pain in the ass I'll grant, but just something we made a point to do. If you were the A-driver then you could have the driver's weapon assembled while you cleaned yours, or vice versa. I'm not talking a detailed cleaning here, just 30-45 seconds to take an AP brush and knock the dirt out of the upper, bolt, chamber area then apply lube if needed.

I know you were following orders, but they weren't good ones in my opinion.
 
I had the better part of my squad in the BACK of a hummer, how much sand do you think we ate? like Coal Dragger said, its just repetitive. You clean yours, then you clean the drivers. Adapt. Overcome. Sometimes you need to know when not to listen to "orders". It isn't their hind end behind that rifle, and it's likely that your entire time in the service you were instructed to keep that weapon lubed.
 
6 years Army and one tour in the sandbox.

I have only two problems with the M16 that everyone here mentioned, you gotta keep cleaning it and it shoots a varmint round. I could keep my M2 on top of a vehicle in a sandstorm for 2 days without cleaning it and it would work perfectly. Get a little sand in the M16 and your gonna have some issues. I also still don't get the point of the 5.56
 
Loved the M4. Hated the Aimpoint. ACOG is much better. No problems with the M4 over the years. Seen others have problems. Usually maintenance or mag related. Got a brand new one assigned to me for our next trip over in July.
 
Looking at the results...........is Jessica Lynch a THR member by chance?
For some reason, the importance of regular and effective cleaning has to be relearned at the beginning of every generation
 
Just wondering for anyone over there, did you guys ever pick up and carry any ak variants?

When my buddy was there, he also carried a romanian dragunov psl
 
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