The Big M4 Myth

Not full of fail at all. It was merely an observation. I have been to enough firearms training over the last 30 years to see that when training for other platforms, the stoppage drills were not as frequent as they seem to be now in the modern carbine courses. Everyone trains for a failure; but not every course is training for constant failure.

Making hits and keeping the gun in the fight.

If you are not training for one it is the other.
 
The key point here is: Quality of Build. We have Law Enforcement and Canadian Forces singing the praise of the C7 / C8 Colt Canada rifles, others sing the praise of KAC or Colt Defense products. These are not the "masses" of the AR FOW's out there, but the Elite of the AR FOW world. Most of the Issues with the AR FOW is build quality and Mags. If you have both then you get a pretty good platform. If you don't then they are not worth much.

As has already been said, SAN, HK and other European Companies have high build standards and are expensive. As a result their guns always work. Look at some of the HK contract stuff out of "questionable Countries" who are licenced to produce it. Those guns don't work as well as German HK produced guns....back to build quality.

Rich
 
Look at some of the HK contract stuff out of "questionable Countries" who are licenced to produce it. Those guns don't work as well as German HK produced guns....back to build quality.

Another reason why SAN will not license other manufacturers to make there product. They don't want someone mass producing their product cheaply and lowering the standards.
 
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Not full of fail at all. It was merely an observation. I have been to enough firearms training over the last 30 years to see that when training for other platforms, the stoppage drills were not as frequent as they seem to be now in the modern carbine courses. Everyone trains for a failure; but not every course is training for constant failure.

Course content is not necessarily a direct result of the system or systems being used. The two are often independent. Failures and slow reloads eat time and cost lives. Achieving effective hits on target does not take 2/3/4 days at a course. Marksmanship can be practiced on your own time and has a greater margin of error. Tactics and malfunction drills have a very slim margin of error. By that I mean the time taken to solve them could cost your life or that of someone else. The wrong action could create a bigger problem which would cost even more time. I hate to quote the Magpul boys but they're right when they say " time is life". A poor sight picture or jerked trigger could result in a less than ideal hit, but a hit nonetheless. A f*cked up clearance drill or fumbled reload results in either wasted time or failure. See the link below.

http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=38540

TDC
 
Every colt c7/8 ever handed to me was abused, rusted, lose parts...but I never have had a stoppage that wasn't mag related. These guns shoot. If they dry out and get dirty I just add more clp until I can fully clean it. Mud, heat, rain snow, days between cleanings, they run and shoot. If the AR was non restricted no one would own xcrs, pe90s etc...
 
Every colt c7/8 ever handed to me was abused, rusted, lose parts...but I never have had a stoppage that wasn't mag related. These guns shoot. If they dry out and get dirty I just add more clp until I can fully clean it. Mud, heat, rain snow, days between cleanings, they run and shoot. If the AR was non restricted no one would own xcrs, pe90s etc...

Thank you. Same thing I said in post #31, MAG issues.

Simply discard mags where you can't load an empty one, or load a bent/worn one and you should have no issues.
 
but I never have had a stoppage that wasn't mag related.

Thank you. Same thing I said in post #31, MAG issues.


Who ever came up with the idea that a "Mag issue" or a "malfunction caused by the magazine", did not count as a malfunction? The magazine is a part of the rifle is it not? Is this just another case of don't use cheap quality magazines? Doesn't every manufacturer have a written suggestion for which magazines to use in their rifle? A stoppage is a stoppage, it happened, deal with it, it's okay to blame it on the magazine if that's what caused it, but your AR still just had a malfunction.
 
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Who ever came up with the idea that a "Mag issue" or a "malfunction caused by the magazine", did not count as a malfunction? The magazine is a part of the rifle is it not? Is this just another case of don't use cheap quality magazines? Doesn't every manufacturer have a written suggestion for which magazines to use in their rifle? A stoppage is a stoppage, it happened, deal with it, it's okay to blame it on the magazine if that's what caused it, but your AR still just had a malfunction.

Steve nailed it. Another reason why I quit using crappy GI mags.
 
