The white was mostly sponging, I alternated greys and blacks with white again until it looked right. The bare metal was an intentionally uneven mix of brown and orange paints brushed on, and then a homemade red-brown wash applied.

Wartime production Mk1 with a Mk2 stock?

Green Light Teams have entered the chat.

Colt makes a little collar that fits on the barrel under the FSB. Attach it to one side or the other, and remove the existing swivel, no drilling required.

OP really emphasized the full auto aspect of M16s, so in this case I think differentiating them from semi-auto AR-15 models is relevant when giving an answer.

Sling swivels and slings can fit on a grenade launcher equipped rifle, either in standard position or reoriented to the side by an armorer but I’m sure FSB mounting looks more attractive to most grenadiers.

With carbines the swivels pretty much have to be shifted to the side, but again just removing them is a lot more attractive I think.

The Aimpoint is on a Weaver rail interfaced with the carry handle. The best I can tell, that tape is just there as extra assurance, similar to seeing zipties and 550 on other optics and PEQs as a last line of dummy defense.

Here’s a repro builder’s clear photos:

As far as I’m concerned a repro that’s using backwards compatible parts is perfectly accurate. Sometimes repro builders get a little too hung up on what something is by the book rather than what it became in the field.

For the sling, yes mounting the front on the FSB is something you can see a lot in Vietnam. M16s were designed with all the sling points facing down, which reflects the existing doctrine of the time and the earlier doctrines that considered slings something used for marching and transport, but that rifles should be entirely unslung in combat. The M16s and Commando carbines (with the later carbine having their buttstock slingpoint facing up but the forward one down) were light enough that people started carrying them slung in combat, and figuring out that mounting slings on FSBs worked better.

At some point, which I unfortunately can’t pinpoint, the doctrine flipped to follow what people in the field had figured out and the modern U.S. military teaches that rifles absolutely should be slung in combat. You can see in early Iraq soldiers and marines still attaching slings to FSBs, as well as a ton of using up or side facing Velcro mounting points to achieve a similar outcome.

Edit: Here’s 80s and 90s Delta doing the same thing, giving a clearer view of the refined version of the technique.

Yeah I’ve heard (no confirmation- so take this as pure gossip) that somebody was starting to kick the ATF in the butt a bit for intentionally slow walking reviews, which could have potentially led to litigation they didn’t want.

Yeah, oop that’s on me for posting too fast. There’s one good source that calls it a submachinegun but everyone else, including RIA and the Army don’t (and their opinion matters most) so that’s a desk pop for me.

[Film crew for scale]

The three prong flash hider was on the M16 and XM16E1.

The M16A1 had an enclosed birdcage that had slots all the way around.

The M16A2 had an enclosed birdcage without slots on the bottom.

Trust me I checked all the visible bits from every angle I could find. This is an A1 birdcage for sure.

M16 vs M16A1:

Here’s the clearest photo I could find on the fly showing off an M16A1’s flash hider that’s unambiguously a Vietnam period pic:

The warheads were 20 kilotons, which had a blast radius of about a mile. Given the 18 mile range of the cannon, this was considered safe enough.

The M31 Honest John missiles (like the one pictured) that replaced these cannons actually had a slightly lesser range of 15 miles (24km). The improved M50 Honest Johns eventually introduced in the 1970s had 30 mile (48 km) range.

These were meant for tactical employment, rather than strategic like ICBMs.

This actually has an A1 grip, though it also has what appears to be an A2 stock.

Up front it has a heavy barrel that appears A2 but is fitted with an A1 flash hider.

The paint camo is a little strange for a design test rifle, but it takes almost no time to spraypaint so maybe the testers were bored.

The U.S. Army used the M-[date] system until 1925, and the Navy used it until 1944.

Afterwards the Army switched to M-[numerical] and the Navy switched to Mk-[numerical].

There’s a lot of nuance and “well yes, but no.” edge cases, but that’s the simple explanation.

That’s why the Army went from the M1903 rifle to the M1 rifle. And why there were so many M1 items in WW2, as the new system had not been around for long enough to see a lot of turnover from M1 items.

Uh huh. So he bought his M16 from the Army? May we see it?

An ar15 would be a bit too large and unwieldy for home protection so I’d have suggested something simple, low recoil, easy to wield

A pump action shotgun is often going to be longer and more unwieldy than an AR-15 with a collapsing stock and 16 inch barrel (the most common by far layout in U.S.). A Mossberg 500 is 3 inches longer than an AR-15 with a 16 inch barrel, as an example.

A shotgun has the opposite of low recoil. It is high recoil.

AR-15s are specifically designed to minimize recoil; they have very little. For follow-up shots with an AR-15 you simply need to pull the trigger again, for a pump action, you need to pump and if you’re stressed and not super familiar it might take a second or two to register that you need to do that.

AR-15s are also more “pointable” than shotguns, given that AR-15s have almost none of their weight up front whereas pump shotguns have a tube and all the ammo under the barrel.

In the US, you can go even shorter with an AR-15 pistol with no additional legal hurdles, which makes it even more compact and handy. You only lose out on velocity, which only matters at longer range.

While you can add optics and lights to shotguns, it is normally easier to do so with modern off-the-shelf ARs. A flashlight is (I suppose obviously) important to illuminate what’s in front of you to prevent shooting something or someone you don’t intend. Modern red dots commonly have shake awake functions, which means simply picking up the gun causes the red dot to turn on without you having to do anything.

Shotguns are not the cheat code to hitting targets as people think they are. I have seen people, under only the stress of a timer, miss steel plates with a shotgun.

A common, easy alternative to a 5.56mm is a 9mm carbine. This can be an AR rechambered for 9mm, or one of a variety of common 9mm carbines on the market. A lot of similar pros and cons to AR-15s.

In either 5.56mm or 9mm I’d recommend hollowpoints mainly to reduce over penetration of walls.

A silencer (and yes gun people- it is a silencer on your eform so I don’t want to hear whining about suppressors) only takes a little bit of paperwork in the U.S., and I’d recommend it. It protects hearing and reduces your own shock from muzzle blast, to help keep you from being distracted. It’s an extra but not a bad idea.

That sounds like a lot, but aside from the silencer it is all simple and cheap to put together in a single shopping trip.

A home defense gun that is short but can be steadied two-handed with a foregrip is better than a handgun mostly because of accuracy under stress, though handguns are common since those are actually able to be carried outside but that’s a whole other thing.

Glock 0.4

A what?

While many hunters own an M16

Really?

Yep I know about hogs (some other comment somewhere I mentioned them) and the biggest stopping of 5.56 for hunting is usually a legal ban on them rather than practical with the right ammo. Honestly might be for the best because otherwise some Bubba with non-hollowpoint ammo and a crooked scope would be out there maiming deer.

When did it happen? I well know it used to take months and months, but in the last year or so 10 day turn arounds are the average for a transfer.

I’d still consider the high cost a bigger hurdle for full auto than even a few month wait time. What the wait times used to really be killer were cheaper items like SBRs.

I completely spaced on the use against coyotes. AR-15s seem about ideal for that.