This blog will focus one of my lifelong passions and one of man's most basic tools - the knife!
As time and events permit we'll tiptoe into other territory where we can use the knife as a metaphor in discussions about current events and have a little politically incorrect fun.
Because you see, knives rank just below guns as the most politically incorrect subject on the web today.
Guns & Knives = Bad. Gay Marriage & Recreational Drug Use = Good
I've been remiss in posting this, but it's been a busy two months.
I put up a blog post back on 28 February lamenting how I broke my Leatherman Blast and had to send it back to Leatherman for repair or replacement.
I put the tool in the mail the next day and two weeks later almost to the day the UPS man dropped a small box off in my car port.
Inside was a letter of apology from Leatherman letting me know the Blast was no longer in production but they substituted a newer model as a replacement (I guess it wasn't worth it to them to try to replace the broken screwdriver blade).
What I got was a Leatherman Rebar. Now, I don't collect Leatherman tools - I just accumulate them and abuse them - so I didn't know anything about this particular model. It turns out the Rebar doesn't match the Blast tool-for-tool; there's a few things missing from the Rebar like scissors (which I actually used fairly often). However, the Rebar offers a few things the Blast didn't, like a dedicated serrated rope cutting blade. an awl (for those of you still into leather crafts) and replaceable wire cutter blades.
Leatherman Rebar
The Rebar is also a smaller overall package that incorporates a very nice feature - Leatherman 'rolls' the exposed edges of the handle sections, making it very comfortable to grip without having to use the plastic liners found on the Blast.
Notice the rolled grip edges - makes for a very comfortable grip without adding to the overall width of the tool
Overall I'm very pleased with the replacement tool. The Rebar is well thought out and well executed and seems to be an overall improvement over the Blast.
Thanks Leatherman - both for standing behind your warranty and producing excellent products!
It looks like Glock is set to announce a single-stack sub-compact 9mm pistol at the NRA Convention in Nashville in April. Here's an early picture (not sure which magazine it is from):
The soon-to-be released Glock 43 in 9mm
Of course this could just be a cruel head fake by Glock or other internet pranksters, but there's enough buzz out on the internet right now that leads me to believe it's coming.
Glock fans (me included) have been griping about Glock's introduction of the small .380 caliber Glock 42 since it was introduced two years ago. It was the right size, just the wrong caliber.
Of course it will take about a year for supply to catch up with demand and prices to settle out (and I'm really interested in seeing what the Blue Label pricing will be), but this could be the little pistol that pulls me away from my beloved Beretta Nano.
Or it could all be a cruel hoax. Either way we'll know by tax time.
One of my particular interests is small pistols designed for discreet, or concealed, carry. The State of Georgia has some of the least restrictive concealed carry firearms laws in the nation. (Yet there's no rivers of blood running in the streets from western-style 'shoot 'em ups' as the anti-gun liberals would have you believe. Georgia's concealed carry permit holders are a remarkably law abiding bunch, with criminal activity rates well below even that of sworn police officers.) This means trying out different small pistols for their 'carry-ability' can become an interesting pastime. Over the past 10 years I've tested a wide variety of pistols under concealed carry conditions, from miniature little .380 pocket guns to compact 9mm's to full size 45 ACP pistols that made a mockery of the very concept of 'concealable'. But the one style of pistol I haven't tried to carry concealed is the revolver.
Why?
Well, in the past 15 years or so the firearms manufacturers have flooded the market with new small handgun designs, virtually all of them semi-auto pistols. Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Springfield, Beretta, Kel-Tec, Kimber, Kahr, Sig, Taurus, Glock and several others have each put out at least one, some several, new designs in compact semi-auto pistols in calibers ranging from .32 ACP to 40 S&W. There was a lot to choose from and I spent virtually all of my small pistol time and money investigating a number of these little 'krunchentickers' (as the venerable Jeff Cooper used to call them). Did I have any interest in revolvers? Well yes, but it tended towards the large frame single action models from Ruger. Whenever I looked at a double action revolver my thought was, "that's nice, but it really really doesn't fit any of my needs and besides, it's too 'fat' to adopt as a concealed carry weapon." I have always appreciated the aesthetics of a fine revolver but never thought of one as suitable for concealed carry.
A few months ago my friend Bill showed up for a range session with an early model Smith & Wesson Airweight. This little revolver had belonged to his late father-in-law and Bill wanted to see how well it shot. Although I have a lot of experience with handguns I could honestly say that I had never pulled the trigger on a loaded Airweight revolver, so I didn't know what to expect. I was intrigued by the light weight of the little gun but expected a harsh recoil experience even with the low power range loads we were shooting. I was pleasantly surprised to find the recoil was not bad at all but the stiff trigger had me printing all over the paper (I wasn't so much as 'grouping' my shots as I was 'clustering' them). I was only mildly intrigued. I had other small handguns with better triggers that I knew I could shoot better so I moved on.
