The AR15 stands for assault rifle 15 (15 for how many bullets it can hold) it was made by Call of Duty to sell their 4th game. Eugene Stoner, named as such over his famous love for weed- thought of it in 2010 when he was like "yo these quickscopers suck- I need a junk 3 burst to counter that'll be quickly replaced by the AUG, M4, or Famas"

Knowledge of the Autistic Rifle -15 is a spectrum

Why didn't the army just adopt the draco??

You are wrong, the army tried to sabotage the m16 because they wanted to implement the gold scar as it 31 dmg instead of 28. Check your sources buddy.

This is how you correct Wendigoon and not like how that other guy did.

Ah, yes, over an hour of pure gun autism I love it

Is it ok to tell people that the forward assist is like the pump on a bb gun and the more times you press the power up button the faster the bullets will go? Asking for a friend.

I WANT THE 4 HOURS! WE WANT THE 4 HOURS!

Slight quibble on the cleaning kit aspect. No, the Army didn't have "M16 specific cleaning kits" originally, and they didn't (originally) have butt traps for cleaning kits, either. So the rifles *were* shipped to troops without cleaning kits. And it was the first standard issue rifle in *70 years* that couldn't (in a pinch) use the cleaning kit of the previous rifle, because it wasn't .30 caliber. That means nobody was used to thinking, "Oh, shit, we need to make sure each new rifle gets a cleaning kit shipped with it!" *However* ... the proper cleaning brushes, rods, and cleaning patches were *already in inventory* , complete with NSN codes that any supply sergeant could order at will. *If* the supply guys knew the proper numbers (reading through a 1960s NSN catalog blindly to get the *correct* stuff not really being a reliable way to do it). Remember, the Army had been using .22LR training rifles for a *long* time by this point - and unless the chamber is actually rusty, you don't really need a chamber brush - but you do need a rod, brush, and patch holder that fits the bore (you can cut .30 patches in half and use them - that's generally what we used in the 1980s because it was easier to have everyone carry .30 patches so the *M60* always had cleaning patches.) Which comes to the Colt tech teams, which would come out to your unit (even in Vietnam) and spend a day or so on "train the trainer" and teach NCOs and supply clerks how to maintain and support the rifle beyond how to order more ammo. The NCOs would then reach the troops how to do operator level stuff, and the armored and supply sergeants would know how to do their part, including having a cheat sheet of the proper NSN codes for all the supply needs (spare parts, *cleaning supplies* , etc.) Studies of units that *did* take advantage of the offered traveling tech support teams *did not* report the issues that drove the Icord hearings. Nor did those troops believe the rifles were "self cleaning", because they *knew* how to clean them and had cleaning supplies, because *they had been trained* . Special Forces units (even those that didn't call in the tech teams) didn't have problems, because even without tech support, the SF Light Weapons Sergeants (minimum of two of them in every 12 man ODA, and usually at least four when you count cross training) could figure it out and damned well *knew* the rifles would need to be cleaned, and figured out how to get the right cleaning supplies. You know which units *did* report major reliability issues in Vietnam? The units whose commanders decided they didn't need to call in civilian tech support teams (who were manufacturer reps, remember), and didn't want to "waste" a day or so of training time with "civilians" underfoot. And those are the *same* units where troops though the rifle was "self cleaning" ("Because its all aluminum, right?" while possibly remembering reading that Colt and Armalite had boasted the *gas tubes* didn't need to be cleaned - which is true - while forgetting that they were only discussing the gas tube, not the whole rifle). And when I enlisted in 1987, I was *still* seeing Fuddlore cleaning myths about the M16 kicking around from these undertrained units in Vietnam circulating via Rumor Control over beers in the NCO Club. Further reinforced by Fuddlore kicking around from Ye Olde Corrosive Ammo Days, and armorers inspecting M16s as if they were M1903 Springfields issued with bore cleaner solvent and firing corrosive ammo. It was so bad they had to put a line in the operator and armorer's manuals to say, "Quit trying to white glove the rifles! If it will *pass* a white glove, they didn't clean it correctly, and it's not lubricated correctly!"

We want the 4 hour version, and we want it NOW!

#releasethefourhourcut

Calling out Wendigoon and saying gun jesus is wrong. The redditors are gonna have their wife's boyfriends call you a bad word

And anyone who thinks the M16 had an especially bad initial start should look at all the engineering changes the M1 Garand (which had ten years of development before adoption) implemented between adoption and the US entering WWII, meaning they could be integrated into production *prior* to US troops taking them into battle in large numbers. Hell, the basis of the entire gas system were changed, from being a Bang gas trap to a gas port design (a decidedly non-trivial change). Or they could look at the reliability issues with the M1 and M2 Carbines. We would *never* acceot the malfunction rates the Army thought were fine with the M1 Carbine. Note the M1 Carbine really was a rush project, too.

i love the halo rat in the corner to keep my zoomer attention

Rizz 'em with the Tism! 😂

I hope nobody thinks this is a hate video. My boy Wendigoon literally asked for people more knowledgeable on specifics to point out the things he got wrong Edit: also I wanna just say that just because Wendigoon got some specific stuff wrong about the AR-15 and its procurement, doesn’t mean he is wrong about all the history, which was the main focus of the video. He’s a gun enthusiast yes, but he obviously doesn’t know absolutely everything about the AR-15 platform.

