Black Hawk Down: Randy Shughart’s M14

Enter to win this awesome Black Hawk Down M14 Clone!
https://www.fanathem.com/forgottenweapons
Deadline to enter is 9/27/2024 @ 11:59 PM PST

Sergeant Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon were both awarded posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor for their actions in Mogadishu in October 1993. As portrayed in the film "Black Hawk Down", the two Delta Force men volunteered (demanded, really) to be dropped onto the wreck of Super 6-4 alone to defend it against a huge number of Somalis, with no idea when backup might arrive. Because of their heroism, pilot Mike Durant survived to make it home.

The Delta Force operators in Task Force Ranger on that mission had wide latitude in choosing their own weapons, and Shughart had chosen to carry a 7.62x51mm rifle; an M14. He fitted it out with an Aimpoint red dot sight and an AIM1 infrared laser. In the film, this rifle is shown without a laser, and with an Aimpoint CompM2 optic – a model that was not introduced until two years after the events in Mogadishu. It is not known exactly which model of Aimpoint Shughart used, as both Aimpoint 3000s and 5000s were available and used by Delta around that time (and they look very similar) – but it was definitely not a CompM2.

That said, those are really the only substantive technical errors with the weapons in the film.

The clone shown in this video was built on an early Springfield M1A with a bunch of original military parts. It uses an Aimpoint 3000, AIM1/D laser, and M21-type scope mount. The desert camo is a simple spray paint job, as done by many of the Delta operators at that time.