Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Or part of one; it's the rear half of a de-milled receiver.




This one, as shown, was made by TRW. During my time in the army, I was issued two M14's. One, in BCT at Fort Ord and it was a TRW. The other one, I was issued at Fort Lost in the Woods, pre-black rifle land. Actually, while I was still at FLW, we changed over from the M14 to the M16. Circa 1970.

The taxpayers didn't get very good value out of the M14 Rifle in the sense that it wasn't in service very long. It was adopted in 1957 but manufacture in quantity didn't commence until the early 1960's. Then by 1970 it was mostly gone.

The guys in the Ohio ARNG used M1 Rifles at Kent State; by the time I came back from Vietnam and enlisted in the CAL ARNG in 1973, we already had M16A1's so I don't imagine that the M14 saw much use in the army reserve components.

I have a record of the rifles, by serial number, that were issued to me in the army and later the ARNG. I just looked at these numbers. My M14 at Fort Ord in 1969 was serial number 1292424. The serial number which you can see in the first picture by pure coincidence is 1292774, only 350 rifles away from my rifle at Fort Ord.

I've read that the US Army at present has remaining in its possession less than 10% of original M14 Rifle production.

not retaining possession of all of them was a huge mistake in my humble opinion , way too many were put to the torch as that TRW

Here's a picture of me standing in the company street at Fort Ord, Calif. in 1969, holding my M14, #1292424. The wearing of the pistol belt in the army is supposed to signify being "under arms." So, even if you aren't wearing any other field gear, you wear the pistol belt when you are armed. Most of the of army clothing issued to me at Fort Ord that was a size or two too small. When you went through the QM warehouse on one of the first days in the army, they supposedly measured you, then you went down the gauntlet and they just threw sh*t at you; you didn't get to try it on.




A couple more pictures of some of my platoon members taken on the same occasion. M14's "grounded" in the street.







As long as I'm looking at these few BCT pics, here's a picture taken in our squad room. The guy nearest the camera was Gary Manning, who'd been in some of my grade school classes until his family moved to Quartz Hill, Calif. Then we didn't see each other again for many years until we were in the same BCT company. IIRC, he went on to be a medic.

The guy on the far left was Lynn Sorrells. He was from Texas. He didn't fit in too well and was caught trying to go AWOL while we were still in BCT. His military experience subsequent to that was similarly unhappy. He died in Calif. at age 41.





Another fellow I went to school with was in my company. He is this man, Bob Schiller, picture taken at one of the beach rifle ranges. He went on to be a military policeman and the last I heard, he was selling real estate in Calif.

The M14 is still my dreamgun but at the prices they are I'll never be able to afford one. Or rather justify the expense.
I got most of the others on my lifelong wishlist (and then some), but the M14 ...
A

We qualified with M-14s at Camp Lejeune... then had to trade them in for M-16s. Not a very good trade. SW

We had them when I first boarded the boat. They switched them out for M-16's after a short while. I guess somebody realized that firing a MBR inside a tube with a 2.5" flexible steel alloy hull at depth, if needed, probably wasn't the best of ideas

...the Marine detatchment aboard the Saratoga had them on my first cruise...they took one of those inflatable "fullsize realistic lifelike" inflatable girl dolls and tied a long line to it-threw it over the fantail,and used them for live fire target practice as it bounced off the wake.....

When my son was in the marine detachment on the Ike in the late 80s they had a couple M14s turn up missing. Don't know if they ever found them.

Rad

I fixed one of the police dept M14 here, then shot it to F&F tests...then serious zero in time.....will duty ammo, at 100yds, 3shot groups could be coved by a quarter...
The ocifer it belonged to, took it to seminar and training getup later......and proceeded to shoot the pants off all the tiny weeny m16 ocifers......at 100 & 200yds the 223 was doing ok......but then the m14 at 3-500yds left them in the dirt...
This was a very used weapon.....but still a lady that could do her thang!!!!

Gotta respect them wood stocked rifles!!!
Marc

one of the finest rifles ever made , will not part with mine , it is an SA clone tho , not that proper TRW , id love to have one of those