- .50 cal Browning M2 HMG barrels weigh twenty eight pounds. The 7.62 NATO barrels for the C1/C5 GPMG (mod Browning M-1919A4) weighed seven pounds. Bursts we generally kept to two trace (ten rounds). Mounted, C6 on the Leopards, we used four trace ranging and two trace engaging. Eventually, the barrels would burn out. Leopard C1 had two C6 MG. two spare barrels for the coax, and one spare barrel for the AAMG on the cupola ring mount. If they looked bad when cleaned, they got brought to the 'Gun Plummer' (Wpns Tech, Land), or he would go/no-go them during annual inspection or before live fire ex or gun camp.
- On the pad, if your trace started dancing through the sky: time for a barrel change.
- I think we probably burned through more FN C2s before noticing, but we did not always get tracer for them, so it was hard to notice during field firing. They sure could get hot though. We had one qual where we started at the 600, ran to the five and fired two thirty round mags in bursts, target drops on timing, when it comes up again run to the four hundred and do two mags in bursts, target up again - run to the three hundred and do two mags in bursts. 180 rounds in about five minutes. Then, another relay on the same FN C2s about five minutes later. FN C2 weighed 15.4 pounds loaded, so bursts were kept short - a challenge at 675-750 cyclic. I usually got three rounds, two if I tried hard, in a burst. I heard of guys being able to fire single shots with an FN C2 on auto, but I could never do it.
- When we got the C9 Minimi to replace the C2, I was in Germany. We did a gun camp and I ran the range for our C9 gunners in Recce Sqn. We put four guns on the mound at once with four in waiting, and would fire two boxes (plastic box held a 200 round belt of Lake City 4B1T), change barrels, fire two more boxes, then pull the gun off the firing point to cool and put up another LMG in its place.
We went through a small mountain of cased 5.56 mm 4B1T. Two boxes (200 rds ea) to a can, two cans to a crate - 800 rounds in a wooden crate. Belted. It was all Lake City because the IVI stuff had not got to us yet. The 5.56 ball ammo for the C7/C8 was not Canadian yet either, it was headstamped FNB.