The Worst Service Rifle Upgrade; The M16A2

[Music] foreign [Music] power for this Soviet I got it [Applause] far out with the m16a2 with the m203 we have the Firepower to take on those Reds kill a common for mommy the only good Kami is a dead cow boom the m16a2 is the latest of lethal Firepower offered to you by Colt defense here we can see Sergeant man instructing one of his privates in the use of the m16a2 nice [Music] day in your life you got rules Sergeant Hammond what is your opinion of Staff Sergeant man I know there's a lot of opinions floating around the barracks these days staff sergeant man is detached from our reality as we know it trick shaver first one like this you want to play your body oh yeah your elbow up wrap your hand around stable after all this experience in Panama I'm gonna get padded [Music] [Music] the m16a2 now comes with the m203 grenade launcher requiring low pressure 40 millimeter high explosive Dual Purpose round here we can see them used in practice [Music] thinking about the m16a2 with m203 in every single way Micah what is this to me this is my favorite rifle this there's no better rifle to this anywhere like from Predator to any video game I've ever played this game this gun just lives rent free in my brain 24 7. this is what we call sex appeal I've wanted to do a review on this for a long time and uh my YouTube channel is a outlet for my autism so here we are today we're talking about the m16a2 with m203 which is in many ways the worst upgrade to a service rifle that has actually ever been done unfortunately I am living in Spain without the app without the S but as we say in Grantham let's get into it [ __ ] but before we get into it we have to thank the biggest sponsors of the channel the biggest sponsor of the channel is who admin the Sonoran Desert Institute wow look at that I'm gonna fire Charlie the Sonoran Sorry Charlie desert Institute if you're looking to get into Gunsmithing they are the people to go to we cannot thank them enough go and check them out and who can we not forget Micah primary arms because um Candy Corn thing right no it's not dude that was last candy corn thing you're like that's like I'm two months away what year is it 2020 1995 1995. there's no room go to primary arms uh awesome Optics great price uh they support the channel they've been very good to us we we love them right Micah we cuddle them that actually has occurred wait what then of course unlike the camera that we're filming this on like the TV that you're watching this on AAC ammunition is made in the US of a no commies allowed nothing like that go and check them out all the ammunition that we're using is from AAC we love them now we need to take a quick moment to right or wrong here so back when we did the kp9 video uh Casey Cotter of Kickback Coatings did an awesome job fixing a really botched Capital job from Kusa and that video went crazy and unfortunately my notes got a little bit jumbled and I didn't give them the recognition that he deserved for doing that now we're definitely late on this so we have to give Casey Cotter of Kickback Coatings a huge big I love you for that work that he did on the kp9 because he really did do a phenomenal job Micah what do we always do now exactly what drill should we start with Micah um Mozambique we're starting spicy here's my favorite thing you have to wear what kit you have on right now the worst position of all of us this is you with this vest but you got frag protection man so that's good it's pretty good we actually do have mostly authentic kid on with me and Aaron we have Alice Gear with the original usci mine's raid modified uh Micah why is it called the Mozambique Aaron I believe be careful you're on thin ice by the way I'm on very thin ice and Mozambique Melissa Rhodesian it occurred in a politically correct environment there you have it all right now with the m16a2 with m203 uh we are like three bear links away so we should be extremely accurate right all right let's go ahead and let's do this do we note that that's not really zeroed or it just keeps shifting a little yeah the optic isn't great that is an Acog Luke is gonna be pissed goodbye not bad not bad okay this or this ooh I mean I would say then this line it got his forehead it's in line with the smaller hitbox I call it a hit it's a hit it's hit next up we have uh administrative results this is kind of your specialty outdated weapons right absolutely good excellent boys some might call it an executive outcome say bye up more like Grand dumb dude I suck let's do uh 2224 drill Travis Haley let's talk about the two two four two two drill okay breaking it down for you um why do we do the two two two four two two drill actually I don't know I don't think I don't know either but it's something that Travis Haley came out with back in the day and every thought it was uh hot and sauce so I say it's give it a go that was my Travis Haley impersonation and scene how was that I drifted off when I came back hi up [Music] there you go we both did it on that yeah that throttle back to the very last Target it's a little too much all right give Mike a new bag shooter do you understand the close fire standby up okay nice that was good