The pistol we were shooting was a Centennial model. This is S&W's aluminum framed snubnosed revolver first introduced in 1952. It is based on S&W's small J-frame design and sports a five-shot cylinder, a stubby little 1.75" barrel, shortened grip and simplified sights consisting of a fixed front sight blade and a sight channel cut into the frame's top strap. S&W identifies all of their aluminum framed revolvers as part of the 'Airweight' line, and that's how they have come to be referred to in American gun culture. When you say "I'm toting an Airweight" to another gun aficionado he knows immediately what you are talking about.
S&W Centennial Airweight in .38 Special (Model 642).
This is a 'hammerless' design that can only be fired double action.
The current production pistols are rated for +P ammunition
Bill was interested in using this revolver as a home defense and concealed carry piece, so it came up often in our discussions. My opinion was that its a perfectly suitable little gun but it would need some trigger work. That started a bit of an odyssey into the inner workings of the J-frame trigger via the internet and discussions with a well known local gunsmith.
It quickly became evident that nobody likes the stock Airweight trigger, and I mean nobody. Even the shills that write for the gun rags and are paid to like S&W products will reluctantly admit that the Airweight triggers suck. While the stock double action trigger is relatively short and smooth, it is extremely heavy. I found this surprising since these little pistols are specifically marketed to women who generally have smaller hands and a weaker grip. Yet S&W must be doing something right because they sell these little guns by the truckload, and as recently as 2006 the Airweight Centennial was S&W's #1 selling firearm.
The internet also reveals the storied history of the Airweight series and it's obvious that there was a time when the triggers on these little snubbies didn't suck. For the first 20 years or so of production S&W put a lot of effort into making sure it's J-frame pistols, including the Airweights, left the factory with good triggers. Most of these little revolvers were going straight into the holsters of police officers around the country as back-up weapons. S&W made sure the triggers were good enough to satisfy that very demanding customer base.
The little snub nosed revolver carried nicely in ankle holsters worn by many police officers
But times change and in the 1980's police forces started a mass migration away from the revolver as a duty weapon. This had an impact on the market for back-up guns. A young officer issued a shiny new Glock or Sig doesn't want to be seen carrying a back-up gun based on 19th Century technology. He wants something that operates in the same manner as his duty weapon. The market for small frame revolvers slowly dried up and at one point S&W considered stopping production of the little guns. Then something remarkable happened. In the late 1980's, beginning with Florida, states began to liberalize their concealed carry laws that applied to the common citizen. Thousands of law abiding citizens lined up to get the permits that previously were available only to the rich, the famous, the privileged and the connected. Shoppers clutching their new concealed carry permits flooded the gun stores looking for something small, light and easy to carry. Gun shop sales weasels and gun writers began touting the small five-shot revolver as the perfect concealed carry gun. It was easy to check to see if it was loaded or unloaded and had a very simple manual of arms - just point and shoot. No safeties or little switches or levers to manipulate. No slides to rack, no hammers to cock, no magazines to insert. The simple, reliable little snub nosed revolver found a new home in the purses, pockets and pants waists of hundreds of thousands of newly minted concealed carry permit holders.
S&W couldn't produce their aluminum framed Airweights fast enough. Literally. Demand outstripped supply for a few years, and any J-frame snubbie was a rare sight in a dealer's gun case. The little aluminum framed revolvers hit a sweet spot. The were well made, light weight, fired a 'real' cartridge (.38 Special), relatively small and were offered at a very good price point. But to meet the price point something had to give. What S&W dropped was the labor intensive hand fitting that used to be applied to the guts of these little guns to give them a smooth and reasonably light trigger pull. In the 1990's S&W began to introduce MIM-produced parts on its firearms as a way to save production costs and improve parts consistency. Since MIM parts can be manufactured to tighter dimensional tolerances than forged or cast parts the need for final hand fitting on the internals of a revolver was virtually eliminated. But those same human hands, trained in the fitting and mating of intricate fire control components in the guts of a revolver, would also take the time to make sure all the mating surfaces were smoothed and that the trigger pull was at least reasonable. Labor is any company's #1 expense, so to meet the expected price point I'm sure S&W decided that the Airweights didn't need any hand fitting beyond what was necessary to ensure the little things were assembled correctly and would go bang when the hammer falls on a live round.
Virtually all of the interior parts of the S&W J-Frame revolvers are manufactured
using metal injection molding (MIM) processes
Sign of the times I guess.
As Bill and I continued our conversation about his particular Airweight my other friend and fellow gun nut Jim chimed in with his opinion about snub nosed revolvers. In his mind it was borderline criminal that I didn't have at least one example of this classic design in my collection. Like Jim, I'm a big believer in history and tradition. Heck, my gun safe is full of history and tradition in the form of classic old lever action rifles and single action revolvers. Jim knew just where to poke. I started to think that my collection did need at least one classic snub nosed revolver. But which snubbie should it be?
