Saturday, November 26, 2011

Gun Idolatry - M16

Actually, I found the history fascinating. What got me thinking about it was this image purported to be an M16. I guess when I wasn't paying attention they changed the magazine to one of those evil-looking curved ones.

19 comments:

  1. I'd refer you to Jeff Cooper's opinions about the M-16, but he's not regarded as a reliable source here. Let's observe, though, that said carbine shoots a .22 caliber bullet.

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  2. "Let's observe, though, that said carbine shoots a .22 caliber bullet.

    November 26, 2011 1:11 PM"

    WTF? WHICH carbine are you referring to?

    The M-16 fires a cartridge that has a slug of 5.56mm or .223 (depending on whose specs you're going by). The .22 caliber bullet that most people are familiar with is NOTHING like the round that the M-16 chambers.

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  3. Democommie,

    The M-16 isn't a battle rifle. It's a carbine. It fires an intermediate power cartridge of low caliber. I'm not saying that it isn't deadly. For my purposes, though, I'll take something along the lines of .303 British or .30-'06.

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  4. Greg Camp:

    All three of the following link:

    http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Gear_051104_XM8,00.html

    http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-usas-m4-carbine-controversy-03289/

    http://www.chuckhawks.com/he_wanted_fly.htm

    refer to the M-16 as a battle rifle. You're beginning to sound like the idiots who get on newspeople for calling gunz that look like AK's and M-16's "assault weapons" or the shitheads who fly into a tizzy every time someone calls a selective fire, semi-auto weapon, "an automatic".

    I hope you're not coaching the debate team at your school--they would have their asses handed to them if they emplyoed the sort of logic and critical thinking skillz that you do.

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  5. My typing got in front of me:

    This is the way that last should have read.

    "or the shitheads who fly into a tizzy every time someone calls a semi-auto weapon, "an automatic".

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  6. I;m not surprised that you'd buy such foolishness. I suppose, Democommie, that you accept whatever permissive dictionaries tell you about the definition of words, even though their standards are, "we take what the uninformed say it means." It's embarrassing when those who should know better talk about guns in such a slapdash manner. When you do it, however, it's par for the course.

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  7. Greg, I don't know what you're talking about. 40 years ago I trained with both the M14 and the M16. I think the rounds were a bit bigger than .22s.

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  8. I'm talking about the diameter of entry hole that it makes. I know that it hits harder than .22 LR. My point is that it does not shoot a full power rifle cartridge. The 5.56 NATO round is around sixty grains; the 7.62 x 39 runs about 120, but battle rifle bullets start at 140 or 150 grains.

    The M-16 has good power at close range, but as the range opens up, velocity falls off, and the only thing left is mass.

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  9. Democommie,

    I do object when news writers call a semiautomatic weapon an "assault weapon." There is no such thing as an assault weapon, at least when we use langauge correctly. The M-16 and the AK-47 are assault rifles, following in the tradition of the MP-44 Sturmgewehr. But to be an assault rifle, the weapon must have select-fire capability--in other words, it has to be able to shoot in fully automatic mode.

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  10. Greg Camp:

    "I'm not surprised that you'd buy such foolishness. I suppose, Democommie, that you accept whatever permissive dictionaries tell you about the definition of words, even though their standards are, "we take what the uninformed say it means." It's embarrassing when those who should know better talk about guns in such a slapdash manner. When you do it, however, it's par for the course.'

    Really? Why don't you write to that Chuck Hawks fella and those other two groups and tell them that you know more about gunz than they do.

    "I'm talking about the diameter of entry hole that it makes. I know that it hits harder than .22 LR. My point is that it does not shoot a full power rifle cartridge. The 5.56 NATO round is around sixty grains; the 7.62 x 39 runs about 120, but battle rifle bullets start at 140 or 150 grains."

    You just spew this shit without any genuine thought don't you? The M-16's designer was well aware that it did not have the range or stopping power of an M-1 or M-14. What it lacked in lethality/distance it compensated for by allowing much higher volumes of fire and the ability to operate in tighter confines. You're supposed to know this shit, you either don't or you just choose to ignore it when it suits you.