yeah it was really good down a little though you guys were going pretty Speedy yeah nah you're pretty Speedy man that was fast that was super fast hey real quick question what who is Bill and why is this his drill that's um nobody knows actually I yeah do you know is it Bill blowers it's not Bill Powers but I do love Bill flowers ready yeah say bye One mic One mic one high yeah I went too high up but like you said that optic is too high nice saying bye nice very good it's a little slow very good nice right there whoa hot damn fast dude I'm on G fuel dude would you carry Insurance they're your go-to big thank you to uscca that was actually fantastic transitions God I have a Target at 175 right here this optic is not the best at holding zero she old she has served her country and she's kind of giving up the ghost a little bit we'll do uh three rounds all right Timmy with an up we'll start off the barricade yep okay bye up [Music] you just gotta find that hole that was pretty good not bad not bad consider what we're dealing with all right shoot are you ready all right say bye commies [Music] hi hi get back and back get back you got it once we get it oh shooter are you ready stand bye [Music] hold as my first shot this is a uh grenade launcher so I think it's some time to see who's the best at the grenade we have to go to get grenades though oh God they're right down there oh that was that beautiful are you guys timing me no oh no we were planning on putting an audio clip over here damn it base of the Hill that's so these aren't precise to the he rounds so the latter is going to be a little bit off I would say probably on the 100 Mark we'll give we'll give this a little testy before we uh we see who's best we'll kind of range it first that that was very high that was very high so I aimed at the 100 dead on I would do halfway between 100 and the 50 Mark okay give that a shot and then we'll then we'll actually do the test and see who's best let's get the camera on it so the audience the audience can judge [Music] oh that guy's Dead Space of the target you got like a 25 meter kill radius right there yes he's dead dead who is this man oh I will say Michael wins yeah I think me and you about tied yeah I think I was just yeah dude no yours was close yours was like I would say a meter away from the target yeah yeah that's crazy that was a hell of a shot it was just this guy's a freak of nature with his gun I don't know why and it's uh basically the like the jungle stance no so just squatted and like they just pretty much just popped out and like Ah that's when we is that how they scream nah I don't know good okay how many rounds uh it's essentially like a bill drill oh okay okay so wait what stance are we like this and then we have to pop down into it oh even bad even better okay okay making this we're making this up as we go yeah okay this is where you begin shooting okay this distance once you start yo here yeah you run into it so it's it's it's this [Music] stand by nice I get him you know what not bad that's not dead that's a dead red that's a dead comic right there why are you so good at these like unconventional Builders commies are somewhere in the Hills colonies still good minus one that's fine that's fine all right let's see so don't pelvic girdle why am I good at these [ __ ] drills let's go let's get the uh let's get the marker there peelier you know what you wanted the drills that matter I guess but that would have kept you alive in Vietnam Panama Vietnam the full Gap all right kami's in the Hills Connie oh oh not bad that was mostly Azo one two three four five six oh very good I'll take that yeah you know what I'm I'm gonna dub Aaron the uh the comment killer you know it's just like my life I do a lot of shooting from the hip what does that mean I I got nothing what is that I mean it's kind of like an antidote for the even the joke itself you know I mean like it's made up on the spot let's talk about the insects the f-16a2 with the m203 has a very interesting history that I want to talk about um before we get into that though the thing that we do need to note about the m16a2 is that with all of the added weight in the barrel with the m203 with the rifle length gas system and the full length stock which is longer than the standard A1 sock that you have the m16a1 you do have a very very smooth cycling rifle this thing actually turns off recoil so I'll show you guys right here just with the basic recoil impulse looks like on the m16a2 it is a very smooth cycling rifle and that is one thing that we can say about it now there are a lot of problems with the m16a2 and we're going to talk about those but as far as shootability is concerned it is quite good it is a very accurate a very reliable and just it is a good combat Rifle just some little weird quirks about it so let's go ahead let's get into it as we always do on Grantham the shooter's perspective of the m16a2 now the history of the m16a2 is very interesting the nm16a1 with its upgrades ended up being a fairly capable combat rifle and was very effective in the Vietnam War and and other conflicts that it served in now the Marine Corps has a very proud history of Marksmanship and as well they should