Talk:M16 rifle

M16 rifle to Colt M16

Why is the manufacturer's name not included on this article? JTC22 (talk) 01:59, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Military designations are only used for article names. Also, the rifle was originally designed and built by ArmaLite. -Fnlayson (talk) 02:09, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Fnlayson, the Colt Armalite AR-15 and Colt AR-15 are both rifles built only by Colt's, not Armalite, based on the January 1959 AR-15 TDP and with Armalite engineering assistance provided for Colt's modifications. Both of these are M16 in US Army nomenclature, the Armalite AR-15 is not. Fairchild-Armalite only made tool room AR-15, they were never a manufacturer.

The military designations Armalite AR-15 and Armalite Rifle were applied to the Colt AR-15 models 601 and 602 by non-US militaries, and "AR-15 Automatic Rifle" by the USAF, yet in the US Army system, those are both M16 as of 3 Dec 1963. Also, there actually *was* a Colt M-16 as a commercial military product, to a slightly different set of drawings than the US Army M-16.

So is the consensus that only *US Army* designations are used? Is Wikipedia supposed to be a parochial encyclopedia for the US Army? Psaccani (talk) 06:16, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

AR-15 name?

Why is the phrase "AR-15" littered all over the page? I was in the Marine Corps (IT) and worked supply some as a Forward Observer, and I can assure you no one used the phrase AR-15 in supply.

When the military "ordered the AR-15" was the order actually for the M-16? I'd think so. Does anyone have references to the claims that the AR-15 was ordered in mass by the military?

Has this article been defaced by the people that are trying to ban "AR-15 Style weapons" as full auto? I have a deranged guy on Quora trying to say the definition of an AR-15 is a machine gun. Sigh. They are using this article to try to 'prove' that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgwinner (talk • contribs) 17:23, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Review the History section of this article concerning ArmaLite and its AR-15 rifle. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:29, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's extremely confusing, but there were/are two rifles known as the AR-15: the original ArmaLite AR-15, which was the full-auto precursor to the M16, and the Colt AR-15, which is the semiautomatic rifle that most people refer to when they say "AR-15". Hope that helps. BilCat (talk) 17:33, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

BilCat, there are a lot more than two rifles known as the AR-15. There were development only Armalite AR-15, then series production Colt Armalite AR-15 (a significantly different design), followed by many Colt different AR-15 rifles in the Colt AR-15 Weapons system. All of the Colt Armalite and Colt AR-15s were designated as M16 on 3 December 1967, along with the new Colt AR-15 604. So they are not precursors in US service, they are both M16 and AR-15. The Colt "AR-15 Sporter" is the self loading rifle introduced in 1964 (but developed in late 1963 as a contingency as existing military contracts would be complete in Nov 1963, but they got a big military contract in Nov 1963). Psaccani (talk) 05:51, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Jgwinner, the AR-15 entered US military service in 1960 (USN), and then in 1961 in the USAF, as "AR-15 Automatic Rifle". After about 15,000 had been purchased for the US Government, the US Army was designated as the AR-15 procurement agency and set up the "AR-15 Procurement Office" under Col. Yount, which ran under that name until mid 1967. In November 1963, the US Army signed an extendable production contract for 104,000 AR-15, 85,000 of model 603, the balance as model 604. So you have orders for a minimum of 119,000 as AR-15. On 3 December 1963, an order was issued that designated Colt AR-15 601, 602 and 604 as M16 and model 603 as XM16E1. In Feb1967, XM16E1 was standardised as M16A1. All of these were produced under a contract for AR15 as a commercial proprietary purchase, with the government having no production rights. Shortly after standardising the AR-15 603 as M16A1, the US Army made it Standard A for all activities except NATO, where the M14 remained as Standard A, whilst degraded to Standard B elsewhere.

This lack of AR-15 production rights was already a headache for the AR-15 procurement office, but now it became imperative to get them. After years of negotiation, in mid 1967 a deal (which is still running today) was struck with Colt's for government manufacturing rights. There was a lot involved in this, but part of it included the creation of Colt Propriety drawings which were labelled M16 and M16A1, as part of the AR-15 TDP purchase. In Feb1967, a model 603 drawing was made that included the marking M16A1, but it was still a 603 drawing. This new set of drawings was made and delivered in Nov 1967 and production was solicited in December 1967. The very first M16 and M16A1 that were not marked as AR-15 were made in 1968 - before this, all purchases were made under a contract for AR-15.

Colt's continued to mark their production as AR-15 into the mid seventies, and Colt Defence continued with the "Colt AR-15" program of military weapons systems. The Colt AR-15 *rifle* is part of a family of weapons systems which includes automatic only LMG and automatic rifles. There was also, from 1964, a Colt AR-15 *sporter*, which was a self loading only rifle, as Colt's described it "a semi-automatic conversion of the military rifle". The notion that the existence of self loading version means that the selective fire and automatic versions do not exist is deeply flawed.

The unfortunate reality is that "AR-15" includes, in the military sense, machine guns (auto only), and in the US civil law sense, machine guns (select fire), as well as an enormous number of licensed and unlicensed copies of the AR-15 action converted to self loading only for sporting use. So this leads to confusion, even with people who ought to know better, such as yourself, let alone those with little or no practical experience of arms. It is best to refer to "AR-15 Sporter" or "AR-15 self loader" to make the distinction, rather than "AR-15", which really does include machine guns. It is also best to avoid "semi-automatic" to avoid confusing the ignorant, "self loading" avoids this issue. Many ignorant journalists understand "semi-automatic" to mean the same thing as you understand "automatic" to be. This confusion is deepened when people who ought to know better insist than "an AR-15 is not a military rifle", or that "an AR-15 doesn't have automatic fire" or that "no military in the world uses a semi-automatic AR-15" (Several do, and recently, the Royal Thai Army adopted a new self loading AR-15 copy as a military rifle). Don't shorten it, enunciate "AR-15 Sporting rifle"/"AR-15 Sporter" and so on, instead of the ambigous AR-15, which covers a wide range of military weapons as well as sporting rifles. Psaccani (talk) 05:41, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Magazine Section and compatibility

Regarding the Design > Magazine section on the "Enhanced Performance Magazine" its stated "to distinguish it from earlier, incompatible magazines." The item is a magazine, it is not compatible with another magazine. Earlier magazines are not incompatible with the rifle. The compatibility is not the distinguisher, the idea we want to get across is that they are tan with a blue follower to not their improved performance over earlier models of magazine. It makes much more sense in my opinion to reword the statement to "to distinguish it from earlier models of magazine" or "earlier design of magazine" 72.39.35.188 (talk) 21:13, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Whoops, wasn't logged in, this is my topic Wozrop (talk) 21:14, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Repetition

The article chapter 'History' contains two sub-chapters (Background and Adoption) both of which are quite verbose. 'Adoption' is simply a repeat of'Background'. Major edit-rewrite required. Felimy (talk) 08:40, 4 January 2024 (UTC)