Way back in the summer of 1968 at basic training, Ft. Polk, LA, I was in Company A/5/1. We were one of the last BCT companies, if not THE last company to be issued the M-14. What a great rifle. Wednesday I picked up a fine example of the civilian, semi-auto version, the M1A. IAW data bases I have found the gun was assembled from mostly GI parts in 1983. I did not know until I picked it up that it has a NM (national match) barrel.

As usual, I have it apart for a thorough cleaning. I ran into a little snag with the gas piston nut. Likely someone over torqued it in combination with old carbon build up. It's bathing in Kroil now to loosen it up so as soon as I get it back together I will post pictures. In the mean time here are some pics from my BCT year book, featuring the mighty (and heavy) M-14.

What a joy it was toting that thing around in the hot and humid, mid-summer Louisiana sand.

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I bought a M1-A back in 1979. When my brother first saw it...it brought back memories of Basic Training for him in 1965. He took the rifle and lay on the floor and started doing the alligator crawl with it. He said he was good at it because he could flatten his butt down lower than most.

Ah yes, memories of the Infiltration Course and the low crawl pit.

Get that chest in the sand, Trainee!!

Inside back cover of my yearbook.

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Cool memories.

And here we are, 55 years later, on the cusp of adopting a big, heavy service rifle with a cartridge 51 mm long and bullets 0.82 mm smaller in diameter because our next major conflict will need them. Maybe?

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

I see you have a couple of pinecone grenades there - weren't they obsolete by M-14 time?

Summer 1964 for me; toted that 9.5 lb thing no problem, manual of arms, no problem, a few spins, no problem, shot expert on a rainy day with a worn out rifle. Got to my outfit, and the next year, got a brand new M-14 and next qualification dropped 87 out of 90 silhouettes on the Trainfire range. I felt like I could hit anything I could see.

Fast forward to ~2018, thought I'd maybe get an M1-A. I went to LGS, shouldered the thing a few times and found out in the intervening years it had grown from a 9.5 lb thing to a 38 lb thing. I had to pass.
Sigh.........

My big fear is the new cartridges might not be able to be loaded/reloaded in standard automated reloading machines. Got lots of those around the country to help out in a major conflict.

Yep. They were not the same ones we threw on the grenade course. I did qualify expert on the 14, and I knew nothingabout guns going in. The DIs were pictured in the book. I don't need pictures to remember those faces as close as they came to my face. Most of them were VN infantry combat vets who wanted us all to make it home.

Same here, summer camp,Ft. Riley, KS, 1968, issued the venerable M14. I found on the pop up targets at the range, that if I shot low, I either hit the target, or the dirt in front of it, and both impacts would drop the target. Expert.

Our TAC officer, a Captain out of Notre Dame was a real tuff guy, drove a 427 Corvette with side pipes, license plate was WETSU.

On Saturdays, we couldn't leave our barracks at Camp Funston until we passed his inspection of our rifles. None of us could meet his expectation, always a dirty bore. Then one cadet remembered he had been taught to pull a piece of cellophane thru the bore, to make it shine, and then we were good to go.

We had M14's in Ranger School, and also was issued one when I was a platoon leader, 3d Infantry Division, Schweinfurt. I now wonder why as a LT I wasn't issued a sidearm instead. Each squad had two of the E2 Versions, with the special stock, pistol grip, front drop down handguard, and I think a bipod. My rifle had a wooden stock, with a fiberglass upper hand guard.

I handled a Springfield M1A at Palmetto State Armory yesterday, and I agree, it sure is heavy beast, and did not have the flip up butt plate. I reload 308 for a bolt rifle, but just not sure I want a M1A now. Somewhere I too have a pic of me keeeling with an M14 which was published in my home town paper. I look tired in the pic. Think I will look for it.

Thanks for the memories. SF VET

I was in the last company to be issued pickle suits. Everyone behind us was in BDUs.

We looked a lot sharper.

