M-14
OK, I'm kinda slow. I know what a M1 is and also a M1A carbine. In basic training I carried an M-14. Heavy gun, I hated it.Is this a smaller clone of the M1 or what?I've always been curious.
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Ca anybody tell me when the M-14 was made and how soon after was the M1A1 made?
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The M14 was made for the military and never sold to civilians. were used from late 1950' to at least 1965 -1966 Vietnam. then the military springfield amory sold the name SPRINGFIELD to a civilian company that used a lot of military M14 parts but made their own receivers that could not use a selector to fire full auto. 0 -
The M14 Rifle was adopted as our standard service rifle in 1957, although series production did not actually begin until well into 1958. The last rifles were delivered in late 1964 but a few hundred National Match rifles were assembled in early 1965. The very earliest M1A semi auto rifles were built in around 1971. 0 -
The M-14 rifle was adopted in 1957 to replace the M-1 garand. It was Mfg by four companies, Springfield Arsenal( the Govt one), Winchester, Harrington-Richardson and TRW(Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge). It was replaced by the M-16 about 1965( or started to be). No real M-14's have been sold to the public. The "M1A" became available in the mid-70's and has been made by several companies, most by the civilian Springfield Armory company. 0 -
We were issued M14 rifles for Army basic training in June of 1967 so they were still in use stateside then. I was first sent to Europe in 1968 and we had M14's in Germany then. I did not see an M16 until 1969 when I was headed for Viet Nam. 0 -
I got issued an M14 rifle back in 1970 when I went to NMMI. It still had the firing pin in it, and when we were sent on field exercises; they issued us a bandolier of wax-plugged ammo and a firing pin.
What a neat rifle!
Unfortunately; the darn thing weighed like 9 pounds, was totally uncontrollable on F/A, and the Armory took them back at the end of the year.
A few of them made it all the way to a pawn shop on 2nd Street before being turned back in to the school.
We were issued '03A3s with plugged barrels, welded receivers, clapped-out stocks, and no ammo the next year.0 -
I agree with Mr. Christian. The first M1A rifles were assembled in Devine, Texas in 1971. I have one. It has all TRW parts, except the new receiver. The stock selector cutout is filled with a reddish epoxy. After the first year or so, the company was sold and was moved to Illinois, where it is today. 0 -
I have somewhat fond memories of the M-14. Drafted in March of '69. Off to Ft. Lewis and it's bum weather. Shot expert with it and had the shoulder bruises to prove it! The rear peep sight would of course become useless in the rain storms at the range. We were expected to "adapt" which most of us did. I would blow the water out between shots. LOL! Bang, blow!! It was a sweet powerful rifle. The M-16 seemed like a pop gun after that! Adapt, grow up in a hurry?? You bet. Never did shoot it in full auto, nobody did. I want another one!! [:)][:D][8D] 0 -
In 1958 the first run of M14 rifles from Springfield Armory (the government armory and not the commercial firm) cost Uncle Sugar about $180 per unit (about $1350 in today's money) and caused quite an uproar at the Department of Defence! Harrington and Richardson and Olin Mathieson (Winchester) eventually got unit costs down to around $115, but each M14 was still costing uncle Sam nearly twice as much as the unit cost for each post war M1 rifle! TRW eventually got the unit cost down to about $80, which was close to the original target price level when the rifle was adopted in 1957, but to do this they purchased (at their own expence)virtually all new production equipment and tooling and in order to get their costs so low, TRW produced huge numbers of parts in anticipation of an order for at least 300,000 additional M14s. When TRW's contract was canceled (along with all other M14 production contracts) they had to eat those losses and their parts became instant surplus. A few of those parts ended up on JugeColt's super rare Devine M1A, or my own humble Springfield NM
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quote:Originally posted by perry shooter
The M14 was made for the military and never sold to civilians. were used from late 1950' to at least 1965 -1966 Vietnam. then the military springfield amory sold the name SPRINGFIELD to a civilian company that used a lot of military M14 parts but made their own receivers that could not use a selector to fire full auto.
The M-14 was being used in VN by the Marines up into the early 70s. I was issued one in boot camp and in VN. They were issued in boot camp up to about 74 I believe.0 -
The M14 remained the standard service rifle for American forces assigned to NATO up until the end of 1970 when it was superseded by the M16. This caused quite an uproar amongst our NATO allies since the M16 rifle meant change in caliber from 7.62X51 to .223 and at that time no other NATO member nation was using that caliber as standard. The (then) West German Army (the largest NATO Army on the European continent) did not have a caliber compatible rifle as regular issue until early 1981 when they accepted limited numbers of the HK G41 rifle into service. 0
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