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Posted: 2/28/2008 9:33:40 AM EDT
| I have heard stories of GIs in the battle of the bulge, with stories about their actions freezing up, and all they had to do was piss on the action and it would work again. The M1 Garand's reliability is very famous. The m14 is very much like the M14, so my question is, when I get my Fulton m14, can i expect almost AK-esque reliability from this rifle? Not that I would put it under harsh conditions like that, but I am curious. |
| Anyone who says a self loading rifle will not fail has very little experience with self loading rifles. You can expect your properly built M14 to be as reliable as a properly built AK47. However, neither of them are fail safe. Things get dirty, parts wear out and break, magazines get damaged, ammo fails, shit happens. |
as reliable as an AK, no it's not, very far from it |
I would hazard a guess that youi will get M14 reliability with your M14. I take my Armscorp rifle up in the Waipoli district for hog hunting. Very rugged wet and humid. A harsh climate for any gun. ( I don't waller in the muck  ) That same rifle works flawlessly for me at the local gun range.Enjoy your new Fulton rifle!  |
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Yeah, that was totally conclusive and definitely something to hang your hat on. I bet that guy used to work for the military and conducted trials at Aberdeen. 
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| Can't say I've ever done a straight up side-by-side comparison of my M14/S with an FAL or AK or whatever. But I know that I've had 1500 rounds through it between cleanings without a hiccup, and the M14s in service in the sandbox right now have been around since at least 1963, most likely with the same bolts and the same barrels. That says something about the design if you ask me. |
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Pic in one of my M14 books of one lying on a pile of 3K + spent shells after an extended firing session of one round per second, they only quit when it started to cook off rounds. No failures. In one other session, they fired 14,000+ rounds with no addition of lube to see if the roller would fail/sieze. Still OK It is every bit as reliable as an AK and more reliable then a Garand due to the roller on the bolt. |
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I've looked into this. I found some U. S. government reports that answered the question in my mind. From the 02/23/08 version of the Third Edition of M14 Rifle History and Development: "In October 1968, the U. S. Army Materiel Command reported the following reliability figures for the M14 rifle in Technical Report 68-4 M14 Rifle Cost Analysis Report: Mean Time To Overhaul (average time to overhaul a M14 rifle) - 1.5 hours Time Between Overhaul (TBO) - 5 years Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF or average time between any failure requiring repair) - 270 days Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) - 0.6 hours Average annual ammunition usage as of November 1965 - 810 cartridges (610 rounds ball, 50 rounds tracer and 150 rounds blank). In January 1968, the U. S. Department of Defense Weapon Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) tested the reliability of the M14 and M16A1 rifles at Fort Sherman in Panama under field conditions designed to simulate the environment faced by American troops in the Republic of Viet Nam at the time. Both rifles were tested in beach, swamp, rain forest and dry climate conditions by a total of 302 U. S. Marines divided into four platoons. The M14 rifles and M62 tracer and M80 ball ammunition were included in the test as a control against three versions of the M16A1 and various 5.56 mm ammunition compositions. The M14 rifles were shot alternately in semi-automatic and automatic mode. Each M14 rifle was shot with magazines loaded to twenty cartridges except for one in each of the sixteen squads was fired with magazines filled with eighteen rounds. Each of the M14 rifles used in the test was shot approximately 5,700 rounds with only cleaning at noon each of the twelve days of firing. The WSEG test recorded the following Mean Rounds to First Malfunction for the M14 rifle in each of the four field environments: 1) 1,039 for salt water, spray and sand 2) 1,248 for swamp water and mud 3) 707 for rain forest and 4) 952 for uplands and dust. When the M14 rifle did malfunction, 42 % of the time it was on the first or second round of the magazine. The likelihood of malfunction is highest with the first two rounds in either magazine loading, eighteen or twenty cartridges. This is due to the slightly lower cyclic rate of fire with a full or nearly-full magazine. The M14 gas system does not exhaust propellant gas and carbon residue into the receiver and bolt. This lends to the reliability of the M14 design." and "During arctic testing of small arms lubricants from November 1966 to January 1967 by the U. S. Army, nine firing pins, two operating rod springs, three sears, three ejectors and one bolt were replaced among ten M14 rifles that were fired for a total of 73,105 rounds. Recorded temperatures during these parts failures ranged from a maximum of - 10 degrees Fahrenheit to a low of - 55 degrees Fahrenheit." |
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I have owned seven SAI M1As, down to one now. Hand loads, surplus and commercial ammo has produced zero malfunctions. Not one. Went through basic with the M-14 at Ft. Polk. Same thing, zero malfunctions. Another "world famous" semi 7.62X51mm, which was NIB, after lots of tweaking and 250 rounds will not go through a mag with out a hiccup. I'll stick with what works. |
. Of course I dont load it up with sand mud and crap . maybe 2K through it .
It was a really stupid test that that one guy is referring to. He could've dunked it in the water and removed some of the crap before firing. Plus, we don't know if it was a properly functioning M1A to begin with. I would assume yes. But it only proved that if you stick a bunch of mud in your receiver you may have problems with it cycling. WOW, rocket science. I agree, any semi auto would have problems. |
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The M14 is reliable and an old school workhorse, heck it comes from the M1. I prefer the simple knockdown power of it to exotic small caliber rounds that rely on velocity, cannalure placement, bullet construction etc. etc. to do some damage not to mention it can shoot through crap the enemy hides behind. Would SOCOM units really use it and continue to develop it if it was a delicate POS hanger queen? Now some commercial M1A might have some issues, but the design is solid, it is the commercial manufactures that are the problem. |
+1 There's a passage in About Face where Colonel David Hackworth describes stuffing a muddy en bloc clip that had been attached to his sling into his Garand, disabling it. He was forced to field strip and clean it on the spot to get it running again, and it almost cost him his life. Shit happens, even to Garands, AKs and M240s . . . |
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I think this was a question about reliability of his proposed purchase before it turned into a barfight about which weapon is better (AK vs M14 vs FAL vs M16)...but its fun to read... I have fired 14's and 16's in the service, and AK's and M1A's on my own time. None of my firing was in combat, so I have no experience low crawling across a beach before having an underwater fire fight in a swamp to comment on...so i'll leave those stories to those who have... However, under the circumstances that i think 98% of us find ourselves in...Taking my rifle out of the truck ....going to the bench....and firing at a paper target... I have put 1-2K rounds through my Super Nat'l Match M1A without a single failure. Ive had a couple of slam fires, but Im failry certain that was from the surplus ammo. I love my M1A and will never sell it. At the same time, I keep my AR for the one in a million shot that I will ever have the chance to use it in the defense of my home or person, because its easier to handle and run (changing mags, controls, etc). Surely no sage wisdom here...Just my thoughts... |
I agree. Good post. |
In the book "Flags of our Fathers" there were a couple references of Garands jamming on that sand too. Nothing is impervious. There was one account of a 1911 malfunctioning because of too much blood caked on. Wow. Those guys suffered on that God forsaken island. All of them. |
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