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> Through every day of combat in Vietnam, American troops fired cartridges filled with the ball powder that was the legacy of the ordnance corps. And if American troops were sent into battle today, they would use the same kind of ammunition.

What?

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The bug has been fixed by spending more on the rifle; specifically, by chroming the barrel and by lowering the cyclic fire rate. The issue was less the ammunition than it was testing for reliability, changing a part of the system, and then not retesting and tweaking the rest of the system to fit. Modern M-16s and derivatives have a pretty good reputation for reliability.

The article was written in 1981...I assume that is the "now" they refer to.

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