Marines might replace M-16A2 with M-4

It’s smaller, lighter and better suited for modern battles. And it might be headed into the hands of U.S. Marines.

Marine Corps officials wrapped up testing two new rifles as a possible replacement to the M-16A2 in stock now: the short M-4 carbine and the M-16A4, an upgraded model of the rifle Marines use now.

The jury’s still out, but a decision is expected soon. So far, though, the M-4 is garnering praise from the Marines and looks to be a front-runner.

However, some soldiers who fought in Afghanistan have expressed concerns about the M-4, which also is standard issue for U.S. Army infantry troops. Their chief complaints, though, appear to center on the ammunition used, not the weapon itself — and officials have said ammunition types are undergoing review.

The M-4 is hardly new to the Corps. Marine Force Reconnaissance units, Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Teams and Military Police Special Response Teams have been using the weapon since 1999 as a replacement for the MP-5 submachine gun.

Corps officials tested the two rifles for more than 18 months. The latest test, held at Camp Lejeune, N.C., wrapped up in July. The rifles were put through the wringer, including shooting at known-distance ranges, live-fire field trials and force-on-force scenarios, said Capt. John Douglas, project officer at Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va.

Douglas said the M-16A4 looks and feels much like the M-16A2 but, like the M-4, has component parts. The Corps can buy either weapon of the existing Army contract, Douglas said.

“Both weapons have flat-top upper receivers with 1913 Military Standard rails for mounting optics as well as forward rail hand guards,” Douglas said.

“All accessories from lasers, lights, scopes, etc., mount to the 1913 rails as a standard mounting platform, allowing tailoring of the weapon to mission, billet, or individual ergonomic preferences,” he said.

But even if a new rifle comes, Douglas said, not every Marine will get one. They’ll be fielded only for ground infantry units.

The maneuverability, adaptability and ease of operation cause some to favor the M-4 for tomorrow’s Marines.

Mike Reissig, a sales representative with Colt Manufacturing, declined to answer questions before test results are released but forwarded a point paper provided by the Marine Corps to Colt Manufacturing. It says the rifle simply is a better fit for the way Marines will be fighting in the future.

The weapon, the paper said, is based on a proven design familiar to all Marines, and is equally well-suited for operations in all types of terrain, including use in urban environments.

The M-4 has interchangeable sighting systems, add-on vertical forward grips and even a detachable short version of the M-203 grenade launcher. The rifle itself is one full pound lighter than the M-16A2 and 10 inches shorter. The collapsible buttstock is designed to make it more adaptable to individual shooters, a benefit especially in tight-packed urban areas.

“This allows the Marine to rapidly shoulder the weapon from a proper fighting stance with combat gear,” the review said. “The reduced barrel length allows the weapon to be more easily maneuvered in restrictive terrain, urban areas, vehicles and aircraft.”

There are some drawbacks to the M-4, though. A shorter barrel means reduced velocity and accuracy at long ranges. But it’s unlikely, the Marine review said, that battles would be waged at more than 200 meters. At that distance, the M-16A2’s and M-4’s performance are nearly identical.

The M-4, the review concluded, “provides our infantry unit leaders with the ability to rapidly prepare for combat under varying situations, while allowing them to employ the latest in target acquisition technology. Its modular nature allows us to upgrade components as improvements become available.”

Too bad that Armalite didn't -- or doesn't -- make a version that uses FN-FAL mags.

Actually Mark Westrom and Armalite did work on a FAL mag conversion, but reliability was better with M14 mags.

As an aside, the 10rd mags supplied with the AR10B (current manufacture) are reliable, the problem often comes when folks send in M14 mags of widely varying quality. The best ones - new, parkerized GI - are of course hugely expensive, so folks send in $8 stamped chinese copies and hope for the best. Still, there have been problems even with good mags, and you may have to fiddle with mag springs and followers. Long live the Crime Bill, keeping us safe from bad guys with $3000 20rd AR10's.

The AR10T flattop and SR25 systems, when properly scoped and set up, are absolutely hell for strong precision rifles. Better than MOA accuracy, great triggers, and rock solid platforms for high performance optics. Putting the package together can cost some $$ and time, but in the end you wind up with a semi auto rifle capable of repeatedly hammering targets at 500-800 yards all day long without much effort. IMO these guns are much easier to shoot well than equivalent match M1A setups, of course they are also heavier and thus not as easy to transport.

Shooter 2.5 - has your son been to the Armalite website and forum for suggestions on resolving AR10 mag problems? I would imagine so but if not there are a number of tech notes on the subject at www.armalite.com/.

He has been to the site on a number of occasions. He just seems like he lives with the fact that some of his mags don't work.
I guess in a lot of ways he's like me. I'll go to a IDPA match with junk magazines and if I have a jam, I just use the experience to learn to clear.
The only difference is, I'm using 8 dollar magazines and he's using 40 dollar magazines plus the price that Armalite charges to work on them.
He absolutely loves the rifle. He has an ACOG on it and it shoots superbly. He can stand up and hit this welding tank that's set up at 375 yards away about 80% of the time.
The funny thing is that the muscle memory tells us that it's an AR-15 until we shoot that first shot. It doesn't hurt but it startles me. He just bought an Armalite AR-15 and he still has to work on it. The trigger is horrible.
I have an early Armalite Golden Eagle and It came with 1/3 clicks on the rear sight. I didn't find out about that until I went to the Texas State Match. I lost over 100 points to my average because I couldn't figure out why I had to put in so many clicks. The range officer asked what I was shooting and when I told him, he just shook his head. It turns out that it was a common occurance with the early Armalites. 1/3 clicks??

