Colt 601: The AR-15 Becomes a Military Rifle 

Maybe "He Mails"?...

I thought he said "cabled," as that's a more modern (1920's-1970's) way of saying sending an electronic message. The distinction, however inaccurate even in the '20's the new way to send telegraphs was via radio.

4:53

Well, he did say DARPA was involved in the promotion of the AR.

I was like "Did he really just say that?"

Sounds like an episode of mail call or lock and load with Gunnery Sergeant Ermey.

Scott Mew I love R Lee ermey

@@jmoney7289 I may be a lowly civilian, but even I am compelled to salute the man. I saluted when his character, Sarge in Toy Story 3 departed Andy's house.

WERLLLL THATS PRETTY COOORL

No because it works, and works better than anything. Nothing has made it worthwhile to replace the M16 series of rifles. Speaks volumes about the genus of Eugene stoner.

Marcus woooosh

Christopher Whitaker “if a round doesnt want to go into the chamber why in the hell do want to beat it in there?”

@@beardoggin8963 That's an oversimplification of the entire issue. Outside of a rifle range, that forward assist comes in real handy dealing with targets that shoot back.

John Simpson how does it come in handy? That is what the little scalloped put portion on the bolt is for. You press forward without serious pressure to get it into battery and if it doesnt go you remediate it. And that quote is a close approximation of what Clint Smith said. But since you are the expert what Branch are you in and how many notches do you have?

@@FIREBRAND38 It doesn't come in handy at all when you've just made a problem even worse than it was beforehand. Having a bolt that's just barely out of battery due to cheap ammo or whatever you just press on the cut-out on the side of the bolt, it then chambers and everything's fine. But if you need the extra leverage of the forward assist because the scallop cut didn't work then you're only asking for trouble.

Graham Lopez niceee

Borderline dad joke

Intellect 100

Ba dum tssss

Graham Lopez Fool, the real M green 16 is the Colt Canada C7 which is still an M16

Congratulations sir, the best gift a person could want. Merry Christmas to you and your wife and new family member.👍🏼🍻

Congratulations my friend, happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you

Congrats

An amazing gift to the world !! congratulations my man

Jason Hart that’s the way to do it lol. Congrats man

Mid-50s for the AR-10 of course.

My dad was a kid in the '50s and early '60s, and he said when pics of the AR first started coming out, he thought it looked like a "ray gun" from a sci-fi movie. Lol.

@@crominion6045 The open-ended flash hider sure adds to that, looking like electrodes...

To a small degree it still is space age stuff ( when built like the originals ). m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LyXndCxn9K4.html

@Creeping Death ok grandpa

While in the Marines we did a deployment to Osan in 96' where some of us volunteered as aggressors for an airbase defense school. They had us use their M-16s. It was quite a treat to see those chromed bolts and a pleasure to shoot (blanks and BFAs however). Thanks Air Force.

I was issued a 5 digit serial number back in the day in the USAF. Best M16 I ever shot, not one miss fire with live or blank ammo.

AR-15 become as M16

@@smokysams wow that’s crazy, was the chromed BCG noticeably better then? Always wondered..

@@EstorilEm Unfortunately we didn't have enough time with them to find out. But they were quite pretty and easy to clean. Had one jam, failure to chamber; about an 1/4" out of battery. I instinctively went for the forward assist but of course there was none, so I used my thumb to fully chamber it and continued firing.

I save shooting watermelons for the rotten ones. Grocery stores are happy to have help getting rid of old melons and pumpkins!

Some people don't know that you have to hunt watermelon!

Lol, next thing you’ll tell me is that people eat pork chops and oranges instead of using them to simulate pectorals and lung tissue.

Disgusting!

Eat? Everyone knows you drink watermelons.

D H my favourite part of Canadian c7/c8 the green furniture

I wonder if anyone out there makes replica furniture like this. A quick google search bore no fruit.

N B Brownells has new production green. But it’s FAR brighter

So the British went with Green furniture as well for their small arm of the 1980s. Triangle format as well. I wonder why that was so popular with people.