Fort Dix, C-4-2, Summer of 1967. An M1A is on my list to get "someday"

My Dad was visiting from England years back and said much the same about the surplus No4 I owned. Then I gave him a P14 to hold...

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Release the Kraken

Fort Leonard Wood. Summer of 1969. Woodstock. Manson-Tate-LoBianco murders. Heckuva summer.

We were issued M-14s and I was one of the only trainees who was issued a rifle with a fiberglass stock. I could clean it in the shower and I did - and no linseed oil afterwards!

I bought a fiberglassed stock M1A 31 years later. Loved it! I'd still have it but the fiberglass stock was ruined in a fire in 2018, my FFL restocked it with wood, I hated it thereafter and I sold it.

My M1A was totally milspec, done by Springfield Armory using parts 100% made by a company whose name skips my mind - TCW or something like that.

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Come and take it!!

This M14 semi only clone was put together by AR Sales in 1969 using GI parts including a National Match barrel. I later added the GI fiberglass stock. Best $150 I ever spent. Totally reliable and amazingly accurate.

John


(Click for larger image)

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

That would have been TRW.

Fred's M14 Stocks used to sell all variants of USGI stocks including fiberglass, but I'm pretty sure that he retired.

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

Good ol' Ft Polk. Went through there in '66, D-2-5. Also trained with the M-14. Was going to go to Wolters for flight training next, but went to AIT at Ord and to OCS at Benning, then to flight school. Retired W4, I see you were in the 1st Avn Bde. I served in the 1st Avn Bde in Nam, too. 190th AHC, '68-69, Bien Hoa. Here's a couple pics from my Polk "yearbook."

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Mike
μολὼν λαβέ

Wouldn't the AR10 have been just about as good at a fraction of the cost? I know the new cartridge is part steel cased for higher pressure and velocity to penetrate body armor but still.

Troops will have to do more PT to lug the new gun around!

All of you that like the M14 should really visit the M14 Forum. Good group of guys.

The AR-10…depending on who makes it…is an excellent rifle. Transition from the AR-15/M4 is seamless.

Several years ago the Pentagon put out a request to the industry for an off-the-shelf 7.62 rifle based on the Armalite pattern…companies were lining up, salivating for their rifle to be chosen…but the request was withdrawn after not much time.

I was drafted in early 1965 and trained at Fort Knox in May-June 1965. We all had the M14 and as a long-time shooter, I enjoyed using it. I don't remember my scores any more. I wanted to go to jump school for the extra pay but Uncle Sam decided otherwise. I spent my hitch at Fort Detrick, MD in the biowarfare labs. Helped me get a job when I got out.

I was surprised how many trainees couldn't shoot at all. Several were scared of the rifle and one guy cried. They would NOT let one guy throw the live grenade for fear it wouldn't go down range.

One good friend went OCS artillery and went to Nam. They give him an M16 and a full mag to shoot once. Never fired another round his during his hitch.

I bought myself an M1A from Springfield Armory as soon as I got to a free state in the early 90s.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

TRW, Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc., one of the prime contractors of the M-14 along with Harrington & Richardson and Winchester.


Fort Leonard Wood, 1964, Regular Army. Company B-5-2. The First Sergent, named Gray, was the same man that my Father had for a First Sergeant at Fort Sam Houston, TX in 1942 when he Re-enlisted after Pearl Harbor. He had his required six years service time and was working for NACA, an Essential Industry and predecessor to NASA, at the time so he was not subject to the Draft. My Mother was a WAC Corporal when they met in 1943 at Bowman Field, KY.

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Gunsmithing since 1961

I have the civilian version of the M21 sniper rifle, made by Springfield,no longer in production. Also have a big scope on it. That thing must weigh 15 pounds.

Because it is so heavy, I recently bought a POF Revolution, lightweight AR-10 with a 16" barrel. With a Trijicon Accupoint scope it weighs just over 8 pounds.

Can't give up that M21 though.