Now, I may be a spendthrift, but I'm a cheap one. I do have a budget and these days it's a zero sum gain - sell a gun to buy a gun. I'm also not afraid to get into the guts of a gun and tinker. My light gunsmithing skills are pretty good and I have most of the tools to do the job right. I very quickly concluded that a S&W Airweight Centennial in stainless steel was the right starting point. The Centennial (Model 642) is a 'hammerless' design. That's not entirely true - the revolver does have a hammer but it's completely enclosed in the frame of the gun, which means it can only be fired double action. I also knew the trigger would need work, but the necessary parts and instructions were readily available on the internet.
I visited a few local gun stores and quickly found a Centennial at the price point I was willing to pay. I hurried off the the range to test fire it and my fears were confirmed. While the trigger pull may seem stiff but manageable at the gun counter, on the range it was all but unmanageable if your goal is any semblance of accuracy at 7 yards. And the lousy sights don't help, especially if you are a 58 year old astigmatic who wears bifocals. But all of this was known and expected, and viewed as challenges to be addressed and overcome.
The trigger was first. The damned thing was so heavy I couldn't measure it on my trigger pull gauge (which tops out at 10 lbs). I'm guessing it's 13 or more pounds as it came from the factory. I ordered a J-frame spring kit from Wilson Combat. The kit includes an 8 lb. hammer spring and trigger rebound springs in 13, 14 and 15 lb. weights. It's generally accepted that the trigger rebound spring is the #1 culprit in the heavy trigger pull issue so I decided to start with the lightest spring - the 13 lb.
Next, I studied the work being done by Terry Gardner, the gunsmith in this video. There's several videos on YouTube showing how to work on a S&W J-frame, but Terry offers solid, adult-level advice on what you can, and can't, do with a S&W trigger (you just have to get past the usual 'Nutnfancy' nonsense and shaky camera work, but I do commend him for getting permission to film Terry at work and putting the video together).
It was time to get to work! Last Friday I had some free time so I assembled all the parts and tools and went at it.
The first thing that struck me is how complex the internals of a revolver are. and all the things that are going on when the trigger is pulled. With a semi-auto pistol like a Glock all the trigger does is release the striker to ignite the primer in the cartridge. The recoil impulse petty much takes care of everything else - it extracts and ejects the spent casing, strips and loads a new round from the magazine and resets the striker and trigger for the next shot. A double action revolver is fundamentally different. Everything happens while the trigger is being pulled, and it all happens simultaneously - the hammer is pulled back against the hammer spring, the trigger rebound spring is compressed, the cylinder stop is dropped and the cylinder is rotated so a new round is brought into alignment with the barrel. This is all dependent on the mechanical force applied against the trigger. S&W has been building revolvers for over 150 years and they got their trigger designs figured out long ago. Where the modern J-frame trigger stumbles is the fact that the internal parts are not as smooth as they could be and the springs are too stiff.
The guts of my Centennial. The factory springs are sitting below the revolver, having been replaced with
lighter versions from Wilson Combat
The inside of the Centennial is very clean and crisp. The machining is all well executed and there's no metal chips, flakes or other residue left over from the milling process. The parts are well molded, the edges are sharp and well formed. Everything is as clean as a whistle and lightly lubed. The fit of the major components is also excellent. Because it is so precisely fitted the side plate can be tough to get off and when back on the seam between the plate and the frame is almost indistinguishable. Overall I'm impressed.
Out came the major components - the hammer, trigger rebound slide and trigger assembly - and most of the engagement surfaces got a light stoning using ceramic polishing stones. I'm here to tell you, the MIM parts are as tough as woodpecker lips and I'm certain I didn't stone them as thoroughly as I could have. Everything was cleaned up and reassembled along with the new Wilson Combat springs and given a light lube with Break Free. Next it was off to the range!
So here's the interesting part. Solving one issue just served to highlight another. The trigger is a good bit smoother and about 2 lbs lighter with the new springs, hovering just a bit over 10 lbs. on my trigger gauge. It is much easier to manage and is no longer the huge distraction it used to be. The big issue now is the sights, or rather the lack of them. At 7 yards I was consistently shooting high, way high. In danger of hitting the target frame high. After about 15 rounds I finally figured out that the point of aim with this little revolver is with the very top of the front sight blade precisely aligned horizontally with the top of the trough engraved in the top strap (aka, the 'rear sight'). Misjudge just a smidge and you'll be shooting over your intended target's head. The problem is, both the front and rear sight are all but indistinguishable from each other. Because they are the same color - silver - they meld into an almost indistinguishable blob at arm's length. I tried to improve things with a quick swipe of White-Out from a bottle I carry in my range bag, but that didn't make much difference. Next I tried running alternating white and red stripes down the back of the sight blade. That may help, but I won't know until my next range visit. I may have to finally admit I've found a pistol where Crimson Trace laser grips are absolutely necessary.
Alternating red and white stripes may help.
Or I'll just take the nuclear option and get some laser grips.
