Russo-Ukrainian War: The M14 Battle Rifle

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

     A soldier from the 169th. Territorial Defense Battalion, 120th. Territorial Defense Brigade (TDB) trains with a M14 battle rifle sometime in 2025. M14 rifles first appeared in the hands of Ukraine's TDB units in 2022 and they came from Estonian and Latvian stocks of which Estonia provided up to 35,000 rifles. The M14 was accepted for U.S. Army service in 1957 with production commencing in 1959. The M14 was phased out of U.S. Army service starting in 1964 and by 1967, it was wholly replaced by the M16 assault rifle as the Army's main infantry weapon. Today, variants of the M14 are in limited use by some U.S. forces and the rifle remains in active service within the military forces over over twenty countries.

     The M14 is chambered for the 7.62x51mm cartridge and uses a gas-operated, rotating bolt action. The total length of the M14 is 3.7 feet with an empty weight of 9.2 pounds. The M14 is fed from a 20-round box magazine and with a full magazine, the M14 has a weight of 10.7 pounds. If need be, the M14 has guides for stripper clips, allowing the magazine to be reloaded without detaching it. 

     Stock, the M14 uses a rear mounted aperture sight and a barleycorn front sight. Also known as a pyramid sight, it consists of a triangular shaped sight rather than the more common post sight. Using the standard sights, the effective range is a little over 450 meters when firing the M80 ball cartridge. The maximum range of the M14 is 2.1 miles. Here, the M14 is fitted with a M1A SOCOM 16-style scope mount and the scope itself appears to be made by Athlon Optics but this isn't able to be confirmed with any certainty. The M14 has a rate of fire between 700 to 750 rounds per minute.

     Attached to the front of the weapon is a M1A Harris bipod while on the end of the scope is a micro-prism anti-reflection device (ARD). The purpose of the ARD is to cut down on sun glare as well as hide light reflection off the scope glass. The sling is not M14 issue as the operator has it looped around the stock's neck rather than connected to a metal loop on the underside of the buttstock (which could also be missing, hence how he has it secured). The soldier has also made a cheek pad by putting strips of material along the top of the buttstock and wrapping it with silver duct tape. Finally, the camouflage paint applied to the M14 is not standard and is one that has appeared on Ukrainian weapons on occasion. It is variation of “snake” style custom weapon camouflage patterns.

     As a note, the 169th. Territorial Defense Battalion has been renamed the 2nd. Territorial Defense Battalion and has a new unit patch. It is still part of the 120th. TDB.