they are all Riflemen uh very proud of all my Marines all the guys who served there so the m16a2 is in many ways the brainchild of the Marine Corps they wanted to have a rifle that was more accurate that was Target ready that could just print those tiny little groups so a lot of the improvements quote unquote that we saw with the m16a2 were at the behest of the United States Marine Corps now a lot of people in history will note that there are issues but nonetheless m16a2 was a very effective combat Rifle so we're gonna go tip to butt as we always do so one thing that we have to look at first off is the M16 A1 with its Birdcage flash hider it actually went all the way around you can see here how at the bottom of the m16a2 we have this part that is solid the reason for that was when you're prone and you're firing that's not going to kick up any dust that was the whole reason behind having it now that being said the original three-prong muscle devices we had in the m16a1 were I would say in many ways more effective than the birdcage flash hider that being said it does work quite well and in many ways the m6 The Birdcage is kind of the Baseline for all flash hiding in fact when you see most comparisons they use the birdcage as like the very Baseline of it now the front of the barrel is where everything gets very interesting this isn't brand new information to anybody but we have a lot of weight added up front on the barrel it's a much thicker Barrel the question is why is it thicker it's actually a very funny story so originally when they were developing the m16a2 and they were testing on m16a1s they were finding when they were dropping a bent Barrel gauge down the barrels of the m16a1s that they were stopping just around the front sight post and so they're like [ __ ] her barrels are bending what is causing this is it you know intense bayonet fighting is it troops prying with their barrels they weren't quite sure but they they knew that they had to do something to mitigate it so they actually added a lot of weight Ford of the front sight post to ensure that those barrels wouldn't bend now what ended up happening is when they finally got to the bottom of the power problem before the m16a2 was adopted they realized that it wasn't that the barrel was bent but the bent Barrel gauges were hitting a buildup of material at the gas Port of the front sight block so the barrels were fine but they thought they were bent but it was just a buildup of material it was really no big deal so they went to the government this is classic government procurement by the way they said hey we found out what's happening we don't need to add weight out there we can make for a better balance rifle we can thin it out right there and the government was already like too late we've already we've already said good to go on that thick Barrel so it stays and hence was born the government profile Barrel you're welcome everyone so we have a heavier Barrel out front but as you can see the forward weight actually does make the rifle a little bit more controllable because weight's going to help you do have a heavier rifle out front though now when it comes to the front sight base very similar to the m16a2 now it comes to the m203 specifically we have this very attractive hand guard so there's been a couple different grenade launchers that were tried out during the Vietnam war and after you had the m148 and Etc but the m203 ended up being the one that the United States government stuck with for a very long time up until the m320 which is what we have right now the m203 in my mind is one of my favorite grenade launchers it's not the most effective the m320 is an improvement in many ways but I would say the m203 is probably one of the most attractive looking grenade boxers wouldn't you agree Micah it's a Vibe it's a Vibe so let's talk about how it works so over here we have our safety on our weapon so that's how you push the safety off we have our trigger and then we have the release so if you need to open that up you simply hit this ledge right there that opens it up you can see there is a finite amount of space that you have here so this come becomes a problem when you're using certain 40 millimeter rounds that are a little bit too long for it that's when you have to use something like an m320 or another great grenade launcher that simply opens to the side or opens so you have more room to push it in it can certainly be a pain in the ass once you have this thing loaded to unload it again many other grenade launchers were an improvement but that being said I really do love the m203 now you have many different lengths of the m203 but on the M16 you have the full length now on my particular one you'll note that I have the tape on the bottom that's simply to protect it when I'm rushing it on a rock or in a barricade or something like that and as you can see tape is getting a little torn up on the left Edge right here my favorite part about this is that you have this little ledge to protect from accidentally engaging that so when you're shooting this you can actually use that as kind of like a thumb overboard technique and you can really dig down this rifle and really control it quite well when