Was the M-16 ever chambered to fire the 7.62x39mm AK-47 ammo?

NO, the 7.62X39 is a Russian round

I know this is a 6 year old "zombie necro" of this particular subject but i was looking around for some back info on an unrelated 43 BRM casing. I came across this piece after finding something closely related to the info in this post. I read the above replies and found some of them disturbing and in a couple of cases actually down right insulting. We all have heard about 5.56x45 Nato round popular in the M16A1 of the era the Vietnam war and it's counterpart the very popular AK-47 chambered in .762x39 All this aside some of the reply's are dead on such as the Stoner AR10 .762 This is most likely what your father was talking about, and although the two are different guns anyone looking at the two side by side could tell the difference the fact that one made the other popular doesn't change what your old man was saying. It is safe to say in this particular instance dad was right. Now on top of this instead of just throwing random crap out like some people apparently did thinking in a cookie cutter fashion there were what are considered today preban Ar15 conversions to .762x39 pre 1971 using parts from both and no more than a few hours of machining, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference until you fired it. Rare but not as rare as a company in Sudan that have been making AR .762x39 conversions as far back as 1967.

and just to add another point for your ol dad, even the Russians in 1965 were playing with the AR model and using conversions to 762x39 So in conclusion i would say it was possible that your father either fired first hand one of these converted weapons or in 1st hand accounts knew of the existence at the time and might have even seen some greenie beanies showing off with them.

This Site Might Help You.

RE:

Was the M-16 ever chambered to fire the 7.62x39mm AK-47 ammo?

Father in law claims that while he was in Vietnam, troops had M-16's that were chambered to fire the 7.62x39mm AK-47 ammunition. I told him I had never heard of the M-16 firing 7.62x39mm and that there is a big difference between the 7.62x51mm NATO round that the US used and the 7.62x39mm round...

Not that i know of. He might be talking about the AR-10 which fires the 7.62 NATO(7.62x51mm) which is totaly diffrent from the 7.62x39mm. the 7.62x39mm is a intermediate round and is equal to the 30-30. while the 7.62x51mm is a full power rifle cartridge and is on the same level as the 7.62x54r and the 30-06.

im not saying that there isnt a conversion kit out there. but it is highly unlikely to have one in vietnam in the 60's. yet alone if there is a kit out there it wouldnt be in the vietnam era because during vietnam the m16 was first adopted by the U.S. military. and only a couple of years before the war it was invented by eugene stoner.

Hope i helped and if you need any more info id be glad to help you.

Nope. Always been a 223 round. I was in during Viet Nam and carried an M-14 while others had the M-16. I liked the 14 much better since this was the time the 16's were having a serious jambing problem.

Your father-in-law may be confused with the Stoner AR-10 which fired a 7.62x51 round. While that weapon was not produced for the US, he may have heard of it or run across one.

More likely he is thinking of the M-14 which fired the 7.62 and was used during that period (and still is today for longer range shooting).

The M-16 was never chambered for anything other than the 5.56 (.223) round.

Hell no! The M16 fires the 5.56x45-mm NATO!. If he made such a claim, he never was in Vietnam nor in the military for that matter, it's common military knowledge! Only people that collect GI Joe memorabilia and proclaim they were in the Special Forces would say such crap! I don't ever see Russian ever being part of NATO for a long time!

2 totally different weapons, the M16 would never hold ammo from a Russian weapon

It seems your father in law was right. that was the vietnam war experimental AR.

Colt 7.62x39 AR-15 http://www.biggerhammer.net/ar15/magazines/colt762...

I wish to ask the same question as the op.