Too bad that Armalite didn't -- or doesn't -- make a version that uses FN-FAL mags.
M-14 mags: $60/each, and climbing.
FN-FAL mags: $4/each, and stagnating.
Converting an M-14 mag for AR-10 service is a risky and expensive gamble.

I don't doubt it can be done, but it may not be as simple as just reworking a magazine catch. The feed lips of the M14 magazine are very short, less than half the length of the magazine, as was necessary for feeding with the M14s Garand-derived turnbolt action.

That could well mean that not only would the rifle's receiver magazine well dimensions need reworking, but also the internal bolt guideways, and either a rearrangement of the front magazine pivot pin or modification of the magazines' front pivot lug, necessating a more complicated rework and removal of the seperately fabricated and welded-on front pivot lug of the inch-pattern FAL magazines. Then there's the matter of the bolt catch, as tripped by the rising follower of an empty magazine, which works a bit differently on a FAL.

I think it's a good deal easier to just go with the FAL, which also can be transformed into a handier carbine-length shorty without altering the rifle's sights.

It's certainly possible. But it's not without some problems. Better, I think, to work up a new design altogether, as per the Robinson Arms Model 96 *Expeditionary Rifle* in .223....

-archy-/-

My basic idea was to have 3 men on each fire team with rapid-fire, solidly reliable weapons for close work (AKs), and one man with a solidly reliable long-range weapon (M-14).

1. Why not M-4's in .223 for close, and M-14's for heavy cover and distance? In Death in the A Shau Valley, Larry Chambers recalled that small trees that provided cover against M-16's and AK's, were only concealment in front of an M-14.

2. Someone posted up extraction problems with the .308/7.62x51 round. Were they worse than the M-16's?

3. What about simply carrying stocks of both M-4's and M-14's in the armory, and drawing weapons according to the mission? M-14's would make a lot more sense in Afghanistan and SW Asia generally than either M-16's or M-4's. The M-16 was designed as a jungle gun, and both it and the M-4 ought to take a back seat in other scenarios, don't you think?

4. The comment posted above about shotguns sounds appropriate. Military police used to carry fully-automatic 12-gauges, I don't know their designation but I hefted one at a gun show once (displayed by a Class III dealer), and it must have weighed 20 lbs, empty. Dragunov makes the Saiga, a semiauto shotgun with a Kalashnikov action and a detachable box magazine. There are two possibilities, besides the Benelli Super 90.

5. Economy plays a part here, too. You don't want to mass-waste potential militia weapons that ought to remain in armory, by obsoleting and ending support of the caliber. Which means dancing with the one what brung ya, as far as the rounds are concerned, unless you're willing to mass-convert and rechamber lots of existing stock (.30-06 to 7.62 NATO, e.g.). That drives the cost up and creates political problems you don't need.

I pulled a gig at a Naval Inactive Ship Facility (NAVINACSHIPFAC) in Orange, Texas, for a few months once, and what I saw aboard decommissioned ships being readied to be towed out and expended as targets would make you gag. The waste -- the blind, dumb-assed, criminal waste -- was just staggering. Everything from machine tools to old Underwood typewriters (this was 1971) to Marine hammock covers to ship's running lights, peloruses, binnacles, Sperry gyros, 40-mm mounts and barrels (the ARVN would have liked to have had those, if not our guys!), naval arty in profusion with barrels cut round and optics smashed with bull screwdrivers driven through them, 40-pound engine wrenches, tiny ball-bearing rings still in cosmoline in their wax-paper wrappers, SK cages strewn with stuff. Jesus, it'd make you weep -- and we paid for all this stuff. Dick Nixon was letting his SecNav strike 500-foot, 36-knot hulls sitting at piers while the Navy shoveled gigabucks out to Litton Industries for new-build destroyer-escorts that couldn't do over 29 knots and couldn't defend themselves.

Gives you a certain sardonic sense of what "policy" is all about.

At least we managed to salvage the CO2 extinguishers (some officer up in Little Creek whistled them up -- seems he was short of extinguishers, and we just bailed him out of a procurement pinch, we heard). I assume someone got the mint-condition boat motor we found aboard one old DE, but I'm pretty sure most of the wire rope went to waste. I heard the gas masks we sent the Naval Reserve training centers didn't last long, they dry-rotted pretty quickly once they came out of dehumidification; but the fire hose, probably stood up to city water pressures okay (it was designed to stand up to 400 psi) for training. The Gator Navy got most of the brass fire-hose nozzles we found, and damn, were there a lot of them!

But the stuff that was aboard many of those old ships went to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. The rest wound up going to the shipbreakers. Totally squandered.

There are firearms manufacturers that would slaver at the thought of being able to replace all or most of our small-arms armory, but do we really want to do that, if it's paid for and it works? Sure, some turnover is inevitable -- but when the President came into office passing out orders to hold the line on procurement, when the budget-writers in both parties are so eager to stiff procurement, do you really think you can afford a hickey like this? Or would you rather scale back the request to something more modest......and then see about filling depleted ammo stocks? You could do that if you stuck to a triad of the M-4, the M-14 redux, and M-16's in rear-area duty and reserve.

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