(For all you safety nazis out there hyperventilating over what looks
like live rounds in the cylinder, relax. They are inert snap caps)
So, a lousy stock trigger, lousy sights, only five rounds. Just what does the Airweight offer that makes it so compelling for concealed carry? Here's your answer:
Just over a pound, loaded.
And how does the competition compare? How's about a perennial concealed carry favorite, the Glock 26 with a 10 round magazine at 26.2 ounces:
Or even my current 9mm carry favorite, the Beretta Nano sporting a 6 round magazine at 23 ounces:
It's clear the 'Airweight' term isn't just marketing hype. I carry the pistol in a DeSantis Nemesis pocket holster and it's so light it all but disappears into my pocket.
But still, the lousy sights. The lousy stock trigger. The limited capacity. Aren't those strong enough reasons to pass the Centennial by in favor of more user friendly handguns? Well yes, I actually agree with that argument. Based on my limited experience with this little revolver I feel it is absolutely the wrong gun to put into the hands of a new shooter who is looking for their first concealed carry pistol. You would be doing them a potentially grave disservice by recommending this particular gun.
But I'm not a new shooter and I find this little wheelgun compelling in an odd way. It is quirky and full of compromises, but I've seen enough of it to know that it has a lot of potential. Remember my comments (above) about finding the correct sight alignment? Well once I got that figured out I was able to produce 3-shot strings averaging about 4" at 7 yards. That proves that if I do my job this little snubbie has a lot of accuracy potential.
I guess that's where I'm going with this post. I haven't had to put this much work into a firearm to uncover its potential since I bought a Dan Wesson Model 15 revolver back in the early 80's. I knew there was a lot of accuracy in that quirky revolver, I just had to find ways to squeeze it out. I eventually did, and that Dan Wesson remains the most accurate 38/357 revolver I've ever shot. I feel much the same way about this little Airweight. It is worth the effort to work with it to see just how well it can shoot, and perhaps learn some lessons along the way.
So welcome to the Airweight Chronicles. And stay tuned.
I was using my venerable Leatherman Blast the other day to loosen up some screws on a scope mount and things went south. I ended up snapping off a section of the tip of one of the flat screwdriver blades.
In over 20 years of using Leatherman tools in some pretty ugly ways this is the first time I've had any of their tools fail.
Looks like I'll be testing out their 25 year guarantee. Stay tuned, and stay sharp!
I had the very good fortune to meet and briefly talk to Chuck twice at trade and outdoor shows, and he was an extremely personable fellow and a fine gentleman.
Perhaps Chuck's greatest contribution to the American knife culture was his introduction of the Buck Folding Hunter (Model 110) in the 1965. It was a design the company's board members didn't think would sell, and at the time even Chuck thought it would have a limited market, selling just to hunters and outdoorsmen. Both were wrong, but in a very good way. The folding hunter went on to be perhaps the best selling folding knife design ever brought to market and is one of the most copied knife designs in the history of cutlery manufacturing.
Vaya con Dios, Chuck. You will be missed but you left us with a great legacy.
Last week in Part I of this series I outlined the whys and hows of the M-16's tortured acceptance by the US military. All of what I wrote is public knowledge, well documented and easy to find.
This second part, however, will outline my personal experience with the M-16 platform that constitutes more of a personal journey of realization and acceptance.
When I joined ROTC in 1974 I didn't like the M-16. I was a child of the 1950s and 60s. All of the adult males in my life - my father, my uncles, our neighbors, my Boy Scout leaders - all served in the US military during WWII or Korea and for them the M-1 Garand was the weapon of choice. Their experience deeply influenced me and I viewed the Garand (and the newer M-14) as the only acceptable choice for a Soldier. At the same time we were seeing the M-16 almost nightly on the evening news and in magazines like Time and Life. While the M-16 was cool looking I had the vague sense that it didn't offer enough 'punch' and that the Army and Marines were going to go back to the good old hard hitting M-14 once all this Vietnam silliness was over. I also remember hearing the reports about the unreliability of the M-16 and I'm sure that colored my perceptions.
Real men carried big heavy rifles... or so I was told
In ROTC all we used were M-14s. We learned to field strip them, clean them, maintain them and march with them. Our armory only had one or two M-16s for familiarization, and those got pulled out only for the cadets who were headed off to ROTC Summer Camp.
My first real introduction to the M-16 came in 1977 at ROTC Summer Camp at Fort Lewis. There wasn't an M-14 in sight. We were issued M-16's on day one and we lived with those rifles for the next six weeks. Our platoon sergeant, SFC Louis B. Pincock, hammered rifle cleaning and maintenance into us with a 5 lb sledge hammer. He was hell on any cadet with a dirty rifle. In part because that's just the way NCOs are, but also because, as a Vietnam vet with three combat tours, he understood firsthand the necessity of keeping your weapon clean.