Now this is ARtism

A lot of politics started making sense to me when someone pointed out that debate club rules aren't to be right, but to provide a compelling argument while not getting mad at the other team. Not that far removed from KZfaq comment thread rules.

I'M interested in a 4 hour video!

Reasons why the forward assist is in fact a good design feature for the modern age, even if it didn't seem as important at the time. 1: Every night patrol I did in jungles and heavy woods while I was active duty, at least one person in my squad had their charging handle get caught on something pulling the bolt slightly out of battery. Quietly pushing the fa every 15-30 minutes was the easiest and stealthiest manor to ensure our rifles were ready to go. This was with a milspec T handle too, with modern extended T handles the issue is likely more frequent. 2: Circumstances that cause a reduced bolt velocity when reloading, such as minor ice build up in winter, spring wear, and while an infantryman shouldn't let his rifle get that dirty, carbon build up. In those more rare frequencies the best solution is the fa since slingshotting the bolt doesn't quite get the same force as shooting. Usually in those cases the bolt has enough velocity to cycle when fired, to get to a point you can fire it you need the bolt in battery, which you can easily do with a fa. 3: Bored troops in the field like to fidget with shit. If we weren't pushing the fa, we were slipping our safeties on and off, or finding something else to toggle. It may sound weird but if you're living outdoors for weeks at a time with no entertainment, you'll make entertainment. Pushing a fa is a far better option than the safety selector, LAM/light switches, or anything else we had on us. I've never seen a real person with more than 30 minutes of training use the fa as a jam enhancer like some people try to claim it is. The only time I've seen that is when youtubers intentionally use it wrong to prove a point because it tickles their anti-fa biases. This is also coming from someone who has several ultralight personal builds and a WWSD, but I also understand some extra ounces here and there aren't the end of the world on a fighting rifle for a professional military.

Chris Bartocchi is where most of the story of the M16 being sabotaged from within comes from in the guntube sphere, but he never blames the "army" as a whole. He blames Ordnance Corps and Springfield Arsenal.

You're providing graphs, study data, and historical context but all I can think is "haha, get rotated mouse".

The best presentation I’ve seen on this issue. In the early 80s in Central West Germany - I had M16s in my armory with 4 digit serial numbers, open flash lugs, and several did not have chromed bolts - always wondered about that

the non-production of the ar15 /10 beltfed lmg was the real crime in the gun's history, so i consider whoever stopped / disagreed on its existence as an act of sabotage by a criminal and their criminal organization.

This is the kinda autism I go on KZfaq for

Forward assist? No, that's the sniper button. You hold it down to shoot more accurately.

The forward assist is absolutely necessary

Let's ask Rittenhouse if he wanted a forward assist on his AR-15.

Jokes aside good job not rage farming. It'd be really easy to scree

Yeah but were you forced to walk down a dirt path for a few minutes?

I used the forward assist on my AR literally last week lmao. I accidentally got a sloppy pull back on the charging handle on a mil spec charging handle that is also really wobbly and won't come back in a straight line very easily at all lol, it just gets caught on the edge if you try to just rack it with the side of your hand, and so I didn't pull it back all the way, let go, didn't close completely, smacked forward assist real quick, and bam, back in business

Holy shit. I've been watching fuddbusters for a couple years but never realized you had your own channel. Real glad to see

I think this is the missing chromosome I was looking for

Came across this randomly not long after enjoying Wendi's take on the adoption issues. It would be awesome to get you 2 in a chatroom to discuss sources and conclusions. I'm sure he'd be down for it as well.

Ya know this video is a good example of a rule of thumb I have. If the question is government conspiracy or incompetence, it’s probably incompetence

As someone who greatly enjoys Wendigoon's content and is a big fan of his, and even thought that (while flawed) his recent video was overall pretty decent if not entirely accurate, I must say that I greatly appreciate your correction of some of the things Wendigoon either failed to address or just got incorrect. This video is well done, and it's clear that you're not trying to attack Wendigoon's character or him personally for his mistakes, and are overall very respectful and professional while providing insightful and educational corrections, as this is information that can understandably be misinterpreted given the complexities and widely held misconceptions of the subject. I was worried upon going into this video that it would just be someone nitpicking an argument to attack Wendigoon's character, be petty and/or dramatic, or try to say that nothing Wendigoon every says can be seen as valid. I was happy to see this was not at all the case, and was instead a humble gun autist using the video to correct inaccuracies for the sake of educational insights and historical knowledge, while humoursly being well aware of their own gun-tism for what it is. Overall, much respect and appreciation, you've gained a new subscriber from me as someone who's interested in becoming a gun autist as well.