I would like a nice wood furniture on it. AKs pull it off, maybe if done right so could the AR

Historical trivia: Curtis LeMay ran with George Wallace in 1968 as a Vice-Presidential candidate, as independents, against Hubert Humphrey-Democrat & Richard Nixon-Republican. With the extreme dissent & frustration of Viet Nam war at time, Wallace-LeMay siphoned off enough of the traditional Democrat Southern vote, allowing Nixon to be elected. In '68, at least, Nixon did NOT win South, as often erroneously stated as his 'Southern strategy'.

General LeMay wrote the Core Values of the US Air Force so anyone who served has a great understanding of his work ethic and standards. On top of that he made the Stratgeic Air Command what it was a highly professional and skilled force from air crews to security police and that spirit of professionalism and dedication to discipline still lives on in the USAF today. Or it did when I was in anyway.

Having been born in 1980, this was all before my time, as with most, I was told one thing in schools, only to later find out the facts of situation were much different, with example of the so called 'Southern strategy' a case in point. I thank you for further enlightenment on LeMay, who is not well treated by current narrative based academic historians. Hopefully, one day, more neutral based history will be taught, that will more evenly and fairly deal with historical figures like LeMay.

@@doraran2138 I was born in 1980 as well I just know about LeMay because I was in the USAF. On top of that I am an avid student of history.

Also LeMay was not ever concerned about his image when he was an active general or when he retired so he never challenged anything negative in the press about him because he literally didn't care. There's a more behind his reasoning for running with Wallace and it had nothing at all to do with predjuce. He never had any issues with black members of the USAF he only cared that people under his command were professional it didn't matter to him beyond that. You cannot expect neutral historic information this is something you have to seek for yourself by reading more than one source of information and knowing what is bais(one way or the other) and what is actually fact. For example in basic training we of course were told only of LeMays good traits and none of his post military life was even mentioned at all. That being said the professionalism that he helped I still in the USAF is very clear to anyone who served pretty much from 1947 to today.

How'd it go? I hope the virus hasn't messed anything up for you

Yeah is it Doc McFadden?

Hope it worked out for you!

Don't forget his nickname: "Bombs Away" LeMay. 🙂 In the movie 'Strategic Air Command' (1955) with Jimmy Stewart, Frank Lovejoy's character Gen. Ennis C. Hawkes was based on General LeMay when he was head of SAC.

My grandfather put the original computer system in the Pentagon thanks to General LeMay. He told me that when the "Wiz Kids" ( group of 11 men who were tasked with developing the computer for military applications) that they presented their ideas to the Army and Navy and were basically laughed out of their presentation. My grandfather then told me how they took their system to General LeMay who suggested they might be able to develop it for personnel logistics and the quarter masters and if it worked he would computerize the USAF which he did and was hailed as a genius as a result. After WWII a computer system that once filled the entire basement of the Pentagon now fits in a laptop. I was very fortunate to have met General LeMay as a young boy back in the 60s taking the bus to the Pentagon during summer break to have lunch with my grandmother and grandfather and mom who all worked at the Pentagon.

Nothing in the military is as permanent as a temporary solution.

The “wonder rifle” was the FAL…

Maybe the real wonder rifles were the ones we made along the way

​@@pantera29palmsit's weird how all the countries that used fals threw them out as soon as they could afford an intermediate caliber assault rifle

@@pantera29palms No, it was the G11

Same. It's like looking at the old 60's models of American mustang cars

Carried one in the AF for years M16

Reminds me of the service rifle from Fallout: New vegas

hot take but i think they are really ugly

I love them. My favorite. The round ones are cool too

But there's no room for the 30% Ian

You forgot the %100 Ian.

hes ahoy without the animation and voice

Thats just sad

Thanks for sharing! Always cool to hear from people with first-hand experience in the field

Just out of curiosity, do you remember the story of the canine whose Handler got hit he released him and he killed something like over 20 Vietnamese? The dog was hit multiple times and they operated on him on a flight back to Manila. The dog retired as an officer!

We had CAR-15s when I was a SP at Incirlik, 88-89.

Army taught me in '68 how to use the army version with the assist. By the time I finally retired 29 years later I had never used the forward assist except in training on the range. I wasn't smart enough to think about it, but if I had a problem getting a round in I always wanted to get it out first.

