o the editor John Solomon:
Please forward this to Mr. Rowan Scarborough.
In regards to the February 19th article on the Army's flawed rifle, the M4, there are some glaring inaccuracies, and information that is not presented on the known flaws of the M4 based weapon system. I believe the research done on this article was not correct and not thoroughly done, the cited consultants of the article, particularly Major General Robert Scales statement, are also inaccurate and do not expound knowledgeable information.
The history of Eugen Stoner's direct gas impingement system in the AR-15/M-16/M4 weapon system has had its problems, and the history is well documented of the troubles the M16 family has gone through. For a weapon that has been in service since the Sixties, it has gone through a lot of changes, but it in fact stays as the U.S. Military's primary small arms weapon of choice is for a reason. It is very modular in terms of attachments to be used, lightweight, and inherently has low recoil impulse due to the 5.56 carriage and the straight barrel-to-stock design.
the early problems that arose with the M16 during the Vietnam war was Military's assumption that the weapon could be issued and put to the field without a cleaning kit. Anything man made can and will break, and the idea that a weapon does not need a cleaning kit for proper maintenance was a very short sighted failure. The changes that went into the M16 during that time--from engineers from Colt--where chrome lined chambers, different powder propellent, and proper maintenance.
In the 1980s, the M16 was upgrade to the M16A2 via request by the Marine Corp, and the need to produce a new round that could penetrate Soviet body armor that, at the time, could withstand the U.S. issued 55 grain projectile. The upgrade to the M16A2 was a faster twist barrel to support the 62 grain penetrating round (the XM855/SS109), a longer stock, and a three round burst. In the 1990's the M4 was developed for SOCOM forces and saw its action mainly in Somalia.
The M4, and its carbine gas system, does have its flaws, considering how new it relatively was when the Global War on Terrorism began on September 11th, 2001. It had also seen virtually limited combat experience. One of the noted known observations with the M4 was that the shortened barrel did not cause the XM855 to tumble when it impact enemy combatants. The problem was the round was not meeting the resistance of Soviet body armor to slow down the velocity to tumble and fragment. This problem was also experienced in the Battle for Fallujah when Marines were having to put multiple rounds in enemy insurgence to stop them, at times taking head shots for effect central nervous system neutralization.
With this known, the M4 system in its current issued configuration is a reliable and effect weapon. The A1 with its heavier barrel profile was a much needed improvement due to soldiers "mag dumping" in combat. The heavier barrel profile takes longer to build up heat, but it also takes longer to dissipate heat. With any weapon with a closed bolt system, the weapon is going to heat up dramatically and will cause problems. Any weapon. This is why most machine guns (heavy and light) are open bolt to allow air to circulate and cool the weapon down. They also have the capability to change barrels; the M4 does not. When standard infantry soldiers use their rifles/carbines in a support weapon role and go through magazine after magazine of ammunition, the weapon is going to heat up and will be more prone to failure. Even the Khlasnikov (AK pattern system) can fail at the barrel with overheating the weapon.
What the article did not state, and what needs to be stated, is how the M4, and the M16, are cared for in the field and out of the field. I took a semester with my College's ROTC and went to their field training exercise, where we got to use the M4 system for rifle qualifications. These weapons were very well used. It was when we sat down to clean the weapons for two straight hours--that is me cleaning just one weapon for two hours--where I noticed where some of the problems that the military was having.
I, myself, have several AR-15s, two in the M4 configuration, but my main weapon is modified. Prior to the FTX (field training exercise) I went to a private training class on the application of the M4 carbine (which also included any carbine with a 16" barrel or shorter). We ran over 1,000 rounds of ammo through our weapons without cleaning them. Prior to the class, I had shot over 700 rounds or more through my carbine without cleaning. After the class, I ran another, or close to, 1,000 rounds of ammo through my carbine. i only had one problem and that was when one of my reloads failed to fire. The weapon operate flawlessly. During the class, we had done exercises that had our weapons running hard for over 500 rounds, though in a semi-auto configuration.
