M14E2 (M14A1) Fans

e2 control on full auto

first off, i want to ackowledge that this post will probably get me kicked off the forum but so be it if it happens. in response to m14 dan and his post on this subject i say bullshit. i too carried a m14 in combat. for two long years i relied on this weapon to keep me out of trouble and it did that faithfully. all serious incidents were squashed with semiauto fire, not full auto. full auto was a serious waste of ammo and when you need to make your shots count, you mature real fast. being helicoptered into cambodia for recon missions with limited supplies does not and i repeat does not allow for any human error as to what selective mode of shooting you will be doing. i presently own several battlerifles and just fast semiauto fire will quickly show up on the target. more misses than hits and very sporadic accuracy. when you are replying on six other people to help you achieve an objective, it is imperative that all are on the same plane. i am just glad that you werent on our team. i wish you would go back to where you came from and leave the great state of texas to people who appreciate what it stands for. if i have offended anyone else on this forum, i apologize and will no longer visit your forum. thanks for all the professional advice and info. yours truly, harley guy

Hey harley guy. Would you post some first-hand info on the M14 in Vietnam? (I presume it was Vietnam since that is the only war in which the M14 was used as the main battle rifle... right?)

I would like to know if you had any problems with the rifle. How it worked in the rain, mud, humidity... You know, conditions that I would NEVER want to put my personal rifle through!

I know I've had a problem with the extractor popping out on full-auto (and sometimes on semi as well :evil: ) that had to be corrected by Ron Smith. But other than that, no other problems with either that rifle or my SA M1A.

Did you use the same rifle for both years? If so, who worked on it for you? Did the barrel last both years? Anything break? How often did you clean it?

Any info would be appreciated, specially from a person who had first-hand experience in life-threatening conditions.

THANKS!!

azski

Our outfit had some expirence with the M14 on full auto. We always had ours on simi-auto untill about two weeks before the 1968 tet offensive. We were wondering what the battery officers knew that we diden't. Suddenly they had us humping sand bags and building bunkers. At the same time they had our armorer hand out the selector switches and none of us ever knew they existed. We were orderd to get our fannys out to the range and practice with semi auto and full auto. All I can say about full auto is IT HURT. I was a skinny 6 foot two inch black and blue soldier after that little deal and I swore off the "spray and pray" stuff untill Tet actually came. When Tet came we did use a lot of select fire but it was always at night. When that happens you really don't expect to go for specific targets. We just wanted to do H and I fire, pin the other guy down, buy time, get bullets down range. It was never intended to hit anything. lots of smoking guns, lots of burning oil, lots of charred stocks, Some guys shooting streight tracers. It works, pins em' down and scares the hell out of em'. But Its real hard on rifles. (Real Hard)
.................................................................SP/4 Twiggy

azski questions

azski, i never experienced any mechanical malfunctions with the h and r m14 i was issued. i had the same rifle the whole time i was there, same barrel, no changes whatsoever. nobody ever touched or tuned the rifle except me and that was just cleaning procedures. magazines were changed out quite often due to rough handling, dents were the main concern. we never left out without a clean rifle and at least eight or more fresh magazines with fresh ammo. your carrying weight was determined by you after the required items were loaded. five to seven days worth of essentials sometimes reduced your carrying ability. jams were few and far between and always associated with bent mags. no name tags on fatigues and no dogtags were the norm because officially we werent there. i put my life on the m14 and it never let me down when needed. full auto was not even considered an option due to the fact we only had what we could carry. there was no replenish factor in our forays into no mans land. we were choppered in at a certain grid and extracted at another with a three hour grace period, no radios allowed and flare id was required before setdown. the m14 served us well in all kinds of conditions and nothing else was ever considered, at least as long as i was there. looks were not important and i will admit my rifle looked like hell when i finally turned it in. one point i might add was full auto was used on two extractions and only because we were firing for cover, trying to make our enemy drop back so we could successfully extract, we could see the choppers and knew ammo was not in short supply at that time. hope this answers your questions.