Service Life

You never know how contentious an issue is until you hit the internet...

At issue is the service life of the M14.

One of the "experts" defending the design has stated that it has a longer service life than the Garand as the primary issue infantry rifle.

The Garand began issue to troops in 1936 and was replaced by the M14 in 1959.  That's 23 years for the math deficient.

The M14 began issue to troops in 1959 was dropped to limited service use in 1964.  That's five years and 18 years shorter than the Garand, just in case math is too hard.

I am sure they're going to dissemble and try to claim that the limited service counts.  If we're going to count that, we need to find out when the last Garand left US service...  One could even say that because of the USMC's silent drill team that the Garand is in more active service than the M14 was until they started trying to make ersatz DMR guns from moldy guns in deep storage.

Kent state shows that the Garand was still being issued to the National Guard as late as 1970.  If we accept 1975 as "early 1970's or later" for Guard issue then the Garand hung in there for 39 years.

The M14 wasn't issued like that.  The M1 still being issued to Guard units as the M14 was being replaced with the M16A1 is very telling.  Many (most?) Guard units transitioned straight to the M16A1 from the M1!

For all intents and purposes the M14's service ends when enough M16A1's became available to equip troops.  It is not, despite limited issue as a DMR, 1959 to present.