Flaming Carbines — How to Destroy an M4 Barrel
On January 12, 2010 the New York Times “At War” Blog focused on the combat performance of the M4 Carbine, one of the preferred weapons of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There has been some concern that m4s used in sustained fire-fights are overheating the barrel. It’s no surprise that guns firing magazine after magazine of ammo can over-heat the barrel. In a video found on the N.Y. Times site, Testers for Colt Mfg. recently shot an m4 in full-auto mode, loading magazines as fast as possible. The point was to test the gun to the point of catastrophic failure, something that occured after about two minutes.
CLICK HERE to watch m4 Rifle Test Video (Catastrophic Failure).
This is a pretty amazing video. As the NY Times author notes: “Watch the video closely. After several magazines, the barrel smolders. Then it becomes red hot. After 1 minute and 20 seconds the barrel begins to droop between magazines — like a piece of warm licorice. Then comes the catastrophic ending, at 1 minute and 51 seconds and after the 535th round, when the barrel ruptures.”
We hate to see any firearm abused like this. On the other hand, we’re glad a manufacturer testing the limits of extreme performance. Lessons learned can help improve the m4 design. The U.S. Army is considering fitting a heavier-contour barrel that may not heat up so quickly. A second video on the same NYT Blog page shows an m4A1 carbine with a heavier barrel. This second gun delivered 911 rounds before the gas tube ruptured. Note, in both the video demos, the m4s were modified to shoot full auto (not 3-round bursts like most m4s). This allowed a much high sustained rate of fire than would be possible with weapons limited to 3-round bursts.
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Tags: Colt, Full Auto, m4 Carbine
Considering that 535 rounds is close to 20%-25% of the accuracy life of some barrels, this performance isn’t too bad! It’s hard to imagine a practical situation where it would be necessary or even useful to fire 500+ rounds in two minutes.
Are soldiers really carrying 17 mags each anyway?
“Are soldiers really carrying 17 mags each anyway?”
Depends on the roll-out requirements. Sometimes 15-20 is normal.
What isn’t normal is doing a full-auto test on a select-fire (3-shot burst) weapon.