This video would have been unwatchable without the horizontally spinning rat, thank you.

I do appreciate you having a summary in the description.

I think my biggest gripe with the video is just how many people don't understand how terminal ballistics work. M193 is fantastic because it yaws, deforms, and fragments consistently when pushed past 2500fps. There's no special magic to it, NATO just didn't have a chance to fuck it up yet.

you know who used the forward assist.... Kyle R

Professor, will this be on the Final?

"Congress Lizards" Thank you, I'm stealing this.

Thank You! There were so many times in Wendigoon’s video I was saying to myself “that’s not true” or “that’s half right” almost made this video myself

I didnt ask for an hour and a half long video from Ivan. I'll be damned if i dont sit here and watch all of it though!

DROP THE IVAN CUT (4 HOUR REACTION)

Regarding the forward assist, one of my favorite comments on any video was one of Forgotten Weapons doing a mud test on a rifle that had no forward assist and wishing he had one.

drop that 4 hour video, I work 10 hour shifts and would listen to the entire thing

I find the sabotage dispute almost semantic. Sabotage technically is defined as a "deliberate" attempt to obstruct or hinder a cause. It would be ridiculous to accuse the DOD, the Army and Colt of deliberately hindering the cause of equipping contemporary soldiers with contemporary weapons. I wonder if you would raise the same dispute if Wendy exchanged "sabotaged" for "undermined," where the latter is not defined as necessarily deliberate. There is an entire confluence of factors that resulted in substantially lowered combat effectiveness of some of the weapons fielded in Vietnam, and while parsing exactly what happened, when, and why it happened remains difficult; that it happened is indisputable.

Ngl, I really love videos like this because it comes off less as “Erm actually, this gun is…” and more like a dude who’s just passionate about what he loves using it as an excuse to have meaningful discussion of what he’s passionate about. It’s honestly why I love all of Zach hazard’s gun videos.

Edward Ezell was an unbelievable genius and his output was insane, and it's also insane how much of it has remained so correct, truthful, and influential. I have two of his books, and they are massive and they are DEEP and hard to read sometimes because your head just starts spinning with dates and model numbers and design changes and so on. I have Handguns of the World and Small Firearms, both of which seem kinda hard to find now? But I'm not 100% sure how scarce his books are becoming, but it's a shame that they aren't reprinting this shit like every 5 years

The unfortunate truth is that Wendigoons video has substantially more views than this one. And the information presented in his video will be the gun shop fuddlore for the foreseeable future.

Fascinating video. I'd be interested in hearing more about the M14's adoption.

"The commercial market wasn't interested" Even in the 60s, fudds were fudds

Subbed. Love ya from fuddbusters, a friend told me about this video, would kill to watch a history of AR's from you.

Knowing wendigoon he'll probably watch your video and be like "Yeah my bad. Thanks for clearing stuff up, man"

I've been subbed to you for months and just now triggered the synapse connection to notice that you're the same guy from Fuddblasters.

The Black Rifle and America's Rifle (formerly Black Rifle II) are excellent.

never thought the fosscad community would end up in KZfaq drama. I'll be bringing the popcorn

We NEED the 4 hour version ASAP

Does this mean Mom and Dad are going to get divorced? 😢

Sorry for not finding your channel sooner! Like the long format, ready for more.

I'm really glad you made this video I have constantly heard this ball versus stick powder debate pushed, along with the overall narrative of the AR-15 early adoption. Clearly I should have picked up that book a long time ago and actually investigated the sources as opposed to just listening to various "experts" from history channel to KZfaq to blogs Etc..

Who knew that Ivan accidentally doxxed himself as In Praise Of Shadows all along

This is honestly welcome because I think Wendigoon would sit down and watch every second and might correct himself later because its trying to be informative as opposed to just an attack.

You're confusing "the Army" did a thing, with a belief that means the entirety of the Army did a thing. A handful of people, I'll call them Croziers, did set up the M16 to fail. No, they didn't clownshoes their malfeasance, but yes it was sabotage. Subtle in form, still sabotage. The fixes were so easy that the Croziers caused the complete closure of Springfield; the opposite of what they wanted. The A1 was loved by the end of Vietnam, 90%+ loved it.

the forward assist was a good change purely because it looks nice :)

So when do we get the 4 hour cut?

I think he should take a look at this video honestly. He seems like the kind of guy to genuinely consider criticism like this. I hope that that the more annoying parts of his fanbase don’t get angry about this and I would like to apologize on behalf of the people that will leave mean comments regardless.

the forward assist is fun to press. it seems to keep me busy when i’m bored and have downtime

How dare you call yourself a gunsmith. Any self respecting gunsmiff would know ar15 am bad and ar15 ammo am bad. Also am super safety legal?