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Mike
μολὼν λαβέ

Talk about a small world. I used to live literally next to Ft. Detrick back in the mid-1980s. I remember hearing the helicopters coming in and out of there all the time.

I really enjoy my M1A NM... I was totally impressed with the rifle when friends talked me into going to the 600 yard range.. and I was able to hit targets with just the iron sights.. incredible system.

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To me and my untrained rifle eye, the new rifle is very much like an AR-10 in a different caliber. In contrast to the AR-15, they are starting out with all the heavy accessories (including a universal optic) rather than adding them onto a bare-bones platform.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

We had to lock the bolts back on our M-14s during drill. During "Order Arms !" if you slammed the butt on the pavement and the cadre heard your bolt slam forward.....
I missed the grenade throw in BCT-KP. At Fort Dix it was done behind a concrete barrier. Shortly after I graduated they eliminated the grenade throw form the PT test-too many people were boloing it.
A new military rifle ? Come on now, the M-16 has been in service since 1963!
60 years ! I'm sure someone in the Pentagon argued in the 1980s that the services were using a handgun that had been adopted in 1911 !

I trained with an M14 at Fort Lewis, January of 1969. I have an M1A because I liked the M14 so much and scored expert with it.

These days its' all about penetrating body armor. There are videos floating around on Twitter etc of how effective body armor has proved in Ukraine. Even the AK-74 steel penetrator round isn't cutting it any more unless you get right in somebody's face.

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Release the Kraken

I was Naval Air (Brown Shoe), so no M-14 for me. Trained with the M1 Garand in AOCS. Always wanted an M1A type rifle, so a couple of weeks ago picked up the SA M1A. Great rifle, weights a ton but a great rifle nonetheless. That my Norinco M305 (M1A look alike) top and my new SA M1A, bottom.

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"Your other right........."

Never had the opportunity to shoot one in basic. The Navy was still training recruits with M-1 Garands in Dec 1967. They also still had racks of them in the arsenals on many foreign USN bases when I was discharged in 71.

I was once given a 1911 to stand a mid watch around 1970. The first time I had ever had one in my hand. The USN didn't do a lot of training on small arms back in the day.

I have both a GI carbine and a 1911 in my safe. I like those old war horses.

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That's just somebody talkin.

I like your Norinco's stock - not only because it's pretty wood, but also because it has a more slender forearm, much like a GI stock. I prefer that to the SA stocks, which to me look and feel kind of fat in that area. Is yours a GI stock with a good finish applied?

I have a circa 1989 SA M1A with the USGI wood stock, ventilated handguard, and a dummy selector switch from Fulton Armory.

It looks like a real M14 at 1st glance. HRA marked barrel, TRW trigger group, SA marked bolt (USGI not commercial).

I'd pull it out of the safe and take some pics but I'm so damn sore and tired from doing my HazMat Awareness and Ops tests and practical exercises I'm happy just to be able to type tonight.

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

The Norinco is the original Chinese stock, I believe. It was glass bedded sometime in its history. It has a number of upgrades. Shoots well. The SA Loaded model (which is what I have) has a Boyd stock treated only with BLO. I can still smell it on the wood. I plan on refinishing it sometime in the very near future. The stock is much beefier than the original GI stock and obviously the Norinco stock. I prefer the slimmer fore grip myself. The lines are more “delicate“ and graceful and more “M14 like”. But that’s what new models are shipping with these days……..

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"Your other right........."

When I went through Basic in 1972 we were issued the M-16A1. Frankly, I never liked it.
In 1999, when everybody was worried about Y2K, I figured it might be time to get myself a magazine fed military type rifle just in case. At a local gun show I found a guy selling a Federal Ordnance M-14A. As soon as I held it, it was love at first sight.
The rest, as they say is, history.

I was able to address the minor issues with this rifle. A friend had the armorer tools to get the job done properly. He also gave me the walnut upper hand guard, which I think is very hansom, and a new gas piston. Now I need a sling.

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