Terminology An assault rifle is a light rifle that fires a reduced power cartridge and is capable of automatic operation. Automatic operation means it's a machine gun that fires as long as the trigger is pressed.
The term "assault weapon" has no precise meaning but the media seems to like it. The M-16 is a US military assault rifle that fires a 5.56 mm cartridge which is a military version of the 2.23 caliber varmint cartridge. The M-16 has a 20 inch barrel. There were several revisions (denoted A1, A2, A3, and A4) with different sights, stocks, a "forward assist", burst limiter, and several smaller changes. The Air Force adopted the M-16 in the mid 1960s for use by Air Police. The Army adopted the M-16 during Viet Nam, for cost reasons and because infantry men could carry many more of the smaller 5.56 cartridges compared to.30 caliper (30.06 and NATO 7.62) cartridges. The many reported M-16 problems in Viet Nam were largely caused by misinformation, lack of cleaning kits, and unverified changes to the ammo. Still, the M-16 fundamental design uses precision parts and it is significantly more vulnerable to dirt and operator abuse than the COMBLOCK AK-47/74 variants. The M-4 is a carbine version of the M-16 but with a 16 inch barrel and significant changes to the gas and feed systems to provide reliable operation. Still, for various technical reasons, bolt carrier operation in the M-4 is more violent than the M-16 and feed problems seem more common. The AR-15 was a semi-auto civilian version of the M-16 which was produced by Armalite. However, these days the terms AR and AR-15 are commonly sued to indicate any semi-auto AR-15 style firearm from any manufacturer, including rifles, carbines, and even pistols. The semi-auto version is almost identical to the auto/select-fire version except it lacks the auto disconnector mechanism and machined holes for the associated shaft. Almost all civilian AR rifles sold today are based on the M-4, mot the M-16. It is more precise to describe a semi-auto gun as auto-loading _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
