Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: leem@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Lee Mellinger) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: M-16 reliability (was Re: early bad press may be justified) Message-ID: <10403@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 20 Oct 89 01:41:52 GMT References: <10308@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Lines: 34 Approved: military@att.att.com From: leem@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Lee Mellinger) In article <10308@cbnews.ATT.COM> gwh%earthquake.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) writes: : : :From: gwh%earthquake.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) : It works fine. There have been 5 (five) structure failures :out of ~150 thousand guns, all of which have been traced to the US :Army's use of REAL HOT 9mm ammo, which is way outside the commercial :specifications. There is a structural redesign in the works to change :failure modes to noninjuring ones. :[mod.note: To which I'm sure many readers will respond, "wouldn't : it have been better to design a gun to handle the specified : ammo ?" Seems to me that there must be a NATO standard for : 9mm, that being, supposedly, why we dropped the .45. Does : the US use a more powerful load ? - Bill ] There are two kinds of 9MM ammo in the NATO inventory, regular 9mm, and 9mm designed for carbines and SMG's, especially the open bolt variety that like a hotter load to fire reliabily. This ammo has a black tip on the bullet. If you get any black tip ammo, DO NOT fire it in a pistol. Some pistols will handle it and some won't. Lee "I'm the NRA" "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin 1759 |Lee F. Mellinger Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA |4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/393-0516 FTS 977-0516 |{ames!cit-vax,}!elroy!jpl-devvax!leem leem@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV