Larry Vickers' Delta Force Colt 723 Carbine

hey guys thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten weaponise comm I be in the column and today I am here with mr. Larry Vickers and we're taking a look at a pretty cool ar-15 this is like a pretty much perfect replica of what you carried and Delta Force right yeah when I first got into the you that went through fall 1988 selections I by the time out process my unit got there at the very end in 1988 started OTC operator training course beginning of 1989 and we used a variety of weapons largely use the mp5 an OTC interesting okay we had these issued but wasn't till I got through at ECU went to a squadron we really this became the primary essentially a Colt model 723 now at the time nobody called it that recall car 15 the generic term for the carbine length colt when I got mine was brand new it had it had the cardboard tube down the barrel it was a brand new gun okay and in this particular one has a a m203 grenade launcher cutout barrel which of course later became synonymous with the m4 and m4a1 carbine right this looks much like an early on for exactly there are plenty of guys that had these with the pencil barrel with a thin girl okay and that was kind of random honestly and I don't know if it was one of those things I don't know if there was like a sub variation of the 723 that had a pencil barrel and there was I don't know my hunch is it's kind of whatever cold had on hand so cold was caught making a military contract guns at that point you know I don't think so okay certainly nothing in the carbine line of course that came later with the m4 I don't know if they had m16 82's I really don't know my impression was always from this era of gun that the fit and finish and the overall quality was a notch above the military contract guns and this is m16a2 marked as you guys will see but without us property markings right this was a gun bought on the commercial market by Delta okay interesting why would they have done that you know the unit is obviously used a wide variety of weapons over the years and there are also a very unconventional methods of source and guns you know they have a leeway to kind of source and whatever they need as you well were they had tried the shorter barreled car fifteens now they tried those they had functioning issues those those guns and it's like we were talking about yesterday that's how the hk416 came about for the unit right is those guns have always had functional issues so when you say shorter you're talking like 10 and a half 11 at the exact girls with those a gigantic flash yes 14 1/2 in the key factor here is the distance on this particular barrel between the gas port and the end of the muzzle that this has been determined with a direct impingement gun for best reliability you need to maintain that distance right and the unit had tried like you said ten and a half eleven inch barrel guns and honestly you know without a lot of round counting it might work okay and kind of you know perfect temperature conditions but when you start getting on the extremes guns with a lot of round counts cold hot a variety of ammunition the guns just are not that reliable no and so the unit completely got away from them and standardized on this fourteen and a half inch configuration gun no cotton now we're gonna take a close look at this in just a moment and go through all the extra stuff you've got bolted on but before we do that you carried I guess not this rifle but the duplicate of this rifle in some pretty cool stuff down in Panama yeah Panama operation just cause we went in and rescued I was part of the guys in the unit who were involved with the rescue of Kurt Muse dad I'm a teller person basically identical to the gun I carried and then one long after that the balloon went up in Desert Storm so I carried essentially exactly the same gun hunting scuds in the desert which is five five six carbine basically a 200-meter gun in the deserts of college oak but nevertheless this is the gun I carry as a matter of fact Bravo Company USA good friends of mine did it kind of a gunfighter Series and highlight in different guns one of the first guns they highlighted was the scud hunter carbine of mine which was essentially this gun yeah I carried his gun in Panama Mandela prison and also hunting scuds wood in Desert Storm that kind of defines the military requirement of EURion literally a jungle one at one year and within less than a year now you're in a literal desert and to be honest with you a great gun from adela prism and Panama me men no complaints whatsoever we got to run the desert and we were all kind of like what are we doing with us I mean we needed I remember training with the British SAS I think was after this as a matter of fact and I saw it they still had widespread issue of seven six two guns basically kind of everybody had one largely G threes in Reston Lee because you know when he when he get down to it in terms of mounting an optic my G threes and he's her gun than FAL yeah right but Donna me I said you know these guys have been doing for a while maybe they're onto something you're in a desert you're not really what you know on patrol you're not you know foot mobile you're in a vehicle do I not have a 7.62 gun you have the ability to reach out at distance so that's been my belief from then till today I think you need to have different tools in your toolbox know so to speak all right well let's let's take a closer look at this because I know I want to find out about what some of this weird no you got it man all right so here's the whole thing you know what there's a lot of things to talk about on this so let's just when might as well start back here and then we'll just go to the front alright that that looks like a buttstock yeah and it's the plastic one see it's not you know the prior ones of course were aluminum which had up you know rubberized paint one style coating but this is a plastic when I believe it's technically the technical term is fiber light but don't hold that to me but it's it's a plastic collapsible buttstock we used them for years a lot of wobble okay you know which we we grew accustomed to it really didn't bother us because frankly that's what we had and we dealt with it now when you deal with some of the newer but stocks which don't have near the wobble obviously those are great preferred no now here's something interesting this is a two-position it's all the way out all the way in like the early car 15 bucks tops off I didn't come up with the position until the m4 correct now what we did like I was telling you yesterday is pretty cool was a little trick of the trade we did in Delta was we would find the sweet spot we collapse it and find the sweet spot where we wanted to link the pole for our body on okay and for me it was about 1/3 in and then you take it to the arms room they'd mark it you take it to the arms room and then they would machine a recess so you had essentially all the way in all the way out and then you had your body armor sweet spot nice and it worked like a champ now I'm sure that that ideal position had to have been one of the spots no it's not believe it or not for me I knew as soon as I got an m4 I checked this you know of course the m4 for position all the way in all the way out and then two evenly spaced intermediate positions so what you had was one that was still a little too far out and then one it was a little bit too far in but in that it's without a doubt now this particular one this is a post sample colt model 723 I have not taken the time because I don't plan on hitting medela prison again any time soon and just keep it original you know in terms of no modifications to the gun per se it was bolting on this stuff I have not done the little armor mod there my one-third sweet spot with the body armor but that was one thing we did a little trick of the trade and work like a champ cool now one thing in in Delta we used very little fully automatic fire very low essentially we use the gun 99.9 percent of time and semi-automatic rapid aimed fire auto to be honest with you about the only time I really used it was on the range it's you know demonstrating the students how you needed to be aggressive in your stance because automatic fire like doing a mag dump will definitely show you that beyond that you could save possibly some helicopter work where you're trying to put some rounds in a vehicle and full auto like burst fire that but that's about it we mainly used so whether it was auto or burst for us it was irrelevant it's really tough for us it was safe and semi did you guys actually have burst firing guns as well no I never saw any while I was there the ones I all saw were all on him okay that makes sense the burst is really an attempt at replacing training with the mechanism absolutely our tale certainly one of the reasons we didn't have it is is it's the effect its had on the turbo because as you know the m16 burst mechanism the trigger pull is greatly affected and it's very erratic and inconsistent in Delaware marksmanship is a premium that would be a total no-go I could tell you that right now yes this of course has a brass deflector on it which for a left-handed shooter I shoot a long gun left-handed because I'm left eye dominant I'm a right-hander but I actually sheet it left-handed okay this is a real plus because ya ever shoot a slick side non brass deflector AR it's not uncommon to kind of eat them in your chin or your cheek as you know absolutely so these are a real plus but then when you combine this with the a1 rear it's a real homerun much simpler rear sight I've never been a fan of the a2 style rear sight in my opinion for a combat rifle it's far too complex and for the average bear the average guy let's face it it has unnecessary and unneeded complexity and adjustment capabilities so in in my opinion the a2 rears of no go I'm a fan of the a one style is particularly like the canings did demócrata it right in my opinion they did a one style they have a standard peep and then they have a go string peep instead of having the long range so to speak they have a standard you know aperture and then they have the go string and that to me is the perfect combo now this one doesn't have it this has the standard two small apertures for an a1 style rear sight but when you combine this with this it's a homerun here's another interesting thing the unit experimented fairly early on really before there were flat top uppers for the m4 m4a1 series they would cut off remember the the arms room seeing some where they cut off the carrying handle here and here and then they bolted a piece of Weaver or Picatinny here and guys were able to bolt their optic directly to the top of the receiver and then still have the iron sights and be able to see him pretty slick that's pretty cool yeah that was it was pretty slick it really was you realize having said that now a whole bunch of people are going to immediately run out and saw that carry handles laughter yeah and do that I mean they're making it it's it's really slick once you get it set up right in the height that's right it's a real slick setup now we'll tell you this though be careful because this portion of the receiver up here where the charging handle slot is that this can be very thin so in it varies in its non-critical area so there's some some it's thicker with other than others but you'll run into some of them there if you look like an m4 m4a1 this is much beefed up and there's a reason for that so if you do get one and you bolt a piece of pic rail on here you might want to measure this if at all possible try to figure out how thick it is before you chop and bolt on to because that you may not have a lot of thread engagement once you do that that makes sense yeah that's that's one thing they found out in the arm drink now you've got some sort of optic on there what is that any point mm you've got some thing kind of sticking off the side of that scope there yeah on off adjustment in brightness and then also battery doubles yeah you take the battery off through here and then this is on on no one inch tube eight point mm this was really a commercial scope of commercial hunting red dot optics that ain't point brought out the end points that you know of in the military really this is the predecessor to all them and you'll see Delta guys guarding Norman Schwarzkopf in Desert Storm with their car 15s and they all generally run in eight-point mm really good red dot sight no this like I said this is kind of the optic that made any point what it is today certainly the newer stuff the micro the m5 the m4 series they're far better than this don't get me wrong they're they're far better but when you go what was the red dot that put any point on the map and why I'm still a big eight-point fan to this day big eight-point fan is a point mm no overall I'll be honest with it I would take an 8-point mm over most of the other red dot sights that are on the market that are non endpoint brands because I know that this one's a proven performer that's a good piece of kit it really is not perfect by a longshot you're talking about old technology and by all means don't you know know we're going to run out and buy one and make it your primary when you can get a new arein point they're much better optics but Ferb this is the this is the optic to put a point on the map the UH point mm that is certainly a better optic than things like the the arms and OE jeez yes absolutely spec ops guys have an end ten 20 years earlier this and its use by Delta and Special Operations and whatnot kind of led things down the path for the m68 you know close combat optic at the aim point of course the US Army has used for years that is the optic that kicked all that off very cool and I see you have a real state-of-the-art illumination device on yellow as well is that like a Maglite duct taped onto the hand guard it's what we call a qxl dive light and it was blue and you can even see a little bit of blue back here I don't know if you can see it the camera or not yeah but there's a little bit of blue right here might be able to can you see that there's blue the blue dive light I'm sure so if it's dropped underwater guys can find it we call it the qxl I don't have any clue if that's the right terminology okay but it was a dive light and then aren't we painted it black also in this particular case it's got it's basically got inner tube over top of it or combo guys wired it internally so we could use a push button switch okay that's what that is yeah and then it's hose cain't hose clamp and then bolt on on the bottom of a car 15 bottom handguard I think it's worth pointing out there that the hose clamps just go around the body of the flashlight yes and then the hose clamp itself is bolted into yep tent poles on the bottom and then this is one by the way that the guy who runs the arms room in the unit gave me no because I went in there and said hey I'm making a clone when I was retiring I make a clone of my setup do you have one you said here you go and gave me one this is a real this one you source from the unit yes yeah they probably won't still use yeah exactly and stuffs laying around and all that because here you go he gave to me you can see the rubbers starting to give up the ghost here yep and I eat to be honest with you I had batteries in it actually functioned for a while but I had some battery seepage come out the back so I went ahead and took the batteries out it's just basically an inert at this time yeah it's an IRA cover believe surefire made it believe surefire made it back in the day it's IR and then a lot of guys would take them and have a rubber band around it so they could keep it because the problem is that spring would give up the ghost or the slightest thing it would bump open yeah you don't want to bump open exactly so you guys have a lot of guys they would tape a rubber band and then that would be their positive cover and if they needed to use white light to take the rubber band off and pop it open okay now did you use that as like a front grip is that strong yes to handle the gun with oh yeah that's exactly we use do grip mm-hmm sure is and then you and you would set this up if you're a right hander or left-hander you know whatever work best for you right you know at that time we weren't really that big one left and right hand you switching shoulders that's something that kind of came later so setting this up where you'd have kind of ham be use wasn't a big priority at the time but this would have been set up for if frankly this was set up for a right-hander yeah you know what I mean I was thinking if you've got that absolutely armor that's exactly why it's on this side and then not on the other side me being a left-handed shooter if this is one I actually use it would have been on the other side I think you've told me something about the front sling swivel as well yeah I left this on once again kind of keeping the originality of the actual post sample but it in the one and I hadn't unit I just knocked this pin out okay yeah because there's no do you I didn't do it's just another thing to get to weigh or rattle or whatever so I knocked out took out of it took it out in the unit but on this one I left it on okay alright and then two mags jungle tape together there you yeah so this is our double mag clamp and a lot of guys in the unit used him at the time a lot of them used ones that were metal clamps so the mags were kind of in Asia eighth shape and they had a metal clamp that bracketed yeah I tried that I would have expected yeah I didn't like it and I'll tell you why on the metal bracket when you fire the weapon the vibration goes through one mag transfers across the metal bracket and he comes up the top of the other mag and it actually drifts rounds forward like this okay and then when you go to reload now you've got a round further forward you they're gonna push that round back flick the round off or whatever to get it in the gun no I never preferred that yeah in addition to wait in bulk I mean you know it's just another thing that's heavier on the gun steel to rust yada yada yada so what I came up with it still honestly is viable today for like a home defense scenario or a gun you're gonna have like in the trunk of your car what not is I took a piece of cardboard like MRE cardboard or what not have an MRE case and then kind of did a little Z fold or S fold and put it in here to get the spacer that I needed okay then I taped it and then I did this tape here to cinch it all in place and make this real tight and then I tape it down here to basically give this V shape okay and the theory behind that is it didn't interfere with the the ejection port cover once it came up and he basically had enough room up here for the ejection port cover to lay flat against the receiver not that that's that big of a deal and the scheme of things but that's kind of the setup I used work like a champ I used it for years you start out with a gun I always ran 28 rounds in each because I like the ability to see it with the bolt forward so even if you were running 30 you can't you had a basically up to 60 rounds ready to go and the theory was okay what are you gonna do this thing act with this everything use it we we throw it down our shirt you don't like me had shirt or whatever or a cargo pocket or what you know or if you lost it you just make another one later we'd make an attempt to retain it another thing that we guys would do in some cases is they would have a flashbang and it rubber-banded to it so if they needed to use a flashback or get access to a flash man quickly for CQB purposes they already had one you know rubberband in the front of their double mag I mean this honestly is still a viable setup to this day like I said you could have a home defense carbine or Trump carbine or whatever and you could have this on it and it would still get the job done to this day and let me point out at the time I was in the unit we always use Colt made us GI aluminum ax okay always and by the way they ran like a channel I never used any of the other adventure line or any other off-brand government contractors we the unit always sourced Colts and they always work great now you mentioned the gun was marked m16a2 but was not u.s. property market yeah and I see you've got that here there's going to be a replica but you've got that yeah it's exact because this is a model 723 just like what we had in a unit and that's exactly how they're marked that's it I remember looking at at the time going what the hell this isn't an m16 a2 and it's you know it's like you were talking about earlier trying to keep track of all Colts sub variations and model numbers and all that kind of stuff and this is a good example because you think m16a2 wait a minute so this is essentially an m16 82 carbine okay is what it is and this is a gun that colt was selling commercially to security forces more Antares foreign militaries law enforcement otherwise known as an export gun this particular configuration was never officially adopted by the US military closest thing to this m4 carbine okay so why not what is adopted then it became the m4 carbine that was really the closest thing to what this thing was all about and how much influence do you think this and it's used by guys like Delta had on the m4 huge influence it set the stage for the m4 being adopted by SOCOM such as it was a huge influence because Delta was the first within SOCOM that we're using these guns in lieu of mp5s remember when we rolled into Panama we were using these you had seals down there and whatnot they were largely using them fives this this model 723 in its use by Delta and the eight-point mm an excuse by Delta set the stage for the adoption of the m4 carbine and the adoption of the m-68 aim point for the army service why I mean that's without a doubt those two elements later led to the US military on much larger scale adopting those two items well that's pretty damn cool thank you I have a old reproduction of an airforce early carbine myself but you know and you'll see pictures on the internet like Air Force security eyes and different games with different flavor car 15 oftentimes with a shorter barrel it's okay you want to mean well the Air Force guys in particular have like some of absolutely everything yeah absolutely you'll still see guys running around with real early ar-15 and it's like they don't get rid of anything as long as it's still serviceable and let's face it most you know they don't put a lot of rounds through their smarm so the guns last a long time so it's not unusual to see rare and early variants of the m16 ar-15 family pop up you know overseas somewhere in the air first okay and then woe unto the guy who tries to give them all a specific designation for every variants absolutely and thank you it was a challenge for us myself when we were doing the Vickers guidebooks on the ar-15 because one little minor difference and now it's a slightly different sub variant the last thing we wanted to do was call it the wrong thing in the books so that is was very challenging how to do that it's like one of those issues where the collector and enthusiast world kind of gets away from it so I absolutely I agree home sent like Winnie you know I didn't know this was a Colt model 723 till years after I was out of the military certainly when we were in the unit we just called a car 15 right they all work the same way the exact same thing now I will say this I want to plug the books if you're a fan of these kind of guns you've got to get Vickers got ar-15 all you want and vicars got ar-15 vol.2 air one is almost sold out air okay the air 15 volume 1 this gun is in it was almost sold out so you need to get on top of that you still have a ar-15 volume Jews around but if you're into these guns at all you've got to get those books yeah Volume one is mostly the early American guns and volume 2 has a lot of all the piston guns and a lot of foreign manufacture AR you know the Canadian the Taiwanese the Chinese they are both very cool books in fact I have review videos on both of them so if you're interested check those out yes well thank you very much for taking the is was really cool and stay tuned guys we'll be back with more Forgotten weapons and I think we'll be doing some more cool videos with larry's you

Channel: Forgotten Weapons

Views: 779,258

Rating: 4.9446998 out of 5

Keywords: history, development, mccollum, forgotten weapons, design, disassembly, kasarda, inrange, inrangetv, larry vickers, vbickers, vickers guide, delta, delta force, car15, colt, colt 723, m16a2, panama, desert storm, scud hunter, repro, clone, build, ar, rifle, dive light, surefire, aimpoint, aimpoint 2000, jungle mag, dual mag, military

Id: n6zfTYQ09Rs

Length: 25min 22sec (1522 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 15 2019