New Lease on Life for M14
Military.com has an interesting article on the M14:
The growing need to equip these new marksmen with accurized rifles prompted the Army to reconsider the role of the venerable M-14 rifle for the war on terror. Back in Desert Storm, armorers from the 10th Special Forces group took M-14s equipped with a match barrels and fitted a gas piston on them for optimal performance, re-designating it the M-25. They replaced the stock with a McMillan M1A fiberglass one, developed a scope mount and added a Bausch & Lomb 10x40mm fixed-power optic or a Leupold Mark 4.
Hat Tip: Murdoc @ GunPundit
Pfft. The EBR is now being issued to every brigade in Afghanistan at a rate of 2 per squad.
I think it will be around for a while. The M24 was supposed to replace the M14/M21. The M110 is supposed to replace the M24 but the Army is still upgrading M24s ( http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2008/10/02/us-army-to-upgrade-m24-rifles/ ).
With all the urgent expenses the military is facing, I think both the M24 and M14 will be around for some time.
Sad but true. Once M110s are fielded on a widespread basis the M14 days will be drastically shortened. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some Spec Ops guys with them still but nothing like they are used today.
The M14 days are over in the US military. It is more or less a stop gap. It will be out of service once there are enough M110 in the field.