why 30 rounds?

[Prince Yamato]

I remember watching an interview with Eugene Stoner a couple years ago. He said that troops were complaining that the Viet Cong had 30 round mags while US forces only had 20 rounders. The choice was then made to issue the M16 with 30 round mags. It makes sense. Basically, most of our "enemies" use AKs, so any modern rifle meant to compete with it, should have a 30+ round mag.

 

[EddieNFL]

Because gummit counters ran out of fingers and toes at that moment and had to stop !

If that were the case it would have most likely been something like 17 or 27. No way an even number.

 

[CmdrSlander]

I'm sure with the adoption of the M16 and its infamous lack of stopping power as compared to the M14 somebody figured that it might be a good idea to give our troops 10 more rounds at the ready. A major reason for adopting the 5.56 was to allow the soldier to carry more ammo after all.

Its also a good selling point: "That outdated M14 only holds twenty rounds. This M16 holds 30!"

 

[GRIZ22]

My explanation for the Garand being 8 rds is not as entertaining as the others but here goes.

The Garand was not intended to take a 20 rd box mag although that was experimented with around the end of WWII. There is guy on the CMP forum who does conversions that work (using BAR mags) but he only has made them for himself.

IIRC the Garand was originally designed for the 276 Pedersen round and it held 10 rds in an en bloc clip . MacArthur said no to that in the early 30s as we had a jillion rounds of 30-06 in storage and we were not buying new ammo. Something called the Depression I had something to do with it. Garand was faced with re-engineering the rifle to accommodate 10 rds of 30-06 or just reduce the capacity to 8 of the larger 30-06 rounds.

That boys and girls is how the Garand wound up breaking the tradition of multiples of 5 or at least how I remember it.

 

[larryflew]

lets not forget the tv/movie endless round magazines. Just plain awesome and no reload time lost.

 

[Skribs]

lets not forget the tv/movie endless round magazines. Just plain awesome and no reload time lost.

It works in my book because there's portals built into the bottom of the magazine, so you're actually getting ammo directly from a large warehouse floating around in space.

But I see your point.

 

[BADUNAME37]

Back in the 80's, I had a Mini-14 and I had several 40-round magazines, I believe were made by Ruger, especially for my Mini.

I remember there being a lot of shooting that could be done before changing mag's or having to refill them!

Bushmaster has a bracket assembly that secures three 30-round magazines in a row, essentially giving the shooter 90 rounds before having to reach for another magazine!

 

[Ignition Override]

Imagine the early fighting in very hot, humid Vietnam against a 'Third World' enemy whose larger mags had ammo with the original type of correct gunpowder (not changed, as with our DOD), and whose rifles were much more reliable, and might have had some cleaning kits available and recommended during the first operational use.

What a concept for helping troops survive.