M16/AK bit

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I make specific charges against the AR-15, and the AR lovers come back asking if I've ever served in the military. It's a non sequitur, boyo. And it's also a good sign you have LOST this argument!
 
Cosmo, those who are asking about military service have a point. Truth is they have the upper hand. They know their rilfe, they have been over and over and over it time and again. They know how to field strip it how to clean it. How to kill with it and how to make the best of its advantages and downplay its disadvantages. The truth is there is a part of warfare that no man can truly make mention of til he has been there. I see no reason why any of these former solders/marines should even bother responding to your posts. You were the first one to bring into question the knowlage of a US Marine with you comment about how being a marine dosn't make you an expert on weapons. Well just like in any job hiring gig lets think about this from a logical angle. If somebody has the knowlage but no college experiance it is unlikely that they will be chosen over somebody who just has learned knowlage and a college degree. The fact that these guys have been in the military gives them grounds for dispute. In a few of your posts you are suggesting that their first hand knowlage of how a soldier thinks is not valid. When faced with experiancial evidence you borderline a flat denile of what is said. This is not effective arguing or logic. This may sound a bit harsh but somebody who has been in combat and has used his rifle not just as a toy understands very important aspects of this debate that you just don't. so the question of weather or not you have any military service is a valid one. But fellas i don't see any more need to club cosmo with that card. everybody here has an oppionion valid or not. Cos i think it is to the point where you are losing some creditablity here. just a thought. your specific charges are either A) irrelivent at this point or B) faulse and or uninformed (in the minds of military guys who understand the relivancy and are informed by nature of their experiance) though i doubt you have looked at it from that angle because your assumed position is that "I am right therefore the others are wrong". Not a healthy one when up against some combat vets. I remember a story that was told me by a Navy vet friend of mine. He said, "we were all in awe of the SEALs. And they had our respect. They could be complete dicks about things but that didn't change the fact that they had done something we all could just dream about." I think that pretty much somes up the lack of combat bit...
 
So unless a person has served in the military and carried the rifle in question, they are not allowed to criticize it? That's nonsense. My tax dollars have been poured into Colt to churn these things out. I find the rifle and the cartridge totally insufficient and unacceptable for my own use in Alaska, so why the devil should it be acceptable for use in the field of combat--which presumably is a lot tougher on rifles than my fishing and hunting trips?

These posts that amount to "I am a vet, and you will never understand my love of the M16A2" are completely off topic.
 
Cosmoline, Don't wait go torture one of those jammomatics for yourself :)

To hear you speak of the AR-15/M16 series of weapons, I would think that a single grain of sand touching the Exterior of the receiver would cause it to a) selfdestruct or b) require an immediate express mail delivery(postage paid of course) back to the states to the armorer :barf:!
You wouldn't happen to have an axe to grind with a mister Stoner, would you :scrutiny: ?
 
That wasn't what I was saying sorry if i made it too complicated. Oppinion is the point of this whole thing and of course you can say what you want but do keep in mind that there could be a bit that non of us who havn't seen combat can make mention of. Does that make sense? But Cos where a 5.56 round may not be good for hunting game it is plenty enough to hunt people. And that .22 if you will is being fired with enough force to kill at over 800 meters.
 
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I'm sure you could find vets from the Foreign Legion from the last century who would swear up and down that the POS rifles the French military gave them were wonderful, and telling any critics to shut the hell up because they were never in combat. It's all well and good, but it doesn't make the MAS a good rifle.

The fact that a soldier performs well with a rifle does not mean that the rifle is good, it just means that the soldier is. My criticism has never been against vets, it's been against what I consider to be a substandard piece of equiment firing an inadequate cartridge.
 
As far as engineering, YES.

I'm still waiting for someone to post the details of a torture test an AR went through. Including firing after being made to rust and firing after being dipped in sand and mud.
 
I think that I am going to run my AR with no cleaning, short of running a patch down the bore. See how long it takes to jam up.

