At 16 lbs it aint fit for battle though
Posted on 04/20/2008 1:10:11 PM PDT by kellynla
Well, there's the problem right there! The carbine has a serious carbon footprint problem. If a more sustainable, non-carbon technology were used, everything would be alright.
Maybe we should give the contract to the Chinese. They make everything else we use. And I’m repeatedly told what a wonderful weapon the AK is.
>>I was just agreeing with you in an off hand confused sort of way. its pretty amazing how complicated the procurement process is. the sheer amount of bureaucracy is mind boggling.
My thought was, that’s probably a $900 or so rifle in the quantities we’re dealing with here, and the balance is the cost of dealing with the bureaucracy.
Well there are many companies making commercial semi-auto versions of the gun and $1500 is easy to spend buying one of their rifles. So, no, it’s now way out of range in my opinion.
That’s the way I took your comments. I’m sure it is a major pain to deal the govenment bids/purchasers. No offense taken at all.
Thanks. I appreciate it.
That’s an interesting take, and it would be an eye opener to know just how close you are on that.
That makes sense to me. Good points.
At 16 lbs it aint fit for battle though
M14’s could go mud diving, and the M16 had a total sand phobia.
7.62 was nice too.
But I’m just an ancient kinda guy that saw that stupid move first hand and I always liked 8oz workout gloves punching the heavy bag. :-)
Semper Fi
FN makes the SAW, and our main handgun is a Baretta. But I know at least the Baretta is made in the US (which, BTW, caused some quality issues).
You can buy quality M4 knock-offs, with better gas systems, from American companies; all day long for less than $1100.00 per copy. Much less, I’d imagine, if you ordered in governmental quantities.
Time for Colt to bite the big one.
that show is fun to watch and not bad if one realizes it is one big infomercial. there you can say cut and re shoot in a battle not as easy.
Good point. Colt made a mint selling their revolvers to the Federal Government during the Civil War.
"The M4 uses 'gas impingement,' a method that pushes hot carbon-fouled gas through critical parts of the gun, according to detractors."
The gas blows right into the little tube on the top of the bolt carrier assembly in the upper receiver. It's a stupid design, IMHO. The extractor retaining pin failed on me at a very bad time. It broke in half.
5 is the bolt carrier. 4 is the bolt with the extractor pinned in place on its side. I wouldn't pay for a 'gas impingement' design.
Magpul Masada....nuff said.
The controlled tests of the Colt, H&K, and FN showed the M4 coming out on the bottom in reliability in sand, with one stoppage in every 600 rounds. The other two were a bit better, but all three clustered around the 98% reliability rate. Most stoppages were quickly cleared, as troops are trained to do. "Catastrophic" stoppages were rare on all three.
All of these weapons are just about as close to perfect reliability as is possible to get. Tinkering at the margin to get another .1% costs lots of money, with no detectable difference to the troop.
Frequency of maintenance is a factor, but no professional soldier wants to abuse his rifle just for the hell of it. In the cavalry, you take care of your horse before yourself. For infantry, it's your rifle. Both are your only personal means of salvation.
The FN and H&K can both be considered evolutionary improvements of the M16/M4. All use the M16 magazine, although I'll admit the H&K version is the Rolls Royce of M16 mags, and the most expensive. Both are attempts to move away from the gas-tube system of the M16, which was revolutionary in that it cut down on moving parts, and therefore costs. It also brought hot chamber gas deep into the bolt carrier.
All three are fine weapons, and if I had the money, I'd buy one of each (in semi-auto only, of course). When I have to consider millions of weapons and parts already in the field, I'd have to be much more cautious, since I don't want to cause an upheaval over weapons systems that come within a few percentage points of each other.
Another thing to consider is that all three are priced about the same. Anybody who knows anything about manufacturing will tell you that there are only so many ways of milling aluminum, forging steel, and molding plastic. I can't speak to anybody's profit margins (or R&D costs), but none of them are the "magic bullet" that brings the cost down to the $17 it costs Chinese slave labor to make a AK47. Also, the price on all of them seems to include some sort of fancy optics, where the real weapons progress has been made in this war. These sights, with proper training, allow our troops to drop the bad guy further and faster than the sh!thead can even conceive.
I’m pretty sure the SAW is, too, at a plant in SC. I think I learned that on another FR thread in the last couple of years. Dig around on FN’s web site to confirm, if you like.
>As Colt pumps out 800 new M4s every day to meet U.S. and overseas demand,<
Can the other companies match 800 new rifles per day? I would imagine that has something to do with why they were selected.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.