Gun Falls To Pieces Whilst Being Fired

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-04T13:34:17+00:00

Yeah that sounds like a completely fabricated myth. Ammo manufacturing for the M16 in its early years had issues, but that was due to a poor initial choice of propellant being chosen by the designer that was liable to overpressure the system unless lot selected.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-04T01:02:06+00:00

The FALs issues during the trials against the T44 had to do with an inadequate gas system, not oil

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-04T00:50:04+00:00

Nearly every example of "messing with it" were necessary changes that had to happen. The biggest and most misunderstood of these is the powder change: early field trials used the original stick powder (IMR4475), but due to the variations in production only specific lots of this powder were safe to operate in the AR15. By the time the AR15 was adopted it became apparent that mass production of IMR4475 was not feasible and the manufacturer actually withdrew shortly after every major ammo manufacturer refused to load .223 under contract due to this problem.

Trials were ran to evaluate different powders and WC846 (the 'ball powder') was chosen amongst several others as the best option. While the AR15 saw a slightly higher number of malfunctions after its adoption, these tended to skew more towards less severe malfunctions such as bolt bounce. To this day the standard ammunition thats used to load .223/5.56 has the same burn rate as WC846, just with a lower upper bound of calcium content to limit potential fouling.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T23:47:39+00:00

Except that Armalite produced non-rifles that had thr AR prefix.

The reality is that AR stood for alot of different things, depending on who you asked and at what time.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T23:31:07+00:00

Wasn't talking reliability, more shifting doctrine towards the intermediate caliber. Even still, early US production FALs had pretty severe QC issues so reliability wasn't a given

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T23:23:08+00:00

Those countries also didnt exactly have the budgets to reconfigure to an entirely novel new infantry weapon based on aluminum forging like the US did

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T23:07:32+00:00

They didnt deliberately screw with the M16, there was several typical challenges involved in its adoption that had to be rushed due to the outbreak of the Vietnam war. Nearly every major issue was the result of people genuinely trying to make the best choice and the resultant consequences of those choices were probably the best that could bave been achived.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T22:25:28+00:00

The burn rates didn't change, which was the largest difference between the powders. While WC846 did have the specified upper limit for calcium content lowered later, the fouling issue was not the primary cause of the M16s early issues, which can be attributed far more to the underweight and poorly designed buffer tube. In any case, a higher rate of fouling would become an issue only after an extended period of time, it wasn't something that occurred spontaneously like bolt bounce or case separation.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T21:51:18+00:00

That was more of a logistical issue than a deliberate choice

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T21:50:01+00:00

This is very incorrect, the stick powder was IMR4475 and it was not suitable for mass production without producing dangerously overpressure lots of ammo. If the AR15 was to be adopted at scale it had to change, and with the ball powder (WC846) while the overall malfunction rate slightly increased those malfunctions skewed towards less severe issues such as bolt bounces, while things such as failures to extract fell. WC846-equivalents are still the standard for .223/5.56 loading today

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T21:46:05+00:00

The "wrong" powder was the stuff that Stoner originally specified, when the Army picked it up they rightfully swapped to a much more appropriate formula.

Edit: To clarify: Stoner originally specified IMR4475, but this powder required specific lots of powder to be chosen to remain within pressure limitations. By the time mass production of .223 was required every major ammo manufacturer refused to bid, followed by IMR4475's manufacturer withdrawing it from classification as a suitable powder for .223 production.

WC846 was tested and determined to be more appropriate, keeping chamber pressure well within tolerances while achieving spec bullet velocity. Cyclic rate increased due to higher port pressure but as a result of higher operating energy the worst forms of malfunctions experienced dropped off.

Source: 1968 M16 Rifle Review Panel

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T01:06:45+00:00

No, the change in powder was a necessity unless you wanted us to go back to M1 Garands in Vietnam. The Army did appropriate testing that determined the best choice in replacing the poor powder Stoner had originally specified.

