[Rod Diery]

Originally posted by Tony Smith
Regarding the 7.62mm SLR's, Australia retained them as the standard service rifle until 1988 because of their solid dependable reputation (made in Lithgow ). The 5.56mm M16's also been in service since Vietnam, but were not widely issued. They were replaced by the Licenced built copy of the 5.56mm Steyr AUG called the F88 Austeyr (also made in Lithgow )

When I left the Army in 1992, only a couple of infantry companies around the country had been issued with their F88s due to major reliability problems. Not sure whether these problems were Lithgow originated or not.

I would disagree with your statement that the M16 was not widely issued. For most of my 20 years in the Army, a standard infantry section of 10 men was issued with 1 x GPMG M60, 4 x M16A1 and 5 x L1A1 SLR.

I can remember too spending months on the M16 rebuild line in the small arms section at 1 Base Workshop Battalion at Bulimba in Brisbane about 1975. Just about every M16 that the Australian Army owned came through this line. I can remember a piss up on the day that we turned out more than 100 M16s in one day. Not bad for a section about 10 or 12 blokes. I used to spend the mornings stripping incoming weapons then the afternoon helping in the test firing range.

Cheers
Rod