M-16 Rifles

The M16 rifle is referred to that family of rifles which are derived from Armalite AR15. In the mid 20th century, Colt, the famous rifle manufacturing company evolved it and thereafter it became the most prevalently used rifle in the US military. It is one of the most produced fire arm of its caliber. M16 Rifle is made out of composite plastic, steel and aluminum. It’s durable, efficient and affordable. Today it is the most important infantry weapon of the US army.

The earliest version of M16 Rifle was used by the US air force and US army. With the passage of time M16 underwent series of evolution and finally took its new form. The first version of M 16 was introduced with a forward assist feature. The version 2, M16 rifles were introduced to the US army in the 1980s. This version had the provision of semi automatic firing and 3 round burst fire. The changes in the second version were made as per the requests made by the Marine Corps. The 3 rd version of M16 Rifle is only used by the Us navy. The specialty of the third version of rifles belonging to the group is their fire mode control. The M16A4 or the fourth version of rifles was primarily manufactured for the United States Marine Corps in Iraq war. The M16A 4 has a handful of excellent features which makes it different from the other rifles of its group. Detachable handle, flashlight, forward handgrip, Picatinny rails, night vision device and flat top receiver makes it user friendly and lightweight.

The M16 Rifle is manufactured essentially by the Colt and the Fabrique Nationale de Herstal. The variants of this rifle are made elsewhere in other companies. The semi automatic M16 rifles are use for recreational purposes. They are generally known as AR- 15. These types of rifles are manufactured by several big and small US companies.

Presently M16 is the most commonly produced rifles in the world. 15 NATO countries along with 80 other nations across the world use this kind of rifles for their infantry forces. The different variants of the rifle are used worldwide. Some of the common variants of M16 Rifle are AR 15, XM16E1, M16A1, M16A2, XM177, Colt Model 733, Mk4Mod0 and M4 Carbine.

The C7 and C8 are the international variants of the M16. They are primarily used by the Canadian forces and are presently manufactured by Colt Canada. Several changes are made to the M16 model to provide the Canadian soldiers with an updated and aesy to use version of M16.

Some of the notable international variants include the Chinese Norinco CQ-311, Iranian Khaybar KH2002, Phillippine Mssr rifle and Taiwanese T65, T86 and T91. All of these are derivatives of either the earlier or later M16 versions.