@@Gronicle1 even with bolt action rifles, we were taught, if a round fails to feed, eject and try a fresh round. If it failed to feed that round, strip and fix. We were never told to beat the bolt handle, only something else!

what is a "beaten" zone? also why is it needed, or rather preferred for an lmg to have one, and not be a lazer. i get that an lmg is not like in video games, and isnt primarily to hit, but to cover fire, but why is it worse when its a laser?

@@baelint3061 The "beaten zone" is where the bullets from the machine gun are hitting. When you shoot at something with a machine gun, you want a spread of hits. The Stoner 63 looked like a laser beam at night firing tracers. It had twice the rate of fire as an M60 and virtually no spread. If your target is people coming at you, you want spread. The Ft Jackson machine gun ranger people got mad at us because we cut down and set afire their target houses.

@@baelint3061 Note that a "beaten zone" is NOT the cone of fire created by an inherently imprecise firearm. In machine gunnery, it's the distance (or elipse shaped zone when viewed from above) in range at a target area where bullets fired at an enemy's head will still be hits to the body or legs as the bullet drops. It's a property of the system's trajectory and sighting system. Cartridges and rifles with a more arcing trajectory will have a larger beaten zone. Sights that are precisely zeroed for bullet drop at a certain range will require the gunner to consciously "hold over" for closer targets.

@@frankcamper7318 "Dammit, Stoner, your gun is too precise." >:(

I’m jealous. I’d give an arm to shake Stoner’s hand, even more get to see him multiple times and test his firearms

smells so good too

If that had been designed in the 1970s the colors would have been green and yellow!

Like current C7 furniture

So do I.

In the late 1980s I saw actively issued USAF M-16s still equipment with green furniture.

Brown or Black only!

Seven maids a-milking, six maids a-milking, fiiiiiive maids a-milking.

2 of the biggest icons in Murican armament, making such a notion even more crazy.

Then Fairchild promptly goes under 12 years after that.

wellll the A10 aint good so ehhh i guess

@@kadebass6187 it's good for what it's designed for, it now is mostly good as a light bomber, because we don't have any of those.

@@gonkdroid4prez539 there's other vehicles that can do what it does; bombing isn't something that's unique to it

Mark Brown I’m surprised it took you a while to get used to the full auto on the M16 cause it’s way more controllable in full auto than an M14.

@@craigscott5661 Maybe OP and his buddies never fired their M14s on full auto?

Its just always been my thinking that any military that served in combat for this country should have the option to bring back and keep the rifle and or sidearm they used in combat. Trophies from the enemy too of course.

​@@craigscott5661By Vietnam, most M-14s had their full auto removed. I'm assuming his M-14 was one of those.

The Army's good old boy's club at the Ordnance Corps is what caused all the issues. Automatic rifles have to work in harmony with the ammo propellant they are based around to be reliable. They have never offered a good reason for insisting on changing the ammo against Stoner's advice and they failed to order enough cleaning kits or the appropriate training to compensate initially, ensuring the M16's big debut as the primary weapon of the military was a disaster. The ball powder they switched to, provided by of course one of the companies in their little club that was prone to cozy exclusive contracts, caused the gun to fire too fast and it burned longer and was dirtier, causing big issues in the gas system. Newer ammo is clean again, but it's not the same as the original. I wonder how well the modern rifles would fire with the original ammo even now.

@@010203109 I fired a bunch of Vietnam era surplus 5.56 through my Daniel Defense DDM4v7, it works but you have to tweak the gas system to get it to run. It's obvious why the old A1's had a problem with it tbh.

@@010203109 "Causing big issues", is probably the understatement of the century. It's the reason behind countless names on the wall. Soldiers were blamed for their perceived lack of or poor maintenance. So the propellant & chamber degradation issues, & the Militaries hierarchy, allowing that to continue at the time, has left a lot of people with soldiers blood on their hands. But, like many other issues of indirect effect for those in power, it's been brushed over, & no accountability has been forthcoming from all those years ago. Ironically, I did not understand what the real problems wereat the time, however, I didn't trust the M16, & in the Australian Army, I was offered the choice between it & the L1A1. Fortunately, I chose the latter.

