Originally posted by lazs2
excel... I will defer to your experiance... I have fired both the aug and the M16 and tore em down.. the aug seems far superior.. it seems less prone to the elements and more accurate and seems to have a better gas system...
I, Of course, am only familiar witht the civilian versions in non combat conditions... sooooo... I will defer to your experiance until someone with equal experiance says different..
What were some of the reliability problems of the aug (other than mags)?
lazs
lazs, I have no first hand experience with the Aug as I have never used one. My criticism of it is based on observing the sorry saga of the numerous problems the NZ and Australian defence forces have had and continue to have with the rifle.
It's prone to over heating, which has made it necessary to substantially lower its cyclic rate.
It's water intolerant. Immersion in water or even rain can affect the gas system and render the rifle inoperable. If water or a heavy dust gets on the guide rod springs the action can become sluggish to the point where the bolt won't cycle
It's unreliable in very cold weather.
If it gets rough treatment the charge handle is prone to breaking off. If the receiver gets a heavy knock it dents, which if it happens to be the charge handle side makes it imposable to charge the rifle.
The barrel locking catch is prone to seizing - which locks the barrel into the receiver. The catch can fail and leave the barrel loose.
Problems with the unreliable safety catch have led to numerous un- authorised discharges and at least one death in the Aussie army that I'm aware of.
There is a long list of faults with the rifle stretching way back to when it was first used in NZ and Aus. Some of the problems have been fixed but it's inadequate as a service rifle and they can't fix the inherent crappiness of it. There would not be many Augs, if any, in the defence forces armoury that have not had some 'fix it up' work done to them. If the NZ army could give the Aug the flick they would, but they can't. They are stuck with it for the foreseeable future.
Incidentally, it's not only the NZ defence force that preferred the M16 to the Aug. The Aussies did too. Their trials were between the M16, Aug and I think Galil. The M16 won. But they had a requirement that the rifles had to be made in Australia under license, but Colt wouldn't play ball and provide the tooling rights.
Excel