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Subject: G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14
TankFREAK    2/12/2006 8:07:34 PM
Ok, i won't personally comment on this. I wanna see ur opinion of which one of these 7.62mm Battle Rifles is the best. As well as facts to support your opinion. OPen for Discussion.
 
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olive greens    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/13/2006 7:04:28 PM
I dont know about which would be the best, but I have a question: Dont full-battle rifle (FBR) rounds like 7.62mm NATO require a longer barrel than a standard G3 has to be really effective? With M-14 I dislike seeing big detachable mags in a rifle w/o a pistol grip, and the tinder-box like lock makes it look awkward in anyone's but the biggest hands. Or maybe just its me who has grown used to seeing M-16s & AKs on one hand or hunting rifles... and M-14s falls in neither shape.
 
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Horsesoldier    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/13/2006 8:14:49 PM
>>Dont full-battle rifle (FBR) rounds like 7.62mm NATO require a longer barrel than a standard G3 has to be really effective?<< G3 has a 17.7" barrel, apparently (going by the info at HK PRO), while the FAL and M14 both have 22" barrels . . . I've never fired a G3, but would note that the FAL 50.63 (the folding stock paratrooper version) has about the same barrel length of the G3, and has a sight selectable only for 150 meters and 250 meters, whereas the standard FAL with longer barrel has a sight that graduates out to 600 meters. So maybe there's something to it. On the other hand, a buddy of mine who was an officer in the El Salvadoran army during their civil war pretty much swears by the G3 and considers it in about the same quality category as George Patton considered the M1 Garand . . .
 
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Yimmy    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/13/2006 8:27:46 PM
For a 7.62x51mm rifle, the optimum barrel length for velocity is 21-22 inches, while accuracy will not improve any past 16-17 inches.
 
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Horsesoldier    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/13/2006 11:52:29 PM
>>For a 7.62x51mm rifle, the optimum barrel length for velocity is 21-22 inches, while accuracy will not improve any past 16-17 inches.<< But anything over 13" on the barrel and you're just sacrificing cool points. See, for instance: link
 
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BasinBictory    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/14/2006 5:08:09 AM
I think the FAL overall is probably the best, given its far more widespread adpotion by various countries than either the M-14 and the G-3. The M-14 was really just an updated Garand, chambered in a new round and with a 20-rounder instead of the 8-round clip. The FAL also seemed more ergonomically designed - with pistol grip, a carrying handle, and the charging lever on the left side (enabling right-handers to charge the rifle without removing the dominant hand from the grip.
 
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Yimmy    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/14/2006 10:06:07 AM
You don't have to use your right hand to c0ck a weapon with the c0cking handle on the right hand side, just reach over with the left hand....
 
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Horsesoldier    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/14/2006 10:46:52 AM
>>You don't have to use your right hand to c0ck a weapon with the c0cking handle on the right hand side, just reach over with the left hand....<< Not exactly an arrangement likely to win the Nobel Prize for Ergonomics . . .
 
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Yimmy    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/14/2006 12:51:35 PM
It is how everyone in the British army is trained to make ready the SA-80, and I never hear anyone whining about it, it's easy.
 
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Horsesoldier    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/14/2006 2:42:35 PM
>>It is how everyone in the British army is trained to make ready the SA-80, and I never hear anyone whining about it, it's easy.<< I can see it not being especially vexing with an L85, it being compact and equipped with a pistol grip and such, though I'd still not be overly taken with the whole idea when dealing with a failure to fire, etc. I was envisioning a wooden stocked, 22" barrel equipped, M14 when you suggested it, however, which makes the idea seem like less of a workable one, I think you'll agree.
 
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ShinyTop    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/15/2006 11:59:56 PM
Come on, the M14 was far and away the most reliable of the three. I will take reliable and mechanism immune to dust and sand any day over ergonomics. The reason it was just a mag equipped Garand mechanically was because the Garand was so good.
 
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Horsesoldier    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/16/2006 8:13:06 AM
>>Come on, the M14 was far and away the most reliable of the three. I will take reliable and mechanism immune to dust and sand any day over ergonomics. The reason it was just a mag equipped Garand mechanically was because the Garand was so good.<< I would again point out that one (1) nation bought into your line of thinking, and then only briefly, whereas seventy (70) nations found the FAL to be the more reliable, etc., weapon, and over a dozen other nations preferred the G3. That's very nearly a 100 to 1 vote against the M14. To which one can and should add the weapon's very limited use even by the United States, with the M14 lasting for all of nine years as the standard US service rifle (including time after adoption before production tooled up enough for mass fielding). This is, quite simply, not a picture of a big winner as infantry rifles go. The M14 does continue to soldier on in limited numbers, but I'd note that when people have a choice they tend to pick the SR-25 rather than M14s dragged out of some warehouse for a semi-auto 7.62mm long gun . . .
 
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ShinyTop    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/18/2006 12:13:44 AM
I am and was comparing the M14 to the G3 and the FAL. They were marketed by marketing manufacturing concerns while the M14 was not. I repeat, it was by far the more reliable of the three. I may have misunderstood the question. I thought it was about the best, not the most popular.
 
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Horsesoldier    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/18/2006 9:37:54 AM
>>I am and was comparing the M14 to the G3 and the FAL. They were marketed by marketing manufacturing concerns while the M14 was not.<< That doesn't really cut it. The US has aggressively marketed its kit around the world since the end of World War 2. As a consequence, US small arms have tended to be ubiquitous and dominant in the marketplace within the Free World, whether they were the products of the US arsenal system or produced by the commercial defense industry. The M1 and M1 carbine had worldwide distribution, likewise the M1911A1, and likewise the M16/M4. The significant underperformers were the M14 rifle and the M60 machinegun, though the latter is not germane to the topic at hand. It is conspicuous as the weapon no one (not even the US military, as it turned out) wanted. Which brings up to the other issue -- the M14 lasted something like eight years in US service before being replaced by the M16. It's combat record was even weaker, something like 12 months in SE Asia before it was tossed. >>I repeat, it was by far the more reliable of the three. I may have misunderstood the question. I thought it was about the best, not the most popular.<< My point is that you claim it was more reliable. Seventy odd nations, to include the US (if one discounts gunsmith tuned M14s in rigged competition) found the FAL to be the more reliable and preferable service rifle. A dozen or more discovered the same thing in comparison to the G3. The US itself, even after adopting the M14 as a result of rigged and unethical competition, kicked it to the curb as rapidly as possible. A few M14s got dusted off and brought out for use as DMRs in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . but they appear destined to go right back into storage in favor of the SR-25. This is not the record of a successful infantry rifle, no matter how nostalgic some people may be for it or its 7.62x51 cartridge.
 
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BasinBictory    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/18/2006 1:49:40 PM
I think Italy and the Philippines are the only two countries besides the US to widely use the M-14 design. (And actually, the Italian ones were just gunsmithed Garands, IIRC). The Philippines, by virtue of being a long-time ally of the US, gets a lot of older US military hardware, and when the US dumped the M-14 in favor of the M-16, it probably made more sense to give them to a client state than to warehouse them.
 
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ShinyTop    RE:G3 vs. FAL vs. M-14   2/18/2006 3:15:10 PM
Eight years in US service is badly computed. The Garand mechanism went from 1937 til at least 1968. I was an officer in a unit in Vietnam that exchanged its weapons in 1968 for the M16. Again, you are talking popularity and marketing not reliability. Ask the Israelis why they designed the Galil, first in 7.62, instead of keeping the FAL.
 
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