Still wanna see the link to where 1911 owners torture tested their guns.

And I am going to take the testimony of someone that carried the gun around for months in the desert, over someone that didn't. That is not to say that the person that wasn't in the service's opinion isn't important, but when they tell me something can't be done, and someone that has the experience is saying 'I just did it', I think the second has a bit more credibility.
 
I just posted this, but you must have missed it:

"A torture test was conducted on March 3,1911. Each pistol fired 6000 rounds. One hundred shots would be fired and the pistol allowed to cool for 5 minutes. After every 1000 rounds, the pistol would be cleaned and oiled. After firing those 6000 rounds, the pistol would be tested with deformed cartridges, some seated too deeply, some not seated enough, etc. The gun would then be rusted in acid or submerged in sand and mud and more tests conducted. Browning's pistols passed the whole test series with flying colors."

There's a THR post about a test being done on a Rock Island 1911 IIRC. I'll try to dig it up.
 
That is not to say that the person that wasn't in the service's opinion isn't important, but when they tell me something can't be done, and someone that has the experience is saying 'I just did it', I think the second has a bit more credibility.
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I never said the M16 couldn't be carried in the desert. I'm sure it can be. I'm sure it will function fine provided it's cleaned on a daily basis. So far no vet has come back and said they took it to war and didn't clean it for weeks and it functioned fine. My complaint about the rifle isn't that it can't be carried around, it's that it must be cleaned constantly to avoid jams. NOBODY has countered this argument! They've come back with claims that I just can't understand because I was never in combat, and even with suggestions that having a rifle that must be cleaned constantly is GOOD for soldiers because there's a lot of down time :what:
 
I see what your getting at Cos... and what your saying is true... but what your asking is unreasnalbe. Even if the AK were the standard issue weapon it still would be cleaned as much as the current issue rifle. That is what people were getting at when it was mentioned military doctrine says clean clean clean clean. And I think that this is some of the frusteration of vets at your posts because this isn't a realistic challenge. See this is the sport vs. work aspect of things. These tourture tests and all may have some basis in practicality but in reality there should be no reason that any firearm should go through that abuse. That is where vets and you are not seeing eye to eye i would wager.

Now for some basic logic. The next logical challenge for my comment is the "what if" gig. However here is my answer before we get there. There are no absolutes in this life or in nature for that matter. Even with the physical laws of the universe. A natrual law is my no mean infailible but what we mean by making something law (the law of gravity for example) is that 99.99999% of the time it works this way. Now for any law to be good and valid one must first be able to assume the world without it being there and imagine the possibility that it isn't. Otherwise it isn't a law it is an absolute.

Now to apply this to our disscussion. What you have done (and done well I may add) is come up with the imagination part, that is you are suggesting that under rigorous training and tourture the M16 will not hold up like the AK. But in the practical world where it is decieded which weapon is the better of the two (the battlefield) the standards behind the tourture don't apply to the fullest extent because nobody has gotten there yet. This is what many vets are getting at. I hope i did a good job explaining it.
 
Whether or not a new service rifle would be cleaned isn't the point--whether it would HAVE to be cleaned in order to function is the point. My basic premise is that a true combat firearm should be at least as reliable and tough as the weapons I personally tote around while fishing and hiking up here. My Mossberg 500 pases that test, as do Ruger revolvers and of coruse the SAR1 AK clone. I'm not saying the military should switch to AK-47's. I'm saying they should demand something more reliable than the AR platform. It's pretty simple, really. There have been far superior rifles available for over a generation, from the Stgw. 57 to the semi version of the M-14.
 