    Tell ya what, Greg, just as an experiment have somebody shoot you at say, five hundred yards, with a .22 LR from a standard .22 cal bolt action or semi-automatic rifle. Then have them shoot you with 5.56/.223 round from an M-16. Let us know which one hurts more.

    You presume to lecture others about their lack of knowledge on the subject of the M-16 not being an "assault rifle", not being a "battle rifle" or not being effective at whatever range.

    This:

    http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/army_board_study_guide_topics/m16a2/m16a2-study-guide.shtml

    this

    http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Glossary/Sixties_Term_Gloss_K_P.html

    this:

    http://www.marines.com/main/search?s=m16

    this:

    http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,166799,00.html

    and this:

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m16.htm

    ALL refer to the M-16 as a rifle. I will continue to call it a rifle, as do most people I know who've ever used one.

    This link:

    http://military.discovery.com/videos/top-ten-combat-rifles-m16-rifle.html

    is to a video in which the first minute of so has gentlemen who are considered weapons experts call it a rifle.

    As for "assault weapon". The term is used, somewhat interchangably with "assault rifle". You're an english major, WTF? All rifles that are capable of firing a projectile are weapons--every single one of them. To accuse others of being careless about terminology of the sort you bring up here is nonsensical.

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  11. Greg Camp has apparently been too busy to debunk my latest comment. Or, maybe, he just realized he was full of shit on this one, like he is on so many other things.

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  12. Democommie,

    Too busy. Besides, I've made my point, but there's no way that you'll ever understand it. Move on.

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  13. Democommie,

    Too busy. Besides, I've made my point, but there's no way that you'll ever understand it. Move on.

    November 30, 2011 4:58 PM

    One more, in a long series, of lies by Greg Camp.

    You're completely full of shit on this one AND you know it.

    What amazes me isn't that you're a liar. It amazes me just how fucking uninformed you are on the subject of the M-16. You're a poseur.

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  14. Democommie,

    As I said at first, you may refer to the writings of Jeff Cooper on the subject of the M-16. He called it a poodleshooter and had nothing but disdain for it. He was a Marine officer in World War II and Korea, if that's qualification enough for you.

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  15. That's it? Jeff Cooper, one guy?

    Tell ya what, genius. When you can show us some correspondence between you and the people I suggested you contact back on Nov.28th, and run down those links I gave you and tell those people they're also wrong--in writing--and let me know what they have to say; THEN you got somethin' to talk'bout. At the moment you're an empty vessel.

    Lots of people didn't like the M1 Carbine, they didn't like the M-16, they don't like the M-4. I talked to an infantryman friend about this just the other day. He was issued a SAW and prevailed on his superiors to let him carry an M60 instead. He says although it's heavier, he likes it better.

    One of the weapons that a lot of people said was the ultimate "light machine gun" was the BAR. Using a .30-06 round it had considerable range and lots of energy. But the gun was too heavy, too hard to maintain and too brutal for a lot of people to handle effectively.

    The M-16 has been in continuos service in the U.S. military for over 50 years. It may not be the best rifle for everyone but it's the weapon of choice for the U.S. military's commanders. When the gun is fucked with and fucked up it's usually a greed issue.

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  16. Greg, I don't know about grains and velocity. I know that in my childhood summer camp the .22 long round we used was a tiny little thing compared to that nasty-looking, heavy pointed bullet we fired on Parris Island, which in size and weight was ten or twenty times bigger.

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  17. These wound charts:

    http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/22LR%2040gr%20RNL.jpg

    http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M193.jpg

    http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M855.jpg

    and

    http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/AK-47%20762x39mm.jpg

    show the wound ballistics for .22LR, 5.56 and 7.62 slug.

    A .22LR round has going by the charts causes much less damage to tissue and bone. The 5.56 and 7.62 slugs cause a signifgicantly greater degree of damage than the .22LR slug.

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  18. Aw, Geez, Greg Camp is way too bizzy with his other mistakes to revisit this one. Oh, well...

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  19. One year on, and a few days. Greggie Camp persists in his lunatic notions about gunz. Not a surprise; untreated, mental illnes, generally gets worse over time.

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