it's firing from there on the heat shield we have with the m203 this is in my mind the most attractive handguard ever designed ever you can't argue with me not allowed to um obviously in games like Call of Duty this is Standalone these aren't meant to run Standalone they are open on the bottom for the m203 so it doesn't work just to run them on their own on the top you can see we have the vents right here then we do have the ladder sight for the 40 millimeter grenade launcher now on the latter site Mike actually had a good question about this how do you line it up so you can see we have these little hash marks right here so we have increments of 50. the red line is about as close as you want to fire that's about 15 meters excuse me 50 yards we have 100 150 200 250 and you're starting to kind of outrange the the 40 millimeter grenade launcher at that point and again these are low velocity rounds so they're only going so far but uh you line you put the front sight posts in between those in order to aim it's kind of it's a little funky right Micah and there are many grenade launching sites out there in fact on the A1 the A2 there was a different one that sat on the um on the carry handle right here and was I think a little bit faster but I kind of like the old school Vibes of this guy right here you can see the two muscle devices right here you can see how on the older bird cage it goes completely around compared to the A2 and then especially looking at the barrels you can see how much thicker the uh m16a2 is this is the Hue versus the guy she told you not to worry about kinda now a quick note if you love this particular build or the m16a1 both these were built by mil-spec International Co they do a great job of that and we definitely have to thank them for allowing us to do the review on these particular rifles they are essentially one-to-one reproductions and copies and they do a really phenomenal job and all the weird quirks of these systems are certainly here so we'll get into that the bolt carrier group on the m16a2 was awesome for its time however the mil-spec phosphate coating is definitely massively inferior to Modern Coatings obviously that's kind of a given but you'll be very surprised at the amount of carbon buildup you get on these older book carriers compared to new ones the m16a2 compared to like shorter rifles with carbine and did like the gas systems are certainly a little bit more finicky and a little bit more sensitive to carbon buildup you have to keep these weapons a little bit cleaner the rifle length gas system is great it is however very soft and not as kind of quick and violent as the M4 was or as you know 16 inches so as a quick note keep these a little bit more clean baby them just as a teeny bit more now obviously on this particular rifle we do have a gooseneck optic Mount that goes off of the carry handle this is one of The Originals that was made back in the day and we do have one of the old ass Trijicon acogs on here it is powered by the [ __ ] Sun so that is kind of cool it never goes out but as you can see it is very very heavily tinted so that you can see the dot there's not a lot of energy you need to power it however the coatings on them are quite thick so compared to Modern Optics it's it's a little bit odd the first time you look through them now this particular optic is kind of giving up the ghost at this point but let's go ahead and let's talk a little bit about the rear sight here so on the rear side on the m16a1 you can see that you need a bullet tip in order to adjust it for windage then elevation can be adjusted through the front sight right here now Eugene Stoner was a big fan of his original design he was in every way a not at all fan of the m16a2 and was very critical a lot of the a lot of the improvements that were made to it in fact he had an interview where he was pretty skating on his thoughts on this rifle especially the rear sights so the rear sights are in every way amazing Target sites and I actually do like them overall you do as a combat site but they're both windage and elevation adjustable Eugene stoner's problem with it was that he believed that soldiers would finic or he believed that soldiers would kind of nervously twist the knobs and sup as they were you know sitting on patrol and stuff so he really didn't want to want these to be easily adjustable which is why on the A1 you needed a bullet tip to adjust them but what's really cool on the A2 just like the A1 is that the apertures are changeable right so you have more of a Target aperture right here both of them are excellent they're really good iron sights in every way and many people sang high praises about them it's just Eugene Stoner himself was not a fan of them at all now moving down to the lower receiver here obviously one of the big improvements was the mass issuing of 30 rounded magazines compared to the older 20 round magazines although that had kind of occurred already by this point but the big thing was the change in fire control group and this is where it gets a little bit difficult because I wish we could show all the firing modes on the m16a2 however due to YouTube rules we cannot so please continue to continue to Lobby