Defense: Under Fire

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Out of True. Even its advocates concede that some M-16 failures may result from a weak spring in the magazine. Though the M-16 clip can hold up to 21 rounds, Marine Corps Commandant Wallace Greene recommends loads of no more than "17 or 18 rounds." Some Marines have used an old World War II trick to speed up reloading: they tape two magazines together upside down; after one magazine is burnt out, it can be swiftly inverted and the other inserted. The added weight of the second magazine, however, is enough to draw the lip of the first magazine out of true, and can lead to a bent round and a fatal jam. Moreover, Delta mud, jungle gunk, and the grit blown up by helicopter rotors demand the rifleman's constant attention.

Even so, the great majority of Army men, who got the M-16 long before the Marines, swear by it. So do the Viet Cong. Indeed, Le Xuan Chuyen, a former North Vietnamese lieutenant colonel and veteran of 21 years of guerrilla warfare, calls the M-16 "an excellent weapon." Le Xuan, the highest-ranking Red defector to date, says the V.C. also have gripes about the M-16s they have captured. They find the M-16 ammunition almost impossible to procure.

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