In this class, we learned to clean our weapon. One thing that was stressed was over cleaning your weapon, which from my observations of the way the military has their personnel clean their weapons is over cleaning. What over cleaning does is it takes out the oil and grease build that, even though you cannot see it, but the scrubbing and using of cotton swabs inside the star chamber, removes them, and will cause undue friction on bare metal parts. Furthermore, when it came time to lube the weapons after the intense cleaning, our instructors lined us up and gave to shots of Clean, Lubricate, and Protect (CLP) in to the semi-open chambered of the weapons, and told that the weapons were lubed.
They were in fact not lubed enough, if hardly at all. From my course I took, plus from many leading instructors and AR-15 armors, the AR-14/M4 system needs to be ran "wet." This means that not only is the outside of the bolt thoroughly coated, but the inside as well, including the gas rings that seal the bolt for the direct impingement gas system to perform, but also the firing pin, and the a small film around the locking lugs. This heavy lubrication allows the weapon, more notably the bolt, to cycle, push contaminants into the less sensitive areas of the weapon, and to help keep the bolt cool. Two shots of CLP does not do this.
There is also a very bad myth going around in the U.S. Military of having soldiers under lube their weapons in dusty areas of operation as the lube will stick to the parts and cause them to jam. This is a fallacy that dates back to the Vietnam era. Yes, dust will cake up on the weapon, but the lube will push the dust around and will make the weapon last a lot longer. This is akin to not putting oil in your vehicle.
The problem with the M4 stems from cleaning and maintenance habits, a Soviet era round that was designed to counter a specific threat, and excessive full-auto fire. It seems the military is having these problems while here in the civilian side, a well maintained weapon is not.
My "M4" has about four different companies in it: Daniel Defense for the lower receiver parts kit, Bravo Company Manufacture for the bolt and bolt carrier, Lewis Machine and Tooling for my upper receiver, which has a heavy carbine length barrel on it, and an ALS trigger that has a military spec trigger pull to it. The Warrant officer that was quoted in the beginning of the article is correct. There area lot of civilian companies that are making enhanced parts that are in some ways better than what the military does provide. Many of these parts have gone through some testing that the military has not done. Shooting competitions has done wonders for the M4 platform. But some of us have also taken with the military has deemed to be the standard.
The biggest flaw with the M4/M16, that has been solved, that the article did not address was the magazine follower issue. There are three generations of magazine followers. The first generation (black followers) had tilting issues where the rounds in the magazine would tilt and clog inside the magazine. The green followers (second generations) were to solve this problem, but never did. The current, third, generation, developed by Magpul, are no tilt followers and has increased the reliability of the M4/M16 by 70%. The major flaw to the Stoner system has always been the magazine. Next was the extractor springs, but those problems have also been fixed.
The comments made by Major General Robert Scales are very inaccurate. For one, he states that the Military should look into the AK-74 and the German HK G36. Apparently he has not looked closely at them, himself. The AK-74 uses the 5.45x39mm round, which has about 200-400 less velocity than the standard 5.56 XM855. The round is known for its wound channels, but the round does not penetrate very deep. it also drops off further than what the M4 does due to the lower velocity, and the accuracy at longer range is out performed by the 5.56. The G36 has also known issues. The worst is that after 200-300 rounds fired, the weapon's accuracy drops off dramatically. The barrel sits in a polymer housing that locks the barrel into place. When this heats up, the barrel loosens and causes an erratic shot pattern. From my understanding, HK has made huge recommendations to fix the problem to the German Military, but military has declined to implement the fixes.
Another thing to point out is the AK-47 used by the insurgents. When the weapon was designed and built, its design was based around what the Soviet Union was wanting in a standard infantry weapon. Full and semi auto capability, and to fire an intermediate cartridge that was not expected to have an effect range passed 300-400 meters. The insurgence are using a weapon which intent was for short to intermediate combat, the same as the M4. The AK-47 has a general 16" barrel. The M4 has a 14.5" barrel. Most civilian shooters prefer the 16" barrel on an AR over a 14.5" due to a slight accuracy difference and muzzle velocity, albeit not much.
