Colt’s Purchase of LWRC: Will US Troops Get a New Rifle?

[WildBill3/75]

Every time a new cartridge is introduced, it changes the original well thought out plan of the AR 15 rifle. Gene designed a fabulous 20" rifle that functioned perfectly with the m193 cartridge it was designed for. When the m855 was introduced, much thought and research was put into assuring the the chamber and gas port pressures remained the same as not to affect reliability. Then they decided to chop 6" off the barrel, and and 5.5" off the gas length for the M4. This changed everything. Bolts and extractors are now subjected to considerably more stress. The gas port and chamber pressures doubled, and the gas port had to be shrunk. To add a new cartridge to the mix would simply add to the reliability issues the M4 already faces during heavy sustained fire, not to mention logistics. It wouldn't surprise me if they did change calibers in their infinite wisdom, but it would only heap more problems on an already problematic weapons system. Just my .02.

How are we supposed to take this seriously.



When I was in the line, I was issued a Colt m4 that was issued to someone before me, and most likely someone before him. It ate m855 greentip with 0 problems and I put hundreds if not thousands of rounds down range with that rifle. While I was in I was also sent to a shooting course where the instructor there stated that he NEVER cleaned his m4, just kept it well lubed, and he never had any issues with thousands of rounds sent down range. In theatere I never had an issue with the m4 or the SR-25, even though they were COATED in dust from helo assault force/ground assault force infills to the objectives. Granted I wasn't an idiot and cleaned my rifles when I got back from the mission. I'm just stating the system flat out works and is tried and tested throughly.

Also if the m4 and its variants had severe issues why would the top tier's of our military as well as other nations military's trust their lives with variants of this weapon system?

The m16 has been in service since the late 60's....since then there have been a ton of small improvements made to the original design to come to where we are now. It's light weight, rugged, and thoroughly battle proven. In my own home today I own an m4 variant I pieced together and with that too I have never had any issues.

So where are these opinions coming from that the m4 is garbage? because that is basicly what you are saying with those inflammatory comments.