M14 rifle

The M14 rifle is an American battle rifle chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. It was accepted as the service rifle of the United States Armed Forces in 1957, with production starting in 1959. The M14 replaced the semi-automatic M1 Garand in US service.Thompson, Leroy, The M14 Battle Rifle Osprey Publishing (2014), pp.8-9

In 1967, it was officially replaced as the US "Standard A" service rifle by the M16 assault rifle, a lighter weapon with a smaller 5.56×45mm intermediate cartridge. The M14 remained in use by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps for Basic and Advanced Individual Training from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.

The M14 rifle remains in limited service across all branches of the U.S. military, with variants used as sniper and designated marksman rifles, accurized competition weapons, and ceremonial weapons by honor guards, color guards, drill teams, and ceremonial guards. Civilian semi-automatic variants are used for hunting, target shooting, and shooting competitions.

The M14 served as the basis for the M21 and M25 sniper rifles, which were eventually replaced by the M24 Sniper Weapon System. A new variant of the M14, the Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle, has been in very limited service since 2002.

History

Early development The M14's development stemmed from an extensive line of experimental weapons based on the M1 Garand rifle. Although the M1 was among the most advanced infantry rifle designs of the late 1930s, it was not without faults, as various modifications to the basic M1 were considered during the last months of World War II. Changes included the addition of fully automatic fire and the replacement of the eight-round en bloc clip with a detachable box magazine holding 20 rounds. Winchester, Remington, and Springfield Armory's John Garand offered alternate conversions. Garand's design, the T20, was the most popular, and T20 prototypes served as the basis for several Springfield test rifles from 1945 to the early 1950s.

In 1945, Earle Harvey of Springfield Armory designed an entirely different rifle, the T25, for the new T65 .30 light rifle cartridge (7.62×49mm). This was at the direction of Col. Rene Studler, then serving in the Pentagon. Harvey and Studler were then transferred to Springfield Armory in late 1945, to continuously develop the T25. The T25 was designed to use the T65 service cartridge, a Frankford Arsenal design based upon the .30-06 cartridge used in the M1, but shortened to the same length as the .300 Savage.

Although shorter than the .30-06, meaning less powder capacity, the T65 cartridge retained the ballistics and energy of the .30-06, which can be attributed to the use of a recently developed ball powder designed by Olin Industries. After experimenting with several bullet designs, the T65 was finalized for adoption as the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. Olin Industries later introduced the cartridge to the commercial market as the .308 Winchester. After a series of revisions by Earle Harvey and the other members of the .30 light rifle design group following the 1950 Fort Benning tests, the T25 was renamed the T47.

The T44 prototype rifle was a conventional design developed at Springfield Armory as an alternative to the T47. With minimal funding available, the earliest T44 prototypes used T20E2 receivers fitted with magazine filler blocks and rebarreled for the 7.62×51mm cartridge. The long operating rod/piston of the M1 was replaced by the T47's gas cut-off system. Though not principally designed by any single engineer, Lloyd Corbett is credited for several refinements to the T44 design. Refinements included the addition of a bolt roller intended to reduce friction and a straight operating rod.

Infantry Board service rifle trials

The T44 was tested in a competitive service rifle competition conducted by the Infantry Board at Fort Benning, Georgia against the Springfield T47 (a modified T25) and the T48, a variant of Fabrique Nationale's FN FAL. The T47 did not have a bolt roller and performed worse than both the T44 and the T48 in dust and cold-weather tests. Thus, it was dropped from consideration in 1953. During 1952–53, testing proved the T48 and the T44 to be roughly comparable in performance, with the T48 holding an advantage in ease of field stripping and dust resistance, and a longer product development lead time.

During the winter of 1953–54, both rifles competed in the winter rifle trials at U.S. Army facilities in the Arctic. Springfield Armory engineers, anxious to ensure the selection of the T44, had been specially preparing and modifying the test T44 rifles for weeks with the aid of the armory's cold chamber, including a redesign of the T44 gas regulator and custom modifications to magazines and other parts to reduce friction and seizing in extreme cold.

The T48 rifles received no such special preparation and in the continued cold-weather testing began to experience sluggish gas system functioning, aggravated by the T48's close-fitting surfaces between bolt and carrier, and carrier and receiver. FN engineers opened the gas ports in an attempt to improve functioning, but this caused early/violent extraction and broken parts as a result of the increased pressures. As a result, the T44 was ranked superior in cold-weather operation to the T48. The Arctic Test Board report made it clear that the T48 needed improvement and that the U.S. would not adopt the T48 until it had successfully completed another round of Arctic tests the following winter.

In June 1954, funding became available to manufacture newly fabricated T44 receivers specially designed for the shorter T65 cartridge. This single change to the T44 design saved a pound over the M1 Garand. Tests at Fort Benning with the T44 and T48 continued through the summer and fall of 1956. By this time, the T48/FAL rifles had been so improved that malfunction rates were almost as low as the T44.