@@010203109 It'd be annoying enough if they were stubborn about the ammo in regular times but it's even more infuriating that people died because of their hard-headedness.

If he was than he would be talking B52

Not enough cigar smoke for old "Bombs Away" LeMay to have been in this video. XD

So that's where AR's come from uncle taylor?

Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.

The Black Prince that’s what she wanted for Christmas

It's not what you know, it's who you know.

Now I can't stop imagining Ian dressed as Gallagher.

We had a refrigerator and stove that color in the 70s....yes very trendy.

@@unclebuck1735 Now I'm picturing '70s soldiers getting issued Harvest Gold M16s, or '80s soldiers with polished chrome BCGs in their black rifles.

Thats barely english

@@jayuu8380 AF - Air Force; 601'ish - early early M16; AFB - Air Force Base; TDY - duty. You are welcome.

@@jayuu8380 Military acronyms are not English at all. TDY, temporary duty. AFB, Air Force Base. No SNAFU, you just don't understand the language. You have now been given a short lesson in military language. Very short.

@@terrywarner8657 thanks

@@jayuu8380 NATO Standard!

"Double barrel magazine assault clips". I think that's an actual quote. But no, someone would have made black eventually because it's cheaper and uniform

@@VeritasEtAequitas ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qK9RgaSdM1g.html it does exist lmaoo LAPD finest XD

@@VeritasEtAequitas They could have made the entire rifle, including the metal, green for uniformity. Green paint isn't much more expensive than black paint.

@@hailexiao2770 wouldn't look as cool with a full green reciever instead of the grey one.

@@hailexiao2770 and avocado was a trendy color back in the sixties. our fridge was green avocado. and the stove.

Leader of the"Wiz Kids"!

Remember that time he approved the creation of a US program to draft people who were well below minimum standard for recruitment, and how said program was abject failure?

@@Calvin_Coolage McNamara's Morons. It was tragedy.

Thank you for your service. From what I can find the original AR 15 ammo that Stoner designed his baby to work in harmony with used IMR 4475 propellant. The Army Ordnance Corps and Army in general have never, at least on public record, given any good reason for switching to dirtier, longer burning ball propellant. This allowed still-burning propellant to enter the gas system as the rifles also cycled something like 20 percent faster than they were designed to. This combo turned a reliable favorite among South Vietnamese troops and our Special Forces into a nightmare. I assume the forward assist could have helped with some of the subsequent jams, but obviously not enough to prevent the bloody consequences of the poorly justified ammo change, or many dead US soldiers would not have been found next to disassembled M16s in the jungles of Vietnam.

@@010203109 Man that's so sad. Being caught lacking while trying to field strip your weapon because it jammed up so much, and unfortunately that was the moment you get attacked. No wonder a lot of Vietnam vets I talked to preferred the M14 or even the BAR

@@magentuspriest My Grampa had an M14 in Vietnam. He said it was fine he just wished he had bullets. His outfit didn't have any bullets on hand after a CO got himself shot at for not responding to a guard one night.

Bro you always post the SAME comment

@@ryanstreuli8667 he makes these low effort comments on all of Ian’s videos and other popular gun channels just so he can promote his own channel.

Technical One I would like to see that hope he finds your comment’

That is incredibly interesting

Agreed!!

Funny enough, I ended up using the forward assist on my Troy XM177E2 retro a couple weeks ago because I let her get really gunky firing a couple hundred rounds of cheap 55gr fodder. Bolt was stopping with a round halfway out of the magazine. Couldn't drop the mag, couldn't pull the bolt back. Smack the assist and then pull it back, got everything unstuck.

As a radio pog that never deployed but served with 75th, 82nd, and 20th SFG. You probably didn't shoot enough, or were just blessed with a decent rifle "luck."

@@replynotificationsdisabled Nah, you can easily clear jams without that FA. No matter what the issue. They're only good for hunting or stealth missions if you had to quietly rack one in.

@Jen farmer No he was playing the air force song on the electric guitar

He actually said "I'm a big six and I don't take no wooden nickels from nobody. This thing is just the eel's hips."

