Playing With Rifles

Hooray! At last we've got to handle the M16s! Sadly we didn't fire them due to the range being unavaliable, but we learnt how to strip the rifle, immediate action drills, loading the magazines, and basic marksmanship technicques. Some of it was quite similar to what you would do with the L98, but you could easily tell the difference between their attitude to the weapons and drills and ours. Our drills are extremely safety orientated, with lots of safety catch checking and only ever pointing the rifle in a safe direction; here the drills are more oriented towards practicality, not worrying so much about the direction of the weapon in lessons, less safety catch work etc.

The M16 itself was easier to strip than the L98, that's for sure. There wasn't any spring to hit you in the face for one, but we did strip it down further than the L98 (and an American cadet managed to strip it in 40 seconds and reassembled it in 21, on her first attempt.). The way they test marksmanship without firing is interesting though, balancing a coin on the barrel and seeing if you can fire off the action while in the aim without it falling off.

In the afternoon after lunch we had a paintball rematch, and completely thrashed the officers three times! They started complaining about their weapons not firing, or using up all their ammunition too early and other excuses, but we all know that the cadets are better.

After that we went to a military market and then off to bed. Aeromodeling tomorrow which should be a laugh.

Matt