Google and YouTube to allow us to show these types of historical things as they have value it sucks right Micah it blows so in any case we have safe semi and then the unnamed position right here uh Eugene Stoner was a not a fan of that at all in fact nobody was a fan of that and I'll explain to you why so the three round burst mechanism used a very complex system that uh if you've ever fired a burst before you have to hold the trigger for all three rounds if you hold the trigger and you only Fire Two Rounds then it doesn't reset itself unlike other European weapons so if you fire two and then you let go and you expect to fire a three round burst you'll just fire one it has to complete the cycle now that's not the only problem in semi you have three different trigger pulls it was really a terrible system and Eugene Stoner himself noted that typically soldiers needed about five to six rounds of full auto before they kind of drove down to Target he was not a fan at all of the three round burst and um some other militaries and weapon systems did adopt it but ultimately with the M16 A3 as well as the M4A1 we went back to full auto from the burst mechanism it was decided to be fairly poor now in this particular weapon We have replaced it with a simple geisy trigger because you really can't beat a geisling and it's dummy fast on this particular weapon just like M16s of today we do have your standard bolt release we have all your centered you know Fire Control groups so safety is the safety you know and love the A2 grip is the A2 grip that you know and love as you can see they added these nice finger grooves compared to the M16 A1 I think in many ways was a step in the wrong direction not a lot of people like the A2 grip but there's some people who obsess about them because of what's the word Micah Nostalgia precisely they do look cool that is definitely for sure now with the m16a1 you see that we have this older fiberglass stock which is nylon infused we had a much much stronger sock that was used in the A2 they also added length onto the A2 as well again that length of pull was great for keeping the weapon steady in target practice and in prone however the problem was is around this time we began to have flock vest and especially begin to get body armor that was issued in the m16a2 quickly became a very very long musket for everything that you needed now in the case of Canada with their C7 rifles they ended up having the M16 length but they had an adjustable stock that solved the problem in America we went to the M4 with an adjustable stock and that kind of solved a lot of the problems now a couple quick notes here on this particular rifle you can see that we have ours taped as the Rangers of old used to do it so how you do this is you Loop some paracord right through right through the sling attachment point you tie a square knot at the top you tape it then you can attach your sling and then you do the same with a nice little girth hitch right there with some paracord attach the sling at the front what this allows you to do is to have this rifle in a more modern sling configuration and this isn't anything new the Rangers have been doing this since 1990 and way before that this allows you to keep the weapon on you you can drop it you can still have it on you just like a modern sling it's just the older sling positions didn't allow that to occur which is why they came up with this particular way of mounting the sling so that kind of ends the m16a2 You know despite all the issues with it despite all the weird kind of nuances of the m16a2 it is still my favorite weapon we have made shots at the 540 with it is a very accurate weapon it's a very reliable weapon and no matter what it's going to live in my head rent free because I just love the look of it and I love NATO wave and I love kind of the era it came from it's just pure Nostalgia Micah as cool as this weapon is if you're not training you're not going to be good with it so get training get out there actually shoot with this I'd be super terrified of someone with an M16 because what we didn't mention is that the 20 inch barrel with a 556 turns every single brand of ammunition from training ammo into duty ammo uh your 55 grain rounds will be traveling around 32 3300 feet per second and uh that is absolutely devastating the m16a2 is still a very viable weapon although dated in many ways so train get out through your buddies be good tons of places to get training from bear Solutions Hayley strategic us soon so get out there do that and as always guys we got we got nothing else for you that advice there's a lot of money to be made in a headline do your research before coming to an opinion purely based off of a headline or based off the information put into there that everything trust nothing and be smart connoisseurs of information because there is a lot of it that isn't true out there

Channel: Garand Thumb

Views: 1,921,137

Keywords: m16a2, m203, m16 with grenade launcher, grenade launcher, m16, m16a1, m16a4, m16a3, worst service rifle, bad service rifle, service rifle, m4 carbine, us military, us army

Id: Sx6uqsgIaSQ

Length: 29min 43sec (1783 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 16 2023