Truth be told, we over-cleaned the damned things. It's what Soldiers do. Attention to detail, cleanliness, good order and discipline, all that stuff, A sparkling clean rifle goes right along with a sparkling clean latrine and a mirror polish on Corcoran jump boots. It makes a good NCO happy. But it's unnecessary (the sparkling clean rifle part - I'm all for sparkling clean latrines and a mirror polish on the toe caps of a pair of Corcoran jump boots is a thing to behold).
SFC Pincock also let us know that he thought the M-16 was a fine rifle for killing Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars. The Special Forces combat patch on his right shoulder clearly indicated that he'd spent a lot of time looking down the sights of an M-16 so his opinion carried a lot of weight with a bunch of no-nothing cadets.
In late 1979 I went on active duty. The very first M-16 I was issued, at Fort Bragg, was so old it was stamped 'Colt AR-15/XM-16E1'. It rattled like hell but shot just fine. On my first trip to the range with the rifle I shot Sharpshooter, and that's more a testament to the rifle's shooting ability than mine.
No, not my rifle, but the one I was issued at Fort Bragg in
1980 was marked the same way. And it was a fine shooter
Twenty three years later when I put in my retirement papers my assigned weapon was an M-16A2 manufactured by FN out of South Carolina. It too shot just fine. In the intervening years I carried dozens of M-16s (A1 and A2 models) in combat zones or places where the natives were pissed enough at us to start popping off rounds. I've also shot dozens more under range conditions and as a platoon leader and small unit commander in Germany, Fort Bragg, Panama and Fort Hood I've been responsible for the maintenance of over 100 more rifles in places like the jungles of Panama and the deserts of Kuwait.
I can count the number of malfunctions that were the fault of the rifle on the fingers of one hand, and have digits left over. In fact, I can only recall three issues that could be traced directly back to a mechanical problem with the rifle - one was a damaged gas tube, another was a bent barrel (yes, a bent barrel) and the last one was with a very early issue M-16 (by serial number) that, in the words of our armorer, was "just worn out and too tired to run".
All of the remaining reliability issues I experienced or observed were the fault of the magazines. Well into the mid-1980's the Army continued to issue 20 round magazines, many of which dated to the Vietnam era. Finding magazines with weak springs or damaged feed lips was common. If we had an issue on the range the standard practice was to just swap out magazines and the problem would go away. Later, when new production 30 round magazines were introduced the reliability issues all but disappeared.
New production mil-spec 30 round magazines tend to cure most M-16
reliability problems. But when they don't work any more don't try to fix them.
Toss them and get replacements!
I quickly developed a deep respect for the M-16 platform and that respect continues right up to this day.
Perhaps the real test is the question, "If you had to choose a rifle to carry into battle today would you unhesitatingly select the M-16?" My answer is an unflinching "Yes!"
Now let's consider another question: "Can the M-16 platform be improved?" Anyone who says "No" is a fool. The M-16 is a tool, a mechanical device, and like any mechanical device can be improved upon. As experience with any tool increases the user finds ways to make it more reliable. effective and easy to use. So it is with the M-16. Since the 1960s the M-16 has undergone a number of product improvements to increase reliability, shootability and service life; chrome lined barrel, better sights, different rifling twists, improved flash hider, improved stock and hand guards, reinforced lower receiver, and more. Perhaps the biggest improvement has been the successful shortening of the M-16 by Colt to produce the M-4 Carbine. Shortened versions of the M-16 had been tried since the rifle was first fielded in Vietnam, but reliability was always an issue. In the late 1980's Colt did extensive development and testing to produce the reliable and accurate M-4 Carbine. It was so successful that it became the rifle that has taken the US military through the Global War on Terror on battlefields across the globe.
The M-4 Carbine kitted out with an Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight - a deadly combination
While my personal experience is all with the full-sized M-16 I've had the chance to talk with perhaps a dozen Soldiers about their opinions of the M-4. One was an senior Engineer NCO with multiple deployments to Iraq, one was an SF Medic with multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan the the Horn of Africa and the rest were Soldiers in Kuwait, fresh out of the fight in Iraq. To a man they either praised the M-4 or expressed grudging respect for it. The Engineer NCO in particular felt the M-4 was the best battle rifle he ever carried. He praised it as being, "very handy, easy to maneuver inside of vehicles, reliable and deadly accurate inside of 100 meters."
I tend to believe my own experience and that of people who have actually used the rifle in combat vs. those that glean all their expertise from the internet or other second hand sources. The M-16 and M-4 are two of the best battle rifles available today.
But is the M-16 the best? Are there better designs and better calibers that would make for a better battle rifle? Aaaah, that's a topic for another time!
This is a blog post series I've been meaning to write for a long, long time.
For the past 14 years or so the AR-15, the civilian version of the M-16 rifle, has been all the rage among shooters. There are more manufacturers turning out their own versions of the AR-15 and variants than Carter's got little liver pills.
What drove the popularity of a once maligned rifle platform? Simple - the news images of America's sons and daughters carrying the M-16 and it's carbine variant the M-4 into battle across the Middle East. The M-4 in particular captured America's eye. While based on a 55 year old design, the M-4 got a cosmetic make-over that turned it downright sexy. Colt sawed off the carrying handle to mount a wide range of optical sights, installed a collapsible stock, slapped on a fore grip that could take all manner of lights and lasers and suddenly the M-4 was the star of the show - literally. Thousands and thousands of photos and videos hit the internet showing America's Soldiers with the Colt M-4 hanging across their chest. America's fighting men and women never went anywhere without their M-4s. On battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and the other piss-holes we found ourselves killing terrorists in, the M-4 was the ubiquitous symbol of American military might. In perhaps its greatest starring role it was a Colt M-4, in the hands of a US Navy SEAL, that fired the double-tap that put out Osama bin Laden's lights.
A Colt M4 cabine in the hands of an American Soldier somewhere in Afghanistan.
What also spurred the popularity of the AR-15 platform was the 2008 presidential election and the ushering in of a blatantly anti-gun chief executive, who brought on-board an equally anti-gun administration and emboldened anti-gun forces in Congress and those working out of K Street in Washington DC. The American public realized long before the November 2008 election that Barack Obama would likely win the next election and that triggered a nation-wide firearm and ammo buying frenzy the likes of which had never been seen.
The AR-15 had long been at the top of the 'hit list' maintained by numerous anti-gun groups simply because it looks scary. In fact, the AR-15 had been singled out by the Clinton administration back in 1995 when he got a law (with a 10 year sunset provision) through Congress that banned the sale of AR-15s that sported such deadly accouterments such as flash hiders and bayonet lugs. Clinton's ban was the triumph of political showmanship over substance. Even today the Clintonistas claim that the ban of cosmetic features made the world a safer place, while the FBI provides crime statistics for the 1995 - 2005 period that proves the banning of AR - style rifles had zero impact on crime anywhere in the US.
Yet the AR-15 is still a 55 year old design that has received relatively few updates since Eugene Stoner and ArmaLite introduced it to the world back in the mid-1950s. That alone is a testament to the soundness of the design. In the hands of the US military the rifle has gone through a few product improvement cycles starting with a critical upgrade right after it was first widely fielded in Vietnam in 1965. From that time most of the upgrades have focused on usability issues - better sights, improved stocks, different flash hider designs, heavier barrels designed to fire varying ammunition loads. However, the basic operating design - the direct gas impingement design developed by Eugene Stoner - remains essentially unchanged. It is this direct gas impingement system that generates the most discussion when talk starts up about the M-16's reliability.
Eugene Stoner, firearms engineer extraordinaire, standing next to a display of some of his designs
Stoner specifically selected the gas impingement system with the goal of keeping the rifle as light as possible while still maintaining a high level of reliability. In more traditional full auto and semi-auto rifle designs a small amount of gas pressure is bled off behind the bullet as it travels down the barrel. This gas is routed through a small hole in the barrel into a chamber where the rapidly expanding gas pushes against a piston. This piston pushes against an operating rod that is attached to the rifle's bolt. The gas pressure against the piston/operating rod assembly is enough to force the rifle's bolt to move rearward, unlocking it from the receiver and extracting and ejecting the spent casing. A large recoil spring captures and reverses the bolt's rearward movement, forcing it forward to strip a fresh round of ammunition from a magazine or clip, pushing the round into the rifle's chamber and locking the bolt closed. The rifle is ready to fire again. If you close your eyes and try to visualize the mechanics of what I just described you understand two things - the piston/operating rod combination adds weight to the rifle, and when the operating rod is moving under recoil there's a lot of moving mass right beside or below the barrel, negatively impacting accuracy.
The genius of Eugene Stoner's design is that he eliminated the gas piston/operating rod assembly and brought the gas pressure directly back to the bolt assembly. The M-16 design has a small gas tube that runs along the top of the barrel from the bleed hole near the muzzle and directly to the bolt carrier assembly. The gas comes straight back through the gas tube and pushes against the gas key which is part of the bolt carrier. This rearward movement unlocks the bolt and extracts and ejects the spent casing. Another example of Stoner's genius is that he put all critical recoil components - the barrel and chamber, bolt and bolt carrier and recoil spring and buffer - in a straight line. This means all recoil forces are aligned, greatly reducing the impact any moving parts may have on overall accuracy. The M-16 design has a lot of inherent accuracy.
The AR-15/M-16 direct gas impingement system
So if the design is so good why all the criticism? For a couple of reasons.
First, there's no wood or heavy steel in the rifle's design. You have to keep in mind that when this rifle was introduced to the US Army back in the early 1960's the venerable M-1 Garand and its replacement the M-14 were the Infantryman's weapon of choice. The M-1 had, quite literally, won the war. During WWII the M-1 put an unprecedented amount of firepower into the hands of American servicemen on battlefields around the globe. It was a much loved and respected rifle, A lot of American GIs made it home from the war because the firepower the M-1 provided gave them a decided advantage over their German or Japanese adversaries using 19th Century designed bolt action rifles. In the minds of America's military leaders and millions of veterans a real battle rifle was made of American wood and ordnance steel.
