Benefits of the pencil barrel?

[Business_Casual]

Well, my point is kind of more that individual accuracy is hardly the measure if 119 rifles are all shooting at where the green dot is being painted...

[Mr blasty]

Which is the intent and design of the G36 no? That was it's primary role I had thought.

Montrala pointed out in another thread that the German army had some pretty particular weight goals and that the German army version varies from export versions due to this.

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[E-man930]

G36 w/ hot barrel & POLYMER chassis doesn't do so well. The whole barrel assembly moves around when it's very hot. Pencil profile barrel heats up faster (less material to disperse the heat soak) and makes this issue more noticeable.

[P2000]

The thread on the HK G36 using pencil barrel as (supposedly) the major issue behind very poor accuracy of the rifle once it gets hot, which is supposedly a known issue of pencil barrels, got me to thinking what the pros of a pencil barrel are. I'm assuming the basic mechanism is, the thin barrel gets hot, which makes it flex, and you get a whipping effect of the barrel and accuracy goes to chit.

The obvious pros are a savings in weight and savings in costs to the manufacturer. As always, there's a trade off to any choices made in a design and a risk/benefit assessment made.

It would seem in a primary mil rifle as the G36, that con far outweighs the pro, unless there's some other benefits of the pencil barrel I'm not aware of. HK is not known for intentionally short changing a design to save a few $$$ (if my assessment of that is correct that it does save on costs some place) and most troops are more than willing to lug the extra weight from the added weight of a barrel that does not give minute of mini van once heated.

What am I missing?

Remember that on an M4, the lightweight contour and M4 contour are the same under the handguards. Only the FSB and front portion is smaller on a lightweight, areas that see less heat, pressure and stress than the areas under the handguard.
Now on a Mk-12 barrel or SOCOM barrel, there is much more material under the handguards.

[HKGuns]

I prefer a barrel with some heft to it for all the reasons stated above. It also builds muscle as well as character.

[Greg Bell]

I know my Steyr Scout would open up pretty fast with its super lightweight barrel. More of an academic issue in a bolt gun.

[SteyrAUG]

It appears the G36 is too, until it gets hot. How hot, I'm not clear. That appears where the trouble starts.

Seems the G36 has a lot of issues when it gets hot or otherwise is subjected to high rates of fire. Not sure the barrel is to blame for those problems or not.

[Moose-Knuckle]

IIRC the M16A2 got a HB due to the fact that Joes in the field bent barrels using them as pry bars busting steel bands off of ammo pallets, NOT because of accuracy. Urban legend or is there any truth to it?

[SteyrAUG]

IIRC the M16A2 got a HB due to the fact that Joes in the field bent barrels using them as pry bars busting steel bands off of ammo pallets, NOT because of accuracy. Urban legend or is there any truth to it?

Probably urban legend. The A2 is only heavy profile forward of the handguards. Only the HBar is a full length heavy barrel. The Colt semi that is a copy of the A2 is called a Government profile barrel.

That said, I'm sure a lot of guys have screwed up rifles using them for stupid things. Pretty sure even if you gave them a full Hbar, they could still screw it up doing stupid things.

My understanding is the change to the A2 was more about mounting a M203 than anything else.

[Moose-Knuckle]

Probably urban legend. The A2 is only heavy profile forward of the handguards. Only the HBar is a full length heavy barrel. The Colt semi that is a copy of the A2 is called a Government profile barrel.

That said, I'm sure a lot of guys have screwed up rifles using them for stupid things. Pretty sure even if you gave them a full Hbar, they could still screw it up doing stupid things.

My understanding is the change to the A2 was more about mounting a M203 than anything else.

Ah hah, I forgot that the A2 didn't have an HB but the Government profile barrel.