Phuc Long demonstrates:We've wandered more than a little afield. The competition for the Trapdoor was the '73 Winchester; it was a less powerful round, but could fire much faster, as Custer learned to his peril. The extractor on the Trapdoor, paired with soft (copper?) cartridge casings, had many of Custer's guys trying to pry spent cartridges out of the breech with a Barlow knife. I'm sure some of the issue with the Trapdoor was the cutback after the huge expenditures of the Civil War.
MistWolf, nice summary and pictures.
'RAven, great explanation about magazines, and concerns about the troops losing them. Oddly, I had read (here) that a trained man could stuff another 8 round clip in a Garand faster than another magazine in an M14.
BTW, it's not hard to imagine how some of these things could have gone entirely different directions. I agree that military pigheadedness was the cause of some of our problems, but then they threw caution to the winds by thrusting the M16 into VietNam without extensive field testing or supplies.
I will say that in-spec ARs make headspacing a non-issue.
Moon
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