With its light weight of less than six pounds and its powerful ammunition, small 5.56mm circumference, short 38.80 inch long body, a whipping 3,250 feet per second muzzle velocity, and a maximum efficiency range of 460 meters the M16 is the most versatile standard issue rifle of any army. You may thinkthat the brains of the government’s army may have devised theplan to make the M16, but it was none other than the brains ofJohn Hopkins University where the development of the M16 firstbegan in September of the year of 1948.1The ability of being selective firing was the main point ofinterest for the army. Also another high point is that theammunition must be able to pierce a steel helmet from 500meters away.2 The military appointed Mister Eugene Stoner to designthe rifle since he was a soldier but had been decommissionedafter the war. The gun that was more or less being improvedwas the heavy, high caliber, selective fire capable, M14. Itsbenefits are that it can penetrate a steel helmet at a greaterrange. Some disadvantages of the .308 caliber M14 Also KnownAs the NATO are that when the gun is shot only the first two orthree shots will hit the target that has been aimed at. Thishappens because of the kick or the amount of space the gunmoves when fired this can also be called recoil. In a bullet thathas .308 caliber for the NATO the recoil is a lot. Also since theammunition itself is large this means that it weighs a lot. Thisalso means that a soldier can only carry a little bit ofammunition into a battle. Maneuvering the weapon was also adifficulty, due to the weight and size but in spite of the fact ofthe M14’s disadvantages, the M14 was very reliable. Soldiersloved this about the standard issue M14 NATO.3Since the M16 used a midgrade .22 caliber bullet, thearmy needed something else to give some more kick to thebullet to penetrate the helmet.4After many fatal attempts Stoner finally met the criteriafor the new g...
