Interesting analysis of the M14 from Congressional Research Service dtd 2010

[Humpy70]

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a524245.pdf M4 Carbine background and issues.

[Sry0fcr]

And here we are 10 years later still primarily running M4s...

[1168]

On the subject of Soldiers wanting better weapons and bigger bullets: Most are not engineers or ballisticians. Honestly, I feel like if I rounded up 30 Soldiers sourced randomly from the entire US Army, locked them in a room, and told them to have candid discussion about rifles, it would be less productive than a quick glance at TOS.

Most are not even professional shooters; they have a rifle for the same reason you have a CWP. The vast majority have never, and will never fire a live round outside a very basic and unrealistic training range, unless the have a ND. When shooting at humans, statistically, most rounds miss and sometimes these misses, or marginal hits, get confused with poor lethality. Bad mags get used for training (all the effing time), or worse yet, issued. Due to all of the above, and because Snuffy likes to talk, rumors and legends get circulated and inflated, eroding some Soldiers’ confidence in their weapon.

Some of the concerns in the article were legitimate, at one time, and as noted, were more likely to be a problem for SOF than Big Army, due to actually having ammo to burn, and suppressors. The M4 and its ammo have improved over its lifetime, resulting in improved reliability, usability, and lethality.

The article also mentioned 75RR testing the SCAR-L, and maybe deploying with them. A portion of 75RR did test that weapon for a training cycle and a combat deployment. The only useful thing to know about this is that they kept their M4A1s after that.

[mack7.62]

After 57 years of PIP's it's going to take some doing to come up with a rifle that's a big enough improvement to warrant replacing other than a caliber change. Its been tried before many times and the M4 is still standing, we will have to wait and see if the push for 6.8 turns into something useful or just another dud.

[Humpy70]

FWIW I was told by the guy that trained me that the staging time to convert to a new caliber was five years AFTER THEY DECIDED IT WAS A GO. I seem to remember they started talking 6.8 maybe ten years ago?

[alx01]

On the subject of Soldiers wanting better weapons and bigger bullets: Most are not engineers or ballisticians. Honestly, I feel like if I rounded up 30 Soldiers sourced randomly from the entire US Army, locked them in a room, and told them to have candid discussion about rifles, it would be less productive than a quick glance at TOS.

Most are not even professional shooters; they have a rifle for the same reason you have a CWP. The vast majority have never, and will never fire a live round outside a very basic and unrealistic training range, unless the have a ND. When shooting at humans, statistically, most rounds miss and sometimes these misses, or marginal hits, get confused with poor lethality. Bad mags get used for training (all the effing time), or worse yet, issued. Due to all of the above, and because Snuffy likes to talk, rumors and legends get circulated and inflated, eroding some Soldiers’ confidence in their weapon.

Some of the concerns in the article were legitimate, at one time, and as noted, were more likely to be a problem for SOF than Big Army, due to actually having ammo to burn, and suppressors. The M4 and its ammo have improved over its lifetime, resulting in improved reliability, usability, and lethality.

The article also mentioned 75RR testing the SCAR-L, and maybe deploying with them. A portion of 75RR did test that weapon for a training cycle and a combat deployment. The only useful thing to know about this is that they kept their M4A1s after that.

I second this opinion, especially the first paragraph. Well said.

[mig1nc]

It’s like back when they complained about .30 carbine lethality in the Korean War, when the problem was people were just not making hits.


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[Humpy70]

Did you hear about the 30 carbines blowing up in Korea?

[Straight Shooter]

Did you hear about the 30 carbines blowing up in Korea?

What happened?

[Humpy70]

Carbines are notorious for bolt cracking at the locking lug interface.



Note the hairline crack running from locking lug interface to 4:00 o'clock on the bottom of the extractor.



Same bolt photographed from above. Note top of crack running from 3:00 on extractor straight across.



This problem is documented in Army TM. There is no mention of deaths from this in Army Ordnance archives and is only known there were because the guy that trained me had a brother in infantry in Korea and after one attack he helped put at least 15 bodies in bodybags with bolt lug parts in-bedded in their foreheads.

When I was at the Fed Law Enf Tng Center a carbine bolt let go and Bureau of Prison's student got the extractor in forehead but it did not kill him. I was tasked with the failure analysis on that incident and got a commendation letter from the Director of Training.

Whatever you do if you are reloading don't approach max loads for the Carbine.