Hello Pete;
My advice is to go for the fun factor if you really want one. These things are the young boys (pre-teen) let's play army rifles based on Viet Nam era M16's....the Mattel toy for real GI's back then. My Army real life was with M14 and I got out before M16's were issued to my unit, but I never had a hankering for one, and I really cannot see the fun factor in a 22LR version unless you do mag dumps or bump stocks or something to simulate full auto, and even then it is not for me.
I like my real, heavy, wood and metal M1 Garand, Springfield 03-A3, and I sure understand guys from 80's, 90's, 2000's and up wanting a copy of their "Army days" M16 so yea...there is a demand and there is a ton of "supply". Personally my son conned me into buying a M16 clone (A2 solid buttstock, carry handle style, etc). It was used, and it was cheap, so I did. I honestly had no idea what I was really getting into until get it home started researching, found out the maker had all sorts of Fed troubles back when for using M16 full auto parts in these guns which made them illegal.
So....did my new acquisition have illegal parts? Go buy the needed tools, (vise block for working on AR rifles, pin punches assorted sizes (not the same ones you already have for 1911's and revos), special tool for the Delta Ring handguard holder, and THEN: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. Check the possible four (4) parts that may be illegal. Mine was OK for 3 out of 4 but did have a M16 bolt carrier, so I thought this one's going down the road fast. Check with current regs shows this is now OK.
We do go out and shoot this rifle, usually 100 yards, I've not seen any long range people using one, but a lot of guys have these AR's and there is for sure a fun factor, and about 1/2 the price of M1 Garand or 03-A3 ammo.
Again..............if you got an itch.........then for sure at your age and stage in life...go scratch it. Go for the .223 real thing, then step down to the 22LR if you still feel the itch.
Adding 10 Gazillion accessories is just not my thing, but you could spend your entire life savings on goodies if you buy the modern platforms. My old clone?....not so much.
Best with your decision.
I was not a real fan of the M16, having been raised in a culture of the M1 and M14. But I did grow to like the M16A1s I was issued, well one of them at least. Once I got a good one that wasn't worn out or bent, I found it to be reliable (as long as you pulled the rear pin and bolt carrier out every chance you had, to ensure it and the upper receiver were clean), and accurate, easily capable of shooting a clean score on the Army's train fire qualification range with targets from 25m 400m. The basic M16A1 sight was very well suited to the role of a combat rifle in 5.56mm and didn't have anything it didn't need.
I found the M16A2 to be a retrograde step. They forced a 1-7" twist on it so that it could fire the very long M856 tracer rounds with enough stability to penetrate a steel pot at 700m, as if that was even a need. A 1-9" twist was ideal for the M855 ball round and would have allowed M193 to be fired with greater accuracy.
Worse, it was heavy with a heavier barrel forward of the hand guards, those handguards were overly large and made it harder to control, and they extended the buttstock an inch at a time when body armor was the norm and a shorter stock made more sense. in short, they took the light, fast handling M16A1 and turned it into a over weight, slow handling turd with an overly complex sight it didn't need.
It's no surprise it wasn't around long before the M4 replaced it. Unfortunately the 14.7" barrel on the M4, combined with the heaver slower M855 round decreased its effective range for bullet fragmentation and tumbling from a but over 200m for the M16A1/M193 combination to less than 100m for the M4/M855 combination.
Still...the original SP1 and M16A1 style AR-15s with their 1-12" twist and a 55 gr bullet are arguably one of the best rabbit rifles around, and are fun to shoot.
In the late 1990's and a combination of losing state sponsorship, and changes with DCM, I retired my M1A Supermatch and started using an AR-15 set up for service match shooting. I also started shooting bull barrel AR-15s with free float tubes and lightweight triggers for varmint shooting and found they were excellent for that.
I shot my first tactical match around 1990, prior to owning an AR-15 and shot it mostly because it was scheduled the morning before an after noon service rifle match. At the time the cool kids were mostly using 20" A1 style AR-15s or 16" AR-15 carbines. Most were tarting them up with muzzle brakes, etc. I showed up with an M1 Carbine. There were a lot of comments about my antique, yet I placed second in the light rifle division, losing by a couple points to the match organizer and his HK-93. And shooting my M1A in the .30 caliber battle rifle division, I won the division with enough points to take the over all.
When I got serious about it, I started shooting a heavy barrel semi clone of the XM177E2, or a lightweight 16" carbine, depending on the course of fire. By that time the M4gery was common, loaded down to M16A2 weights with all kinds of tactical do dads that did nothing but slow it down. My retro / lightweight rifles attracted lots of "antique comments, by the guys who then lost matches to them.
In my experience light weight and light recoil were and remain the AR-15s primary virtues and yet way too many shooters compromise that with pounds of rails and accessories.
That said, I still prefer a good .30-06 or .308 battle rifle, like the BM59, the M1A or the M1 Garand, in that order of preference.
volquartsen.com
