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Title:RIFLE, MILITARY -  U.S. RIFLE M14 7.62MM SN# 545480
Maker/Manufacturer:SPRINGFIELD ARMORY
Date of Manufacture:C 1962
Eminent Figure:
Catalog Number:SPAR 3352
Measurements:OL:112.3CM 44 1/4" BL: 55.8CM 22"

Object Description:

U.S. RIFLE M14 7.62MM SN# 545480
Manufactured by Springfield Armory, Springfield, Ma. - Standard air-cooled, gas-operated, select-fire, shoulder weapon. Endurance test piece. No select switch. Hinged buttplate. Non-ventilated plastic handguard. Weapon complete with 20-round detachable box magazine and in very good condition.

Markings:
Receiver: U.S. RIFLE/7.62-MM M14/SPRINGFIELD/ARMORY/545480.
Bolt: 7790186/SA US1.
Stock: P in circle.

Weapon was transferred to the Museum on 27 August 1964. At that time weapon was appraised at $128.59.

What does an M14 rifle look like after firing 30,000 rounds? This picture tells the story.

Springfield Daily News, 19 March 1963. "True Writer Blast Boondoggle. John Garand Joins Critics O f Adoption of M14 Rifle.
John C. Garand, of this city, developer of the World War semiautomatic M1 rifle, is the latest, to join his voice against the M14 Springfield rifle adoption, according to second derogatory article about the weapon in a national magazine in the last few days.
The latest article challenging the wisdom of adopting the M14 over other prototypes appears in the April issue of True Magazine under the title of 'The U.S. Army's Blunderbuss Bungle,' written by John Tompkins.
The Springfield Armory and the Pentagon kept a stony silence today as the second written barrage joined the article in the April issue of Gun World, which fired a frontal attach at the new gun and the entire arsenal research and development system.
Garand Retired - Mr. Garand, now retired from federal service, and living here, is referred in at length in the article about the early development of the present gun. He could be contacted readily today to verify or amplify his position in the squabble which is beginning to assume national proportions .
U.S. Rep. Edward P. Boland, D-Springfield, today said that he had submitted questions on the matter to the Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance, who has issued an order phasing out the M14 by 1965, according to Gun World.
The article in 'True' datelined from Washington, D.C. begins: 'After nearly 20 years of Pentagon bungling that's cost U.S. taxpayers over $100 million so far, the Army is issuing our GIs a new automatic rifle that experts think is inferior to the gun we already have (the Garand M1).'
The author charges that the M14 doesn't work as well as the M1 and John C. Garand, inventor of the M1 of which the M14 is a bastardized version - worries about what will happen when it's issued in combat.'
'Reports from Vietnam,' adds the author, 'indicate that Garand's fears may well be justified.'
Marine Gen. Vernon E. Megee, former commander of Fleet Marine Force Pacific is quoted as asserting 'They labored mightily and brought forth a mouse.'
The Real Blunder - But the real blunder, holds Mr. Tompkins, is that the weapon was developed as a fully-automatic replacement, but 90 per cent of the M1s currently being issued are set for semi-automatic fire only.
'The main weakness lies in the gas cylinder and piston that operates the M14,' the article says. 'The system is a complicated and ??? beast built to such tight tolerances that it almost invites jamming in most combat conditions. But rather than openly redesign the Army has chosen to quietly do a series of modifications on it that bear all the landmarks of a doctoring job to save the M14 from public exposure as a failure.'
On the matter of the gas chamber the magazine holds that the idea adopted for the M14 was one invented in 1921 by J.C. White of Boston, an idea rejected by the Army in 1930 but one that cropped up again 20 years later.
Mr. Garand on this adoption is quoted as asserting - 'The sliding value is bunk - I tested it and it doesn't work the way they claim.' He asserts in the article that somebody in the Pentagon was sold on the White gas system, and that tests were made by outside firms whom he claims just brought in the kind of reports that the Army wanted to hear. He is quoted as adding, 'That's bad business, but that's the way things are.'
The article traces the history In a special insert in the article with pictures, Mr. Tompkins contends that the light aluminum AR15, a private development of the Fairchild Corp., is also being used in Vietnam and 'reports indicate that it's the terror of Communist guerillas. In addition, the U.S. Air Force has spurned the Army's M14 and already has bought 8500 AR15s itself. It reportedly wasn't 80,000 more.
The rifle has been in production since 1959 by Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Co., Hartford, Conn.
The author adds: 'The funny part of all this is that the Department of Defense is supplying Vietnam with AR15s rather that the Army's M14s. And it is submitted that this is a test. If so the results to date are highly satisfactory. A U.S. Military observer on the scene in Vietnam recently reported that the new AR15s 'light weight, range and causality effect are all that could be asked for.'
The article discusses the shelving of an idea by Mr. Garand in adapting the M1 to an M2 or fully-automatic design which was never adopted.
The conclusion of Mr. Tompkins is that the Army's Springfield Armory design always had the inside track in the race for a new weapon during a '12 year boondoggle' which 10 different rifles were tested.
He adds, 'The doubtful objectivity of these so-called 'tests' make you wonder why the Army even asked for outside designs. It was like playing poker with a stacked deck, and of course the house won the game. Everyone knew the Army would win, but the show continued for 12 expensive years. Anyway.'"

