So...is SCAR16 done for?

[Kyohte]

FN dumped a lot of effort into these rifles (both the 16 and 17). I don't think they're going to give up on them without a fight. I suspect, as evidenced by some French troops seen with the 16, that FN will likely be trying to peddle these to other European countries with aging rifle systems. They won't let the whole system die that easily.

On the commercial side, they seem to be selling as well as you could expect a $2500 rifle to sell.

With my own, I've come to prefer my AR-15's just because of familiarity. It also doesn't help that my wife prefers to shoot the SCAR when we go shooting, so I'm stuck with other rifles.

[Ed L.]

Well according to the same place I took the quote from that you quoted they did the testing in accordance to the Mil spec dust testing criteria Mil-Spec 810F.

They can say what they want, but I don't think the test was credible.

It was sponsored by the company whose gun came in 4th out of 4 competitors; who paid a private company to privately test their gun alone.

In previous tests the M4 yielded yielded 678 and 882 malfunctions/stoppages. So they hire a company to privately test their gun, and then they announce that it experienced an amazingly low 111 malfunctions and stoppages in this new test.

It was a privately done test paid for by the manufacturer of the gun being tested. There is no telling what they were choosing to count and not count or how many times they ran the test or spun the numbers to get the results they wanted.

You can't have someone else test one of the four candidate guns, have it do better, and then declare it the winner when the other candidate guns were not also tested, especially when the company doing the testing was hired by one of the companies and may not have reproduced the circumstances that made one of the guns perform significantly worse than the others.

Further, the numbers on some of the slides you posted is incorrect. In the summer of 2007 the M4 experienced a total of 678 malfunctions, not the 307 that the slide lists. So wherever you got it, the numbers are doctored.

[sinlessorrow]

They can say what they want, but I don't think the test was credible.

It was sponsored by the company whose gun came in 4th out of 4 competitors; who paid a private company to privately test their gun alone.

In previous tests the M4 yielded yielded 678 and 882 malfunctions/stoppages. So they hire a company to privately test their gun, and then they announce that it experienced an amazingly low 111 malfunctions and stoppages in this new test.

It was a privately done test paid for by the manufacturer of the gun being tested. There is no telling what they were choosing to count and not count or how many times they ran the test or spun the numbers to get the results they wanted.

You can't have someone else test one of the four candidate guns, have it do better, and then declare it the winner when the other candidate guns were not also tested, especially when the company doing the testing was hired by one of the companies and may not have reproduced the circumstances that made one of the guns perform significantly worse than the others.

Further, the numbers on some of the slides you posted is incorrect. In the summer of 2007 the M4 experienced a total of 678 malfunctions, not the 307 that the slide lists. So wherever you got it, the numbers are doctored.

Basically what we have is 2 seperate tests with no real verifiable info, but conflicting data. I think Dano hit the nail on the head with his analysis.

[Ed L.]

Basically what we have is 2 seperate tests with no real verifiable info, but conflicting data.

No.

One was done in private by company paid by the manufacturer of a gun that came in last in a comparative test. And miraculously, in this manufacturer sponsored private test, the M4 had 1/6 of the malfunctions/stoppages that it had in its best government test.

The others were performed by the Army Test and Evaluation Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

[sinlessorrow]

No.

One was done in private by company paid by the manufacturer of a gun that came in last in a comparative test. And miraculously, in this manufacturer sponsored private test, the M4 had 1/6 of the malfunctions/stoppages that it had in its best government test.

The others were performed by the Army Test and Evaluation Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Because Aberdeen has a spotless record right? The test may be right, who knows. There is not info on how they diagnosed what was magazine related and what was not, the .PDF had very little info in this as well.

Colt hired a DoD certified Company to perform the test in accordance to mil-spec. so its not just any company.

Honestly there was to many variables in the dust test for my liking.
1. Different magazines for guns supplied my manuf.(did they use 4-5 month old mags for the M4 as well?)
2. Different trigger setups(auto and burst)
3. Different lube protocols set by the manuf.
4. Guns delivered specifically for a dust test vs M4's that were delivered to the Army 4-5 month prior to the test.

It would not be the first time a company gamed the results, as mentioned it happens in the auto business all the time. Colt could have gamed the second result easily, make the test the correct test but alter the guns for optimal performance in a dusty environment and dont worry about parts life(since they are only firig 6,000 rounds each gun) and you could easily make mich better results if you slightly overgas the gun and give it a stronger action spring/H2-3 buffer, and I would wager this is exactly what they did, built guns specifically for a dust test.

And in the end all we can do is make educated guesses with a apparently altered Brief, and quotes from Colt.

[Crow Hunter]

No.

One was done in private by company paid by the manufacturer of a gun that came in last in a comparative test. And miraculously, in this manufacturer sponsored private test, the M4 had 1/6 of the malfunctions/stoppages that it had in its best government test.

The others were performed by the Army Test and Evaluation Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Just as an aside.

My company does a lot of testing. Our certifications are done by testing companies that we hire. Stork is one of them. They are a UL certified testing company.

These companies bread and butter is testing. If it were found out that they were not following test plans/protocols to the letter, they would lose their listing with UL and most of their business. Being independent testers is how they make their money. Considering how high profile this test was, I would imagine they dotted every I and crossed every T multiple times over.

I would be more suspicious of the DoD rigging tests, especially after reading American Rifle by Alexander Rose.

As for gaming the test. Colt probably did. I would have. (The other companies probably did the same thing)

[KG_mauserman]

I told myself I wouldn't get sucked into the dust test debate and now look at me.......

I'm willing to go with the 100ish malfunctions in the new test however since the other weapons weren't tested the results are just about meaningless in the SCAR vs. M4 debate. If the SCAR had been tested at the same time it would have been relevant to this debate, but it was not. For all we know in the new test the SCAR may have had 0 malfunctions or it may have had more. We will never know therefore the test is meaningless in this debate.

The SCAR 16s is a light, reliable, ergonomic rifle that has a lot of good features straight from the manufacturer. I'm just glad that we have the option of purchacing them.

[Jaws]

The fact that Colt ordered and paid for the last "test" makes it worthless.

I'd give the results of the SCAR competition a lot more weight than the dust test. FN's rifle went against a dozen AR15 versions and at the end was the only one that passed all the tests. To me it's pretty clear how it stacks up against M4.

[armakraut]

The first rule of military dust test 2 (where the M4 outperformed the SCAR-L & HK416 and nearly equaled the XM8) is that you do not talk about dust test 2.

If anything dust test 2 proved that rack grade M4's were as reliable as new M4's and more reliable than both the HK416 and SCAR-L. Not to mention it confirmed Colt's own contracted testing.

Dust test III... very retro. Someone needs to tell the army that people will pay good coin for them fiberlites.

[SRT-M4]

I told myself I wouldn't get sucked into the dust test debate and now look at me.......

I'm willing to go with the 100ish malfunctions in the new test however since the other weapons weren't tested the results are just about meaningless in the SCAR vs. M4 debate. If the SCAR had been tested at the same time it would have been relevant to this debate, but it was not. For all we know in the new test the SCAR may have had 0 malfunctions or it may have had more. We will never know therefore the test is meaningless in this debate.

The SCAR 16s is a light, reliable, ergonomic rifle that has a lot of good features straight from the manufacturer. I'm just glad that we have the option of purchacing them.

Spot on. These are my thoughts as well.