Garand Thumb is back, this time with a rifle mud test that is guaranteed to rustle people’s jimmies just like his frozen rifle test did.
Breaking Down the Rifle Mud Test
Throwing rifles in the mud to see if they’ll keep functioning isn’t a new idea. In fact, it’s part of the Army’s official evaluation protocol, albeit done a little more scientifically. In his latest video, exactly one month after melting the internet by freezing rifles, Garand Thumb takes the same rifle lineup and cakes them in mud. Like the previous test, this was done in two phases. The first phase was dropping the rifles action side down in a mud puddle, then picking them up and trying to fire the rifle. Phase two involved caking mud over the action of the rifle. For example, on most of the rifles he used his boot to cake the action over with mud.
Bad News for M14 Fans
Unfortunately for fans of the M14, it died again, just like it did during the freezing rifle test. In the first round of light mud, the venerable battle rifle just gave up the ghost. Although it fired the first round, it failed to feed and extract after that. All the other rifles passed the first phase of the test just fine.
AR-15 vs AK…Again
What the rifle mud test really comes down to is AR vs AK debates. If you recall, all the AK platform rifles did very well when frozen, likely because of the fact they’re designed to be used in Arctic climates. And of course the Knight’s Armament SR-15 didn’t do well, much to the consternation of Knight’s fans. It did however prompt a hilarious response video from Knight’s, which is worth checking out.
This time however, fortunes were reversed. The AR, thanks to its closed operating system, absolutely smashed the AK variant rifles in phase 2 of the rifle mud test. Phase 2 simulated the absolute worst case scenario for mud, and the relatively open action of the AK platform allowed so much debris in the rifle that they would stop working. The real kind of the test was the Block 2 M4, which as you see in the video, just…worked.
Final Thoughts
The full video is definitely worth watching, since there are other platforms than just AR and AK pattern rifles. The Steyr AUG in Alpine White is pretty cool to look at, if I’m being honest with myself. One thing that’s important to remember about any “test” like this is that it’s a manufactured environment designed to recreate a worst-case scenario. Will your rifle ever get 4 inches of mud caked on the receiver in your day to day operations? Only you can know that.
