What a way to ruin a nice looking rifle......

 

I hate all these modern rails systems and gadgets.  The M4 is a prime example.  The only decent looking AR15's are M16A1's with the smooth handgaurd.

 

If you want a nice looking M14, buy a Norinco, mind unless you are lucky you will have to replace the stock.  I have seen a few pics of nice Walnut ones.

It seems that the M14 mechanisim and platform is really stable and accurate, so much so that the M14 with a scope can even be used as a sniper rifle in the SVD class.

But for such a promising platform, why is it that when down sized to the 5.56mm in the form of the Ruger mini 14, the accuracy of the 5.56 is inferior to the M16????????

Could a longer barrel provided better accuracy for this reliable platform?

I think that Ruger does not build them for accuracy. It is a very good gun that is sort of the AK47 of 5.56's, it retails in US$ for around $550.00 +/-.

 

If you were willing to give Ruger $1,250.00 a copy for them I bet they could give you a higher quality barrel and action that would be very competitive with any 5.56 out there.

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

It seems that the M14 mechanisim and platform is really stable and accurate, so much so that the M14 with a scope can even be used as a sniper rifle in the SVD class.

But for such a promising platform, why is it that when down sized to the 5.56mm in the form of the Ruger mini 14, the accuracy of the 5.56 is inferior to the M16????????

Could a longer barrel provided better accuracy for this reliable platform?

   A good question, one which I wonder about myself.  My Mini 14 seems to have an added quirk of chucking brass.  I walk to check my targets and drive to pick up my brass!  Nobody that I have spoken with seems to be able to get better than "pie-plate accuracy" from them.  One guy I know is really meticulous in is reloading, down to same types of brass, same brass thickness, etc. and still doesn't get much from his mini 14. 

   An M-14 with a scope on it (and better stock)  is an M-21 sniper rifle, used in Vietnam.

It's pretty funny to think that the EBR is, ultimately, a derivative of the old Garand rifle! It certainly has a healthy following - I suspect a lot of troops would be happy with the M-4 series if they could have a couple of M-14s added into the mix (i.e. one SAW, one M14, an M4 with grenade launcher, and either another M4 or another M14 depending on the mission). For Afghansitan, add a few M14s to the squads, which is probably a better idea than trying to go entirely for 5.56 (which lacks range) or 7.62 (which is too heavy to carry enough of)!

is it just me or does the one guy in the picture look rather squinched up trying to fire that rifle.  it really doesn't look comfortable.

That would be $250 more than the colt M16 type rifles. But fair enough if there is M16 like accuracy without the m16 jams.

I do not mean to demean the good little rifle. It is good enough for Gov't work as they say and fun to shoot!

Check Six

 

Rocky

 

I guess the United States do not like bull pup rifles, but if some thought had been put into it, it will be interesting to see what kind of Americanized M14 bull pup can result form Lake city aresenal or Springfield.

I think the primary reason that bullpups never took off as US service rifles is because the US realizes not everyone shoots from the same shoulder.
Being a lefty myself, I fire off my left shoulder...with a typical AR-15 series ejecting across in front of my face, rather than off to the opposite side (even though the newer rifles have a built-in brass deflector "nub" at the back edge of the ejection port).

 

The majority of bullpups I've seen are all designed to be fired off the right shoulder, ejecting spent casing off to the right, away from the firer. This would be an impossible weapon for left handed/left shouldered shooters to use, and making those 1 in 7 or however many left handed models to satisy that small percentage of left handed shooters, most militaries don't see it as worth the additional expense (lefty versions of weapons always seem to cost a bit more).

 

I frown on the whole "learn to shoot off your right shoulder" mentality.

During urban training and combat scenarios, not every shot around a corner or cover has the ideal advantage of being able to be fired solely off the right shoulder. It's bad battle tactics for a soldier to have to expose his entire upper torso around a corner to get a shot off his right shoulder, as opposed to getting a lefty, who may only need to stick out his head, arm, & shoulder to get the same shot (and vice versa, us lefties aren't always comfortable sticking half our body out around the opposite corner to get a shot off).

 

Unless a bullpup is made semi-ambidextrous, wherein the magazine can be slant-loaded (angled) into either the left or right side and ejected thru the bottom, every left handed shooter will have to learn to shoot over, something that could take considerably more time especially because of left eye/right eye dominance issues (what eye do you primarily aim down the sights with).

 

That FN F2000 assault weapon tries to get around that issue by ejecting its spent cases forward, alongside the barrel.

A novel approach, definitely, but I don't know whether there are complications if one needs to fire the weapon elevated, as at upper story windows. I don't know if the stacking of empty cartridges in the ejection tube will cause problems in that instance.