M14 Rifle

Origins

The M1 Garand had won the Second World War, and Springfield Armory spent the decade after it trying to make the Garand lighter, give it a detachable magazine and selective fire, and chamber it for a shorter cartridge that would deliver .30-06 performance from a smaller case. That cartridge became the 7.62x51mm NATO in 1954, over British objections that something intermediate like the German 7.92mm Kurz was the future. The rifle, after a long series of T-series prototypes, was standardized as the M14 in May 1957 amid what Edward Ezell called "the great rifle controversy" — a bruising competition with the Belgian FN FAL that the FAL arguably deserved to win.

Design & Construction

The M14 is a Garand refined. The gas system uses a short-stroke piston and expansion chamber rather than the Garand's long-stroke rod, the rotating bolt is essentially unchanged, and the eight-round en-bloc clip gives way to a twenty-round detachable box magazine. A selector allowed full-automatic fire, but at 9 pounds the rifle was uncontrollable in bursts and most were issued with the selector locked to semi-automatic; the M14E2 (M14A1) with a pistol-grip stock and bipod was an attempt at a squad automatic that convinced no one. The 22-inch barrel, the peep rear sight adjustable in minute-of-angle clicks and the walnut (later fiberglass) stock made it a superbly accurate rifle at ranges where the M16 Rifle struggles. Springfield Armory, Winchester, Harrington & Richardson and TRW built some 1.38 million between 1959 and 1964.

Combat Use

The M14 went to Vietnam with the first Marine and Army units in 1965 and was replaced there by the M16 within two years: too long and heavy for jungle patrols, its ammunition too heavy to carry in quantity. It stayed with the US Marine Corps in Europe and Korea into the 1970s and with the Navy indefinitely for shipboard use and line-throwing. Its second career began with the accurized M21 Sniper Weapon System in Vietnam and the M25 of the 1980s, and became a third in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the ranges of Anbar and the Korengal exposed the 5.56mm's limits. Squad designated marksmen were handed rebuilt M14s, the US Navy SEALs and US Army Rangers fielded the Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle in a Sage aluminum chassis, and the Army issued the M14 EBR-RI from 2009.

Legacy

The M14's brief tenure as the standard rifle looks in hindsight like the end of one era rather than the start of another: the last full-power infantry rifle, made obsolete by the intermediate cartridge its own designers had rejected. As a marksman's rifle it has proved almost impossible to retire. Springfield Armory, Inc. has sold the semi-automatic M1A to civilians since 1974, and the type is a staple of service-rifle competition and collecting in the United States.