Who ever came up with the idea that a "Mag issue" or a "malfunction caused by the magazine", did not count as a malfunction? The magazine is a part of the rifle is it not? Is this just another case of don't use cheap quality magazines? Doesn't every manufacturer have a written suggestion for which magazines to use in their rifle? A stoppage is a stoppage, it happened, deal with it, it's okay to blame it on the magazine if that's what caused it, but your AR still just had a malfunction.

My point exactly. I never used other than the recommended mag, didn't put empty mags back in holders and paid attention to bent/worn mags.

Plus we trained with a hot firing line and the instructor would pull and replace your mag(maybe with an empty, at 12, 18 and 25 rounds down, maybe one turned backwards, etc. maybe he did nothing)so you got good at resolving the problem when it came up or dumping the mag and reloading a fresh one.
 
Who ever came up with the idea that a "Mag issue" or a "malfunction caused by the magazine", did not count as a malfunction? The magazine is a part of the rifle is it not? Is this just another case of don't use cheap quality magazines? Doesn't every manufacturer have a written suggestion for which magazines to use in their rifle? A stoppage is a stoppage, it happened, deal with it, it's okay to blame it on the magazine if that's what caused it, but your AR still just had a malfunction.

That's like saying that if you put sugar in a gas tank that the car sucks.

Firearms are a system that includes the rifle, the magazines, the ammunition and the shooter.

Magazines are a consumable item. Using them after they are worn out or after they are damaged will cause an attributable stoppage that is a user or maintenance error. The rifle may still be perfectly reliable.
 
That's like saying that if you put sugar in a gas tank that the car sucks.

Firearms are a system that includes the rifle, the magazines, the ammunition and the shooter.

Magazines are a consumable item. Using them after they are worn out or after they are damaged will cause an attributable stoppage that is a user or maintenance error. The rifle may still be perfectly reliable.

So are you saying that all the magazine related issues mentioned in the article should not count?

Again your saying, bottom line in the AR platform, a mag related malfunction doesn't count as a malfunction.

And again I say, a stoppage is a stoppage, whether is was caused by a magazine, or mud, it happened and now you have to fix it.

We're way off topic though. Let's get back on track, these issues have nothing to do with the myth that the DI system is a drastic hindrance to the M4 and M4A1
 
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So are you saying that all the magazine related issues mentioned in the article should not count?

Again your saying, bottom line in the AR platform, a mag related malfunction doesn't count as a malfunction.

And again I say, a stoppage is a stoppage, whether is was caused by a magazine, or mud, it happened and now you have to fix it.

We're way off topic though. Let's get back on track, these issues have nothing to do with the myth that the DI system is a drastic hindrance to the M4 and M4A1

I see what you're saying, but the magazine is rarely ever manufactured by the same company that made the rifle. This does not permit one to lump both together in the same category when discussing quality. Sure, the stoppage still occured, but it had nothing to do with the design or manufacture of the rifle, it was the third party magazine.

TDC
 
I see what you're saying, but the magazine is rarely ever manufactured by the same company that made the rifle. This does not permit one to lump both together in the same category when discussing quality. Sure, the stoppage still occured, but it had nothing to do with the design or manufacture of the rifle, it was the third party magazine.

TDC

A magazine related malfunction still counts as a problem with the design of the rifle, the magazine is the weak link in firearms designs. I'm sure Steve has used every type of aftermarket SAN magazine he could get a hold of and from what he posts, he very rarely has problems regarding malfunctions, apart from the time his black special sh*t the bed on him. Basically what I'm trying to say is that a well designed but poorly manufactured magazine will almost always beat a poorly designed, high quality manufacture mag.
 
If you buy tires from "Honest Wangs Fifteen Dolar 100% Pure Ruber Tire" and put them on your 911, don't expect to break records at Nurburging.

If you buy proper tires and your car consistently fails to track correctly, your car has an issue beyond the tires and you can assess the problems against the car.


If there was a market that could support 50 different companies building 55X mags, you would see the same kinds (and frequencies) of problems. If you buy quality mags and quality ARs, you should have comparable performance to the 55X. I have, as have thousands of others.
 
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