I encourage to make contact with Pat Rogers of EAG Tactical and inquire of his M4, "Filthy 14". The weapon has an enormous amount of rounds put through it and was cleaned hardly at all. He can also explain the true faults of the system, mostly operator maintenance issues.
I would also advise looking into the Mid-Length gas system of the M4 platform. Currently Daniel Defense and Bravo Company make what is known as a mid-length gas system, which runs very well on a 16" barrel. The M4 runs on a carbine gas system that sits roughly half way between the chamber and the end of the muzzle on the barrel. The problem of the carbine gas system is that it does not offer enough dwell time for the gas to expand in the barrel, in turn goes into the gas tube that will push the bolt carrier group to the cycle the next round. Unlike what a piston system (the AK47, FN FAL or HK416) does by having a rod push the bolt carrier to cycle the next round, the gas impingement system works as using the gas of the burnt powder to act as a piston arm. That is where the similarity ends. Unlike a metal piston arm, say one from your car engine, the short it is, the lighter the force will be on one end of the piston when energy is applied to the opposite end. The longer the piston arm, with the same energy applied to it, the heavier the force is felt on the opposite. With the direct impingement gas system of the M4, the shorter the length the gas flows and impacts the bolt, the strong the force.
As gas is looking for the easiest way out from expansion, the closer it finds something to leak or break through, the more force it exerts. With the carbine length gas system, when the bullet is being pushed down the barrel, the gas is expanding. When it enters in the gas tube, it pushes the bolt carrier back. but since the gas has not expanded enough, the force exerted by the gas on the bolt carrier is immense, and causes a lot of wear on the parts, particularly the bolt.
What a mid-length gas system does is that it offers more room for the gas to expand before it enters into the gas block and into the gas tube. What is meant by mid-length is that the gas port, where the gas enters, is between where a carbine gas port is (half way between the chamber and the muzzle) and a rifle has port is (2/3 away from the chamber; 1/3 from the muzzle). The problem with running a rifle type system of a short barrel (carbine) is that once the gas has entered the tube, the bullet has left the muzzle, and the gas is now exiting more out of the muzzle, and less into the gas tube causing the gas to not exert enough force to cycle the bolt. With the mid-length gas system, it allows gas to "dwell" more in the barrel, but when it enters the gas port and runs down the gas tube, it will hit the bolt to cycle it but will hit it with less force, causing less wear on parts. The system, however, works best on a 16" barrel rather than the 14.5" the U.S. military uses. The mid-length systems is very popular in the civilian market, and to my knowledge, the only market that it is being used and tested by end users.
To conclude this letter, the flaws in the article mentioned are not as serious as Scarborogh has made it seem. The issues that the M4 faces now are the maintenance and upkeep habits the U.S. military has, plus the issue of improper lubricating the weapon system, and an armor penetrating round against a majority of unarmored insurgence. Much of the flaws that have been recorded of the M4/M16 have been solved by a better magazine follower (Magpul), heavier carbine buffer (mentioned in the article but only in passing), and a heavier barrel. If the over cleaning of weapons to keep bored soldiers occupied is lessened, a much heavier lubrication doctrine is established, the flaws mentioned in the article could be far less than what was written. That flaw is not in the weapon but the operators.
I am a Bachelor of Science in History graduate from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. I have been fascniated, and have had a lot of hands on experience with military small arms. I own four AR-15s in different variations, and have built four others using quality parts after through research. I have also taken classes with very knowledgeable instructors who are either law enforcement officers or military vets, including one that trained Marines to become riflemen at Quantico, Virgina.
Jason of Monroe, Tennessee.
Bowden, Mark. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. Grove Press: New York, 1999.
Chivers, C.J. The Gun. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks: New York, 2010.
Pat Rogers of EAG and "Filthy 14" (
http://eagtactical.com/abouteag.asp)
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Originally Posted by Heavy Metal
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