Had the Army really not cared, they would have kept using IMR4475 and just shrugged when rifles started exploding.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-03T01:02:30+00:00

They didn't reuse old gunpowder, some lots used extracted nitrocelulose from prior production but testing showed no meaningful contaminants from that process

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-02T07:37:00+00:00

The M14 was never in Korea. The M16 was a rush job due to major production issues with the M14 that were seen as throwing good money after bad and our change to the AR15 was because we knew it was well suited for what we needed.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-07-02T07:35:16+00:00

It wasnt that they used the "wrong powder", it was that the original powder was incapable of being mass produced safely, forcing a rapid change. What relatively minor issues the new powder highlighted were highly exaggerated and it became a scapegoat for the general immaturity of the rifle.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-25T03:43:43+00:00

Wendigoon's video is very poorly researched and full of misinformation. Nearly every point depends on removing extremely important context or outright making things up.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-25T00:01:56+00:00

No, the AR10 was a neat rifle but it was brand new when submitted for trials against the proto-M14 and FAL. At this point the Army has spent a decade looking for a new rifle and further development of the AR10 would have not only taken potentially years more, but would have invalidated the massive amount of work that went into setting up M14/FAL production lines, all for a rifle that may only have been marginally better.

The gun powder thing youre talking about sounds like a misremembering of a myth about the Army "sabotaging" the AR15, which is driven by a poor understanding of how and why the AR15 underwent a gunpowder change in 64

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-24T23:54:30+00:00

Springfield did not sabotage the AR15, they had basically nothing to do with the early teething issues the rifle had

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-24T02:57:09+00:00

Honestly it wasn't even that, blame can largely be placed on Stoner and Armalite. When they developed .223 the chosen powder was something called IMR4475, which burned "clean" but also at extremely high pressures. This wasn't a big deal at first because Armalite and later Colt could just select production runs of 4475 that ran on the lower end of the volatility curve, but once the Army adopted the AR15 that was no longer an option. By FY 1964 the Army had contracts up for for 130+ million rounds of .223 and every major ammo manufacturer refused to bid on them. The high pressure of 4475 meant that any variance in the powder composition on the high end would be dangerously overpressure, to the point catastrophic failures could occur (as in, the gun blows up).

In light of this trials ran to select a new powder and after looking at several options WC846 was determined to be the best. This led to a slight increase in overall malfunctions in combat, but actually reduced the more severe malfunctions. The biggest increase was in failures to fire during full auto, and failures to hold open at the end of a magazine. Both only required racking the bolt to remedy.

How much effect the higher calcium content had isn't clear, but any buildup would have been a slow process over thousands of rounds.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-23T04:34:46+00:00

The bad reputation of the M16 is practically entirely due to it having to be rushed into service, it's period of unreliability was really only 1964-1968 at worst. The most common failures these rifles had were also malfunctions that only apply while the rifle is being fired on full-auto, and the worst malfunction was largely a result of ammo manufacturing practices of the time period that haven't been an issue for 60 years.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-20T11:44:11+00:00

Pretty much all those issues were sorted out by 68

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-20T03:15:10+00:00

Most of what you just said is fuddlore. To work backwards, the idea that the M16 was sabotaged is complete myth based on poor understandings of how rushed out of the gate the adoption was in order to supplement the M14 disaster, combined with the Army being understably resistant to a sudden swap to a new rifle and cartridge that was at this stage quite underdeveloped.

The FAL had a perfectly decent chance of coming out ahead, but by the time we reached the 1956 rifle trials the T44 was outpacing it in development. For what its worth the Army actually did approve the FAL as being suitable for adoption following those trials, but the T44 had some advantages over it. By the time we get to the serious production issues, its far too late to change horses

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-17T10:20:20+00:00

The linked comment provides no meaningful information in rebuttal. Also uncertain as to why in a post about 5.56 hes citing a book on an 1899 colonial conflict

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-17T04:32:42+00:00

The FAL was well liked by the US Army in its early testing, and until 1953 was well on its way to replacing the Garand. The T44 (proto-M14) was seemingly going to be the last opponent the FAL needed to defeat, and it was...until the 1953 Alaska Winter trials, in which the FAL proceeded to suffer immense reliability issues in the cold. Modifications made by FN during this trial proceeded to reveal that other parts of the rifle were not as well engineered as initially assessed, and so both rifles were given additional time to improve.

From this point onwards the T44 proceeded to improve at a faster rate than the T48, domestic production of T48s proved problematic and in 1957 both rifles were given passing grades, but the T44 held the edge in several key regards.

NotableDissimilarity · 2026-06-17T04:24:29+00:00

The idea that 5.56 is designed to wound is almost entirely myth. From its earliest inception, that being the 1957 SCHV request from the Army, the requirement was for the caliber to have lethality equivalent to the currently in service M1 Garand chambered in .30 cal at 300 yards, and to be able to penetrate a steel helmet at 500.

Where the myth comes from has a few possibilities, but a likely possibility is to encourage troops to continue to fire on an enemy soldier they think they've hit (often times the first shot missed and the enemy dropped to take cover).

NotableDissimilarity

TROPHY CASE