Next, the M-1 fired a 'manly' cartridge, the .30-06 round. Now, the .30-06 is a very good rifle round. It has a flat trajectory and a lot of knock-down and killing power well out beyond 500 yards. But studies during WWII showed that the average Infantryman didn't try to engage targets much beyond 300 yards - that job was left to the heavy machine guns and artillery. The .30-06 is also a large and heavy round and has one heck of a kick. In the late 1950's and early 1960's there was a lot of discussion about the lethality of large rifle bullets like the .30-06 as compared to smaller fast moving bullets if used within the 300 yard engagement limit. Research showed that out to 300 yards smaller diameter, fast moving and slightly unstable bullets were just as effective at killing lightly clothed enemy soldiers as the larger and heavier .30-06 bullet. But the US Army Ordnance Corps and the Springfield Armory were not swayed by these test results. In a nod to modern ballistics developments and NATO pressure they downsized the .30-06 to develop the 7.62 mm round (.308 caliber) for use in the new M-14 rifle. Still it was a minor give as the new round essentially duplicated the ballistics of the venerable .30-06. In their collective minds only a powerful 30 caliber bullet could meet the individual Infantryman's needs.
By comparison the AR-15 fired a 5.56 mm (22 caliber) round that started life as the 222 Remington - a fast moving, flat shooting commercial cartridge designed for hunting small game. Eugene Stoner redesigned the round and gave it a 55 grain bullet. He gave the AR-15's barrel a 1:12 rifling twist, just barely enough stabilize the bullet out to 300 yards. Because the bullet was flying on the very edge of stability this meant that when it hit a soft target like a human body the bullet tumbled around inside the body. This is what made the 5.65 round so lethal - more lethal in fact than the heavier hitting 30 caliber rounds that tended to just pass right through the body while doing minimal tissue damage.
The 5.56 mm round (right) compared to the 7.62 mm round.
The 5.56 round actually produces more tissue damage within
normal engagement ranges
So along comes this futuristic rifle made of aluminum and plastic, with just a bit of steel. Even worse, it fires a puny little cartridge that started life as something designed for shooting varmints. The small arms policy makers in the Army Ordnance Corps were having none of it. However, the Ordnance boys didn't count on four factors: General Curtis LeMay, Vietnam, The US Army Special Forces and Robert McNamara.
General LeMay was Chief of Staff of the Air Force in the early 1960's. He was also a gun nut, One of the problems he faced was a lack of small arms for his base defense forces. His Airmen didn't need big, heavy M-1s or M-14s, they needed lighter, smaller rifles. The stock of M-1 Carbines the Air Force was currently using was rapidly wearing out and LeMay needed something new. He was introduced to the AR-15 by Colt Firearms (which had purchased the manufacturing rights to the AR-15 from Armalite) and immediately fell in love with the rifle. LeMay was not the least bit put off by the materials used in the AR-15. Hell, he had fleets supersonic nuclear bombers made of the same stuff, and they performed just fine. In his mind there was no reason a perfectly good rifle couldn't be made of aluminum and plastic. LeMay put in an order for several thousand AR-15's. Congress quickly squashed the order, but LeMay and the Air Force remained convinced that this newfangled rifle was just what they needed and kept up pressure to have it adopted.
At the same time Vietnam was heating up. President Eisenhower got us involved and JFK expanded that involvement. Reports coming back from advisers clearly indicated that the big, heavy M-1 Garand was too much rifle for the small, wiry South Vietnamese soldiers. The M-1 Carbine was extremely popular but it was increasingly hard to get reliable stocks of the rifles and the cartridge it fired, the .30 Carbine, was underpowered. Small lots of the M-16 made their way to Vietnam for testing and the rifle got rave reviews from both the advisers and the South Vietnamese army. It was the right rifle firing the right cartridge for the type of war that was being fought.
The US Army Special Forces got involved in early testing and evaluation of the AR-15, including the advisory role discussed above. From the beginning they loved the rifle. It provided just the right combination of light weight and firepower they badly needed in places like Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Before long the green beret and the M-16 rifle became the universal symbols of the US Army Special Forces Soldier. As JFK's administration expanded the Special Forces role in Vietnam the AR-15 became more ubiquitous in press photos and news footage. The AR-15 became the rifle the 'cool guys' in tiger stripe camouflage and boonie hats were using to kill the godless commies all over Southeast Asia.
"Bronze Bruce" (or as we used to call him, the 'gay beret').
This statue stood for decades outside the US Army Special Forces Museum on Ardennes Road on Fort Bragg.