The T44 was selected over the T48/FAL due to lower weight, simplicity with fewer parts, the T44's self-compensating gas system, and because the T44 could supposedly be manufactured on existing machinery built for the M1 rifle (which was later found to be false). In 1957, the U.S. formally adopted the T44 as the U.S. infantry service rifle designated M14.

Production contracts Initial production contracts for the M14 were awarded to the Springfield Armory, Winchester, and Harrington & Richardson. Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge Inc. (TRW) was later awarded a production contract for the rifle, as well. In all, 1,376,031 M14 service rifles were produced from 1959 to 1964.Emerson (2007), pp. 11, 29, 37, 60-72.

National Match M14 Springfield Armory produced 6,641 new M14 NM rifles in 1962 and 1963. TRW produced 4,874 new M14 NM rifles in 1964. Springfield Armory upgraded 2,094 M14 rifles in 1965 and 2,395 M14 rifles in 1966 to National Match specifications. 2,462 M14 rifles were rebuilt to National Match standards in 1967 at the Rock Island Arsenal. In total, 11,130 National Match rifles were delivered by Springfield Armory, Rock Island Arsenal, and TRW during 1962–1967.

Production M14 rifles made by Springfield Armory and Winchester used forged receivers and bolts milled from AISI 8620 steel, a low-carbon steel with added molybdenum-chromium. Harrington & Richardson M14 production used AISI 8620 steel, as well, except for 10 receivers milled from AISI 1330 low-carbon steel and a single receiver made from a high-nickel alloy steel.

Deployment

After the M14's adoption, Springfield Armory began tooling a new production line in 1958, delivering the first service rifles to the U.S. Army in July 1959. Long production delays resulted in the 101st Airborne Division being the only unit in the army fully equipped with the M14 by the end of 1960. The Fleet Marine Force completed the change from M1s to M14s in late 1961. Springfield Armory records reflect that M14 manufacture ended as TRW, fulfilling its second contract, delivered its final production increment in the fiscal year 1965 (1 July 1964 – 30 June 1965). The Springfield archive indicates the 1.38 million rifles were acquired for just over $143 million, for a unit cost of about $104.

The M14 was developed to replace four different weapons: the M1 Garand, the M3 submachine gun, the M1 carbine, and the M1918 Browning automatic rifle (BAR). The intention was to simplify the logistical requirements of the troops by limiting the types of ammunition and parts needed to be supplied. Replacing all these weapons with a single weapon system proved to be an impossible task. The M14 was deemed "completely inferior" to even the World War II M1 Garand in a September 1962 report by the comptroller for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The rifle was unwieldy in the thick brush of Vietnam due to its length and weight, and the traditional wood stocks made of walnut and birch tended to swell and expand in the heavy moisture of the jungle, adversely affecting accuracy. Fiberglass stocks were produced to resolve this problem, but the rifle was discontinued before the fiberglass stocks could be distributed for field use. With 2,560 ft·lbf (3,463 J) of muzzle energy, the power of the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge was valued for its range and cover penetration; despite this, the power of the cartridge also caused the weapon to be virtually uncontrollable in fully automatic fire. As a result, most M14s were permanently set to semiautomatic fire only, to avoid wasting ammunition in combat.

Replacement

Within the Army research and development community, disputes arose between factions that supported the adoption of the M14 and the 7.62×51mm round from their inception and the other factions that opposed them. The M14 remained the primary infantry rifle in Vietnam until it was replaced by the M16 between 1966 and 1967, though combat engineer units kept them for several years longer. Further procurement of the M14 was abruptly halted in early 1968 due to a U.S. Department of Defense report which stated that the AR-15, which would soon be designated the M16, was superior to the M14. A series of tests by the U.S. Department of the Army following the report resulted in the decision to cancel the M14, although the DOD did not cancel the previous FY 1963 orders to be delivered.

In 1964, the M16 was ordered as a replacement for the M14 by the direction of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, over the objection of the U.S. Army officers who had backed the M14. Though production of the M14 was officially discontinued, some discontented troops managed to persist with them while deriding the early-model M16 as a frail and underpowered "Mattel toy" that was prone to jamming.Rose, p. 387. A Congressional investigation later discovered these characteristics to be the result of intentional attempts by Army bureaucracy to sabotage the M16's field performance in Vietnam. In late 1967, the U.S. Army designated the M16 as the "Standard A" rifle, and the M14 became a "Limited Standard" weapon. The M14 rifle remained the standard rifle for U.S. Army Basic Training and troops stationed in Europe until 1970.

The U.S. Army converted several thousand M14s into M21 sniper rifles, which remained standard issue for this purpose until the adoption of the M24 SWS in 1988.

In 1969, tooling for the M14 was sold to Taiwan, and many rifles were exported later to Baltic countries and Israel.

Post-1970 U.S. military service