Springfield Union, 21 March 1963 - "BOLAND CALLS FOR AIRING M14 'BLUNDER.' Wants Reply of Army to Charges Made in Magazine Articles. (Special to the Union) Washington - The House Appropriations Committee will investigate published charges that the Army's adoption of the Springfield-developed M1 rifle was a costly 'blunder,' Rep. Edward P. Boland, D-Mass., said Wednesday.
Preparing Questions - The charges have appeared recently in two national magazines. Boland, a member of the Appropriations Committee, has turned the articles over to staff investigators and is preparing a series of 'searching questions,' he said, for Army officials when they testify on the budget for the coming fiscal year.
'These are serious allegations and Congress is entitled to know the facts,' Boland commented.
The Springfield congressman is not a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee but is arranging for colleagues on that panel to investigate Army procurement experts. The budget hearings are traditionally held behind closed doors in the House, with a censored transcript later released to the public."

Springfield Union, 5 June 1967 - "M14 Vs. M16. Senate Report Hits Indecision on Rifles. - Washington - A Senate subcommittee sharply criticized the Army's rifle procurement program since World War II, and particularly during the 1960s, in a report made public Sunday.
The Senate armed services preparedness subcommittee, headed by Sen. John C. Stennis, D.-Ms., accused the Army and the Defense Department of 'indecision, vacillation, changes in policy and stops and starts which have plagued the Army's rifle program since 1945.'
Unnamed People - The subcommittee said the Army had 500 million of the taxpayers' money' on the M14 rifle and then, because of unnamed influential people in the Pentagon,' has suddenly shifted to the M16 rifle in 1963.
The subcommittee reviewed the history of rifle buying in a study that came to a head with a hearing April 5. In its unanimous report, it said it was disturbed to find so much indecision 'on a relatively simple weapon such as a rifle.'
Secretary of the Army Stanley R. Resor defended the Army in a letter to the subcommittee that was published as an appendix to the report. He said that what had struck the subcommittee as vacillation was actually an exercise in prudence.
The ArDelays, Indecision - The subcommittee dismissed Resor's defense by saying 'delays, indecision and, stops and starts in any weapon program can always be cloaked by the claimed prudence of retests, reevaluations and preservation of options.'
The Army had stopped buying the M14 and now is buying the M16 for use in Vietnam while awaiting development of a new lightweight weapon that is not scheduled for production for a few more years.
The subcommittee said the Army had closed ranks and made a seemingly firm decision in the late 1950s to replace the old M1 with the M14. That decision was made, the subcommittee said, on the basis of competitive tests of the M14 and the M16.
The subcommittee noted that large quantities of the M14 were ordered in 1962 and 1963 and that the Army had planned to continue buying the rifle through 1966."

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