Originally dedicated in 1968 as a memorial to all US Special Forces Soldiers,
the statue reinforces the image of the M-16 as the indispensable tool of the freedom fighter
But until Robert McNamara got involved the AR-15 program was moving forward in fits and starts. McNamara was Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He was one of the 'wiz kids' Kennedy brought on board to help modernize government operations. McNamara had served in the Army Air Corps during WWII as a program analyst, helping develop the statistical models that gauged the effectiveness of various bombing and air logistics operations. After the war he was hired to turn the Ford Motor Company around and soon found himself in charge of the whole enterprise. Kennedy hired him away from Ford and made him Secretary of Defense with orders to modernize the DoD's development and procurement processes. The AR-15 program quickly caught his eye as an example of all that was wrong with weapons development in the Army. Field commanders in Vietnam were begging for the new AR-15 rifle, but Army Ordnance was pushing back claiming the AR-15 wasn't ready and wasn't what they really needed. McNamara stepped in and directly ordered the Chief of Staff of the Army to get the standardized version of the AR-15, designated the M-16, out to the field without further delay.
The Army Ordnance managers still got their digs in by altering the ballistic requirements for the rifle's 5.56 round so that it shot 'dirtier' (left more fouling powder residue in the rifle) and then failing to issue cleaning kits with the rifles. Eugene Stoner had once claimed that the rifle was 'almost self-cleaning', but that claim was based on a very specific rifle powder type and charge combination developed by Stoner himself. In an example of institutional petulance with a strong hint of criminal intent, Army Ordnance leadership decided to take Stoner at his word and shipped thousands of M-16's and the wrong type of ammunition to Vietnam. What happened were incidents that mar the rifle's reputation to this day - in combat the M-16's fouled and stopped working. Without cleaning kits the Soldiers had no options and many died surrounded by jammed rifles.
News of the rifle's failure was splashed across America's newpapers and TV news reports. Congress ordered an immediate investigation and the ammunition and lack of cleaning equipment were quickly identified as the main culprits. The report also recommended applying a chrome plating to the chamber and bore of the rifle barrels to reduce the likelihood of casings getting stuck in the chamber and to reduce rusting. Once these changes were put in place the rifle went from being a jam-prone piece of junk to a highly reliable, accurate and extremely effective battle rifle.
McNamara would later get his revenge by shutting down the Springfield Armory, home of many of the top Ordnance personnel that had stonewalled the M-16's development and fielding.
The M-16 became the Army's standard service rifle in 1967. Fourty seven years later it is still America's standard service rifle, and has seen reliable and effective service in at least eight wars or armed conflicts (Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, Mogadishu, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps half a dozen other piss holes we found ourselves killing bad guys in). The rifle is well respected by most of those who have actually carried it and used it in sustained ground combat.
But it still can't get an even break!
The internet is rife with stories of failures of the M-16 and M-4. You'd swear from reading these 'reports' that we lost about a battalion's worth of Soldiers every day in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the alleged failures of the M-16 or M-4 design.
Bullshit.
Even General Robert Scales wrote an article for The Atlantic back in January 2014 that seemed to crucify the rifle (even though Scales admits that his initial exposure to the M-16's 'failures' was more related to his own leadership failure to make sure his Soldiers cleaned their weapons). Kyle Mizokami at the War Is Boring blog did a pretty good take down of Scales' criticisms.
Other 'experts' keep comparing the M-16 to the Russian AK-47 and other AK-series rifles. Because (they claim) you can fill an AK-47 with thick mud and it'll still operate that makes it sooooo much better than the M-16. While I'll admit that the AK can be more reliable, it's also inherently inaccurate and ergonomics are lousy. Here's a hint - the Russians (and before them the Soviets) don't teach rifle marksmanship. Why bother when you can't hit a damned thing with an AK out beyond 100 yards. The Russians teach 'suppressive fire' - using the AK as a bullet hose to force the enemy to keep his head down and, if fortune smiles, perhaps get a hit or two. Yes there are countries that have adopted the AK design and modified it for their own purposes. The Finnish Valmet and Israeli Galil rifles copied the AK gas piston system and both are very good rifles, but the re-design and improved production processes didn't really yield a rifle that was more reliable AND more accurate than the M-16. Plus they weigh a lot more than an equivalent sized M-16 or M-4.
The other reason the AK-47 is so reliable is because it was designed with sloppy tolerances. Why? Because the Russians (and those they sell the rifle to) never clean them. Ever seen a Russian issue cleaning kit for an AK? Naaa, me either. Maintenance on an AK normally consists of dipping it in a tank of diesel fuel to loosen the crud, then pouring half a quart of motor oil into the receiver to lube it. The point here is that the AK is designed for a peasant society that will receive a minimal amount of firearms training and who's vocabulary has no equivalent for the terms 'accuracy' and 'precision'.
For the American Soldier steeped in the lore of the skilled rifleman and highly trained in the concepts of marksmanship, fire discipline and weapons maintenance an accurate and deadly rifle like the M-16 is a much more effective tool.
Before closing this segment of the discussion of the M-16 let me recommend a great video on the history of the M-16, part of the History Channel's 'Tales Of The Gun' series.