Glad to see that wendigoon viewers (i am one too) aren't the type to attack someone for a fact filled debunk. We all seem to hate slander though.

In my experience of his content, any time Wendigoon talks about weapons from a technical standpoint, it borders on fudd lore. He definitely has more facts to call on than Joe Gun Control, but really lacks depth to his knowledge, and this video shows me that its not just technicals - he did not put the work into researching his own video on a gun and was likely pulling mostly from memory and presumption. He's a good dude, I like his stuff and the Official Podcast is a good time, but man he has got to put some study in on firearms.

The horse shoer my mom used as I was growing up was a Vietnam vet. I asked him about the M16 having problems after seeing some history channel trash. He said, “I dunno about all that, but mine worked pretty fucking well.” I didn’t ask any follow up questions on that. Edit: also, I remember trying to listen to Wendigoon’s video about the North Hollywood shooting years ago. It was painful

I have used the forward assist after firing shit loads of blanks and the bolt got kinda sluggish. Eventually just added more lube when l got the chance and that fixed it

We are very interested in a video on how Stoner and Kalashnikov were able to meet up Please do it ratman. Pretty plzz

"Hey man if you have guns that cycling so violently and quickly that they are ripping the rim off the cases in the chamber, why don't u just increase that dwUWELL TIIME by adding more time between the gas hole and bullet end by adding more barrel time length man"

This is pentagon wars but with the M16.

Incredibly interesting, all while using primary sources! 👍🏻 For all its faults, the US Army has historically had a robust process for small arms procurement, using lots of data to drive decisions, and ultimately leading to very fine service weapons. Yes… that includes the M14 🤫

I have both used a forward assist for its intended purpose and been fucked by forgetting to press check. They are not fudd lore.

Yes, I would like to see a video about the time Eugene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov hung out shooting shotguns talking about how much better the AR is then the AK. Duh.

As an @wendigoon viewer, i hope he sees this. This has been a quite informative video and i think he would benefit greatly from watching your video. Thank you for this information.

Why the hell is your video labeled as “important” in my notifications?

Rare Windigoon miss. I appreciate the autism friends. Now I am more informed

What are your thoughts on the adoption of the sig spear?

my buddy's friend was in veit nam and told us that they could only load 16 rnds in the 20 rnd mags and he swapped the m16 for a m2carbine that he said he ended up loving. he said he could dump a whole mag into a fist size group witch would be a nice attribute despite the bad reputation of not being a one shot man stopper. and if i wer to chose between the early m16 and an m2carbine the full auto carbine would be hard to beat. the Tommy gun always seemed like a great brush gun to me and would also be a good alternative if you could find one. but if i wer choosing one today ide pick the m4. for pretty obvious reasons.

Nah “psychological” benefits of forward assist is crazy

Please for the love of god give me the 4 hour version

Just a little feedback for future videos. You might want to consider putting additional details and side notes at the end of the video. It really takes you out and makes it hard to follow when you start right off the gate with hyper focused details. Especially when it takes like 15 minutes until the actual video starts.

I'm looking for that 4hr vid. Would be pretty interesting I'd bet.

One last comment. The part of the video that is "Ivan from the future" where you clear up some technical details that are irrelevant to the theme/thesis itself probably should've been omitted or moved to the end of the video because people who only watch a little bit of the video might see that part and write off the rest of the video as just pedantic BS that really is just gun autism.

I like the idea of a FA, the thought of having to press the hot bolt forward with your thumb sounds dumb, like clint smith from TR suggests, there's a good chance the extractor didn't grab the rim of the round if it didn't fully seat it or "go into battery". Or hoping the chamber isn't fowled up enough to keep round from falling out when you drop the mag and pull the CH.

Wendigoon is also a very biased, a decent portion of his content is "goverment bad"

Please release the full 4 hour video

Inb4 Wendigoon comments on this video inviting you to tell him more.

Aww man I was hoping Wendigoon would get this right since he is a fellow gun Autist. I was looking forward to watching his video.

A forward assist saved Rittenhouse's bacon.

Ivan have you ever thought of doing a belt fed upper? Printed or lost PLA casting either would be fantastic

Thanks, I hate the m14 and think it was a terrible idea so I was watching Wendigoon's video with a desire to agree, but I could tell the story was incomplete and the forward assist segment was absolutely half-assed. People who say the words "jam-enhancer" are annoying beyond measure.

When KZfaq recommended me Wendigoon's video I figured it was either going to tell me things I already knew or would frustrate me because I haven't seen him do firearms content, so I just scrolled past...

Can’t wait for the Stoner-Kalashnikov meeting vid