British rifle

You don't know what you're talking about, do you?

Vietnam M-16s used substandard ammunition that left corrosive discharge on the bolt which was the most sensitive component of the gas impigement system and proper maintenance procedures were not included in the drills. When both issues had been resolved the M-16 proved a reliable fighting rifle.

When consulting forensic data on cadavers, the 556 is a superior wounding round than the 762 in medium to close range due to fragmentation effects of high velocity rounds. This is the range where the rifleman, as opposed to machine gunner, designated marksman or sniper, make his kills.

The most important factor in stopping power is not velocity, caliber, momentum or kinetic energy. It is shot placement, and it is more imporant than all of the other factors add up together. After adopting the 556, the US Army had to higher its marksmanship standards because hit percentage leaped. By some accounts, the improvement was as high as 25%.

Fire superiority is what wins fire fights. What is fire superiority? It is superior volume of suppressive fire delievered accurately. With only half of the weight of 762, the 556 armed soldier can carry twice the ammuntion. The lower recoil of the 556 also allows the soldier to fire more aimed shots per minute. Combined togehter, those factors meant sustained fire superiority.

A rifle round hit on the unarmored torso is death on battlefield conditions and nine times out of ten is going to put a man down. While the M-4 carbine's stopping power had been criticized, it had nothing to do with the round but the short barrel length of the weapon because it is designed for compactness, a characteristic essential to the mechanized infantry.

A rifle round in the torso is going to put a man down. If your shootee is running around and fighting with that kind of trauma, then god help you, because this is one of those men who cannot be put down while they still draw breath.

I have met combat soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan who felt that the 556 was inadequate. They belong to a minority of range-consiouss riflemen. But none believe the 762 to be a viable alternative. The Times had moved on.

 

dude I just said they are crappy cause my dad used one and he said they suck worse than you think and he,s not wrong about that stuff pal so case closed crappy weapon and that,s why it should be replaced by something else other than that piece of s**t rifle

 

LoL!!!!

Overheating an M-4? Spray and Pray is out of fashion since... forever!

I can find a Canadian engineer officer and later S-2, a Stryker battalion commander, a USMC sergeant, all of whom had seen combat, to vouch for Wolfy's statement.

Just in case you don't know, check the average MOA accuracy of M1 Garand, M-14 and M-16 rifles. To imply that the M-16 is not accurate is plain bull.

 

it is accurate but I,m saying It,s a small cartridge

 

35 countries that USE it believe its a good enough weapon to use. Especially by thier Special Forces,Police,SWATand Marines. But don't let that get in your way.

 

the m-14 has more stopping power and a much better battle rifle and is more reliable and long range and is used by u.s. forces today

 

Back to original subject. It looks like the British were looking at self loading weapons at certain times before and during the war but were dissapointed with what was offered to them. And perhaps thier belief in the accuracy of the Enfield and the rate of fire that could be acheived with it along with the availablity of it and not wanting to retool for another weapon were deciding factors.

 

all I know is that they looked at the m1 garand once

 

Absolutely added to the fact when the high Command woke up to the need for a new rifle it almost always co-incided with the outbreak of war, I suppose with limited finance the Spitfire and Hurricane were much more important. After WW2 the military people managed to keep their eye on the ball with the EM2 and a generation of well thoughtout equipment such as the Humber 1ton truck and Bedford 3ton(5ton) truck, but as far as the rifle is concerned the polliticans messed it up -even to this day -SA80.

 

The British did not require a large standing army to defend their nation, just the RAF and the RN. The Army was purely for offensive measures.

 

You have summed in a few words the essence of the report by JHU.

Probably in Afghanistan or Somalia the fighter is on some form of drugs -what in viking times was called the Berserkr

Anyway great post

Steve

 

In post #34 I mentioned the model 90 rifle converted to semi-auto in WW1

I have now found the photo

View attachment 5122

The weapons are Mannlicher M95 carbine, the semi-auto M88/90 squad rifle and the Mannlicher M95

Note the face guard on the stock of the M88/90 as the straight pull bolt was pushed rearward by the gas rod, It must make you blink. The mannlicher clips are shown at the bottom of the photo and are similar to the M1, but 5rds only and ejected out of the bottom of the mag.

 

I have shot all three of those weapons, including both variants of the M16 (A1 & A2), on the same 500KD range using military Ammo. Of the 4 I liked the M16A1 the least due to it's lack of easily adjustable sights. I was able to produce similar results with all 4 weapons 220-235 with all 4.

As far as the SMLE : It needs a recoil spring. How the British were able to tolerate shooting that rifle for as long as they did amazes me. That thing is painful. It was probably tolerable before the advent of smokeless powder. I have heard it refered to as the "Brown Bess MKII".

Brad

 

The Enfield .303 rifles are painful in inexperienced and poorly-trained hands. I have put a fair few Ball rounds through SMLE, No.4 and Mk. V Jungle carbine with no bruising or painful after-effects ( excpet to my ear-drums in the case of the Jungle carbine ).

Held tight to the shoulder and to the cheek the recoil gives no problem ; the story is different if you are 'shy' of the weapon. Exactly the same applies to the K98k which the Germans 'tolerated' for quite a while......

 

Well said, I have shot SMLEs in .303, Remington and Winchester bolts in 30-06, one Remington in pump action (like the one that killed MLK) and one Mauser which had been "sporterized" for big game. None of them were in the least painful when a person shot them with proper control. My ex-wife only complained about the Winchester, but I think it was the stock which didn't fit her as well as the others that was the problem.

The smaller .223 recoil tends to "spoil" people for the larger rounds, and then they complain. She didn't prefer the larger calibers either, but dearly loved the .243 Model 70 I bought her!

If you want to get a real "bang" in the shoulder come out to Mt. and I'll let you touch off a couple in my Ruger No. 1 single shot, chambered for .300 Winchester Mag. Now there is a round with the ability to; "reach out there and touch something".

 

I honestly hope that is your way of saying : "It takes some getting used to"

Instead of painful I should have said: "Unforgiving to improper firing position". IN either case it will bite you if you let your guard down.

 

You're right in both cases. The natural temptation is to flinch from the recoil which of course makes it much worse. Held correctly, it's a different weapon.

Certainly the adoption of intermediate cartridges ( eg the German 7.92 kurz ) render training much easier. I'm not sure that recoil springs to handle recoil on full-power bolt-action rifles would be very effective.....

 

My mention of the recoil spring was in reference to the portion of the discussion regarding the making the Enfield a "Semi Auto". A recoil spring would do very little to a bolt action rifle.....lol

 

My mistake....

Actually, thinking further about the non-adoption of semi-auto, sticking with the lee Enfield bolt-action, etc makes me consider that it wasn't just British eccentricity or stubborn-ness.

As ever, one has to consider that it was partly, as a much-later US President famously said 'the economy.....!'. Inter-war Britain suffered defence cutbacks in many areas and army small-arms were pretty near the bottom of the pile. Only at the last minute were other much-needed weapons designs procured from overseas( eg the Bren from Czechoslovakia, the Browning aircraft gun from the US ).

The SMLE had given a very good account of itself in WW1 and don't forget that the inter-war British Army saw itself very much as a professional ( ie non-conscript ) army , easily capable of using the old bolt-action rifle to its highest potential.

Of course, the reality of WWII was very different.....

 

Then everybody should.