Zarvan
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M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle, 7.62 mm, M14, is an American selective fire automatic rifle that fires 7.62×51mm NATO (.308 Winchester) ammunition. It was the standard issue U.S. rifle from 1959 to 1970. The M14 was used for U.S. Army, Coast Guard and Marine Corps basic and advanced individual training, and was the standard issue infantry rifle for U.S. military personnel in the Contiguous United States, Europe, and South Korea, until it was replaced by the M16 rifle, in 1970. The rifle remains in limited front line service within all branches of the U.S. military. It is also used as a ceremonial weapon by honor guards, color guards, drill teams, ceremonial guards, and the like.
The M14 rifle was the last American "battle rifle" (weapons that fire full-power rifle ammunition, such as the 7.62×51mm) issued in quantity to U.S. military personnel. The M14 serves as the basis for the M21 and M25 sniper rifles. In 1969, tooling for the M14 was sold to Taiwan and later in the 1990s, up to 479,367 M14's were destroyed by Presidential Executive Order under the Clinton Administration.
The M14 was developed from a long line of experimental weapons based upon the M1 rifle. Although the M1 was among the most advanced infantry rifles of the late 1930s, it was not a perfect weapon. Modifications were already beginning to be made to the basic M1 rifle's design during the last months of World War II. Changes included adding fully automatic firing capability and replacing the 8-round en bloc clips with a detachable box magazine holding 20 rounds. Winchester, Remington, and Springfield Armory's own John Garand offered different conversions. Garand's design, the T20, was the most popular, and T20 prototypes served as the basis for a number of Springfield test rifles from 1945 through the early 1950s.
NEWS: Sniper rifle M-14
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