Well I had Colt M4a1 of Spreadfire's that I was shooting. Ran a 30 rd mag through on Full auto, the started on single and it jammed like every round. Then I noticed there was not a single drop of oil to been seen on the bolt, bolt carrier or upper. It was bone dry, but hey it still shot of full auto fine. On the other hand my RRA has never jammed, Hiccuped, farted, or what else someone wants to call it. I can tell you right now I will not shot his Chinese AK that thing scares me, you can barely pull the bolt back, but hey he says it still shoots.
 
ok cos, now i know we are seeing eye to eye i can't speak for the other guys. but the one thing that i would say (and this is an opionion as is yours so be that as it may) you are looking for a certain kind of weapon. the M16 isn't nessisarily that kind but perhaps the US military isn't looking for the weapon you are looking for. I am of the opinion that the AK isn't as fine a weapon as the M16. Cleaning really isn't all that much trouble and the AK is just old. Infact my father made mention once that perhaps comparing the AK to the M14 makes more sense. The M16 is just a different style but not all that different when you start looking at the G3 and other european modern rifles.
 
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The fact of the matter is that, to the best of my understanding of the posts here, NO ONE who has posted as had any direct experience comparing the performance of the AR-15 series rifles against the AK-47 series rifles under IDENTICAL CONDITIONS.

I know that the US military (the small arms development branch, specifically) REGULARLY tests small arms against a battery of test conditions, and VERY SCIENTIFICALLY notes the performance under those conditions.

Once someone comes up with data that shows the AK and AR being tested side-by-side, under CONTROLLED conditions, then we have an "apples-to-apples" comparison.

Until that data materializes, we have lots of anecdotal stories. The stories from our troops are probably fairly accurate, if not very scientifically controlled.

The stories about the AK series are MUCH more heresay in nature. Some, notably Cosmo's comparison of M1911 tests what might happen if an AK and/or an AR were subjected to them, is TOTALLY SPECULATIVE, and hence pretty worthless.

Cut the crap, and show some comparitive tests, or shut up about what "might" happen.

And I am not a great fan of the AR, but I am a fan of ACCURATE, CONSISTENT, REALISTIC, and MEASUREABLE testing methodologies, as I manage them for a living.
 
the M16 isn't nessisarily that kind but perhaps the US military isn't looking for the weapon you are looking for.
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Well my standards are apparently quite a bit higher than their standards. And that's not a good thing.
 
AZjeff, you're right. We do need to have some serious side-by-side torture testing done on an array of assault and battle rifles with the same array of conditions forced on each rifle (rust, dampness, ice, sand, mud, etc). And to make it scientific a database of normals should be established with each rifle shooting under ideal conditions. Something like that would help to put these old arguments to bed once and for all. I would think several AR's should be used, from cheap Bushmasters to fully loaded M16A2's. Similar examples of the world's assault and battle rifles should be put through the same course. Has this ever been done?
 
AZjeff, you're right. We do need to have some serious side-by-side torture testing ............ Has this ever been done?
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I know that some testing was done by NATO back when the 5.56x45 round was under consideration at the time, circa 1982. (I also remember that the usual suspects were included in such tests--the AUG, FNC, FAMAS, G41, M16A2, Galil, and others I cannot remember. I remember also reading that the M16A2 was the MOST RELIABLE of all tested at the time.)

Now that data is 20+ years old, and I don't know what exactly comprised all of the tests, nor who exactly administered the tests.

I am certain the US military has run tests since that time, but I don't know of where to find the results.

I sorta suspect that such tests would NOT include AR-15 clones, as the US military would not be interested in procuring from a "non-approved" source, as they have never been included in any RFQ to the best of my knowledge.
 
I volunteer to run this test if someone will give me $15,000 for the rifles
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The major cost for this type of test wouldn't be the test articles (the rifles). It would be the test set-ups. Such things as standardized sand, temperature chambers, humidity chambers, driving rain test fixtures, etc, cost a whole lot MORE than $15K to rent or buy for a comprehensive test like this.
 
No, I was looking for the link to the private owners torture testing.

I could say that the military should be using a controllable full auto .308 that is capable of 1" groups at 400 yards, and that the troops should all be able to be snipers if simply handed a scope for their rifle. And that anything less is obviouslythe gov't just trying to get the troops killed. But that doesn't mean that my requitrements are reasonable.
 
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