Did you do your entire enlistment at Minot? My last duty assignment was with the 741st MS at Minot, and my last rifle had A2 hand guards and butt stock. I took great pleasure during post checks when asked how long the M-16 was. I responded by saying that my rifle was 39 5/8 inches long. When corrected I'd take my rifle out of the rack as well as another rifle with either the original butt stock or the A1. I'd place both rifles butt on the floor side by side to demonstrate the difference.

@@earlwyss520 No. My first base was Incirlik 88-89, then I went to Hahn from 90-92, then I went to Minot 92-94 working missile silos. I worked convoys for about 8 months, got my medical for helicopter fire teams, then almost right away got moved over to camper alert teams. CAT duty sucked, and was a big part of why I got out when my enlistment was up.

@@randallkelley3600 My assignments were Clark AB 88-90, Eaker AFB Ark 90-91, Balikesir Turkey 91-92, RAF Upper Heyford 92-94 (I was one of the last 3 WSA entry controllers), Incirik 94-95 (where I was qualified with and issued an A2), and finally Minot 95-97. I considered the missile field an involuntary cross train, as it was run completely bass ackwards from flight line duty.

@@earlwyss520 Convoys weren't too bad. CATs were terrible. For one thing we had tiny flights, 15-20 people, so once the week started, you hardly saw any of them. Flight cohesion suffered from this. The crazy hours were another problem. 6am one day, 6pm the next. 8 hours one day, 16 the next. Getting 3 hours of sleep and your phone ringing for a CAT deployment. On call 24 hours a day Mon-Fri. I couldn't even go to the chow hall without letting dispatch know where I was (carried a pager). Inevitably when we were sent on a CAT we could get the site security to reset. But once we were out in the field they left us there. So we would bounce from one silo to another getting reset after reset. Eventually we would be tired enough that we wouldn't try to reset the alarms so they would leave us alone and we could get some rest. It didn't help that the cops were very undermanned at the time compared to the missile maintenance guys. I had my "mandatory" rest time shortened on several occasions to meet mission requirements.

@@earlwyss520 I was at Hahn as it was shutting down. We had 3 squadrons of F-16s. One was sent to the Gulf War, the other two stayed behind and were painted in Illinois or Indiana guard colors and flown home. After the war, the other squadron met the same fate. So we had assets in the WSA and nothing to put them on. We even inherited some Army 155mm howitzer assets. No planes. Then one night CSC comes on with an in flight emergency. We asked if it was an exercise...nope. We had no idea how we cold be having an in flight with no planes. Turned out it was a British Buccaneer with a fuel leak. He landed fine, but the plane was on the flight line for 3 weeks. Hahn closed in 93. A couple of my friends were there literally padlocking things up for the last time. Lufthansa operates out of Hahn now and some of my friends have gone back, flying in on a commercial flight. More weird, you can frequently see Aeroflot commercial planes there. Now that is a big change from my time there! Were you at Clark during the volcano? What did you think of your Turkey assignment?

Fairchild made serious money off of royalties for the rifles and spares until the original patents expired. It is rarely mentioned that Boutelle and two of his successors were fired before Stanley Fairchild came out of retirement to stop the financial bleeding. Armalite and several other under-performing divisions were kicked to the curb soon afterwards.

I can, because I've seen the C&Rsenal videos about Pershing and Crozier rejecting the Lewis gun. :)

Most desired? Weeeeeeeeew lad.

Oops

Literally never. Its a wonder colt hasn't gone bankrupt.

@@rogainegaming6924 they declare on a regular basis. But bankruptcy doesn’t mean insolvency. It’s primarily a reorganization. Unlike what happened with Remington.

@@terranempire2 Remington *shudder

You mean the charging handle?

​@@dutchplanderlinde4845 What?

We agree the information in this video is great!

Arteon Tarchin I give Gun Jesus a pass on that. Maybe he had a mail runner named Ernie or something lol

@@beardoggin8963 he ran from India to US? Must've been a hell of a runner...

@@TreacherousFennec haha indeed

@@beardoggin8963must've had sexy legs, this runner