What is sad, my LWRC 16" upper does not have one and it almost seems wrong. We are so used to the M4 profile it seems the norm.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
What is sad, my LWRC 16" upper does not have one and it almost seems wrong. We are so used to the M4 profile it seems the norm.
Glocks are functional tools and nothing else, hence they have no soul - Rob S.
"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass."
Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, 1941
"A wise man's heart directs him toward the right, but a foolish man's heart directs him toward the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2:
Last edited by Thomas M-4; 10-08-09 at 16:04.
For God and the soldier we adore, In time of danger, not before! The danger passed, and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier slighted." - Rudyard Kipling
Because it looks cool.
Last edited by Killjoy; 10-07-09 at 21:59.
The opinions expressed on this board are mine and mine alone. They do not represent any departments or organizations I may be a member of.
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." - ILN, 4/19/30
"He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." - Varied Types
G.K. Chesterton
M4 barrel profiles are probably cut by CNC program on a lathe - I doubt a separate machine would be necessary for each profile. I could be wrong.
What I have seen posted around the i-net by some is the assertion that an M4 profile is milspec and therefore intrinsically superior because of it. Therefore it's the only possible choice for a genuine M4gery. Ah huh.
Personally, the Gov't forcing the barrel to conform to the M203 mount rather than vice versa is a prime example of the way some decisions can be made in hierarchal bureaucracies. Was it really cheaper to make every barrel with a narrow section rather than fix the mounts? I guess.
Perhaps someone in on the groupthink or pulse on the line item expeditures might chime in.
Theoretically it can be, as it creates a (theoretical) weak point for the barrel to flex around as it heats up. One of my .pdfs has the "shoot 'til destruction" tests for the M4 and M16, wherein it described where the barrels would first fail. Gonna have to check it to see if the M4's barrel fails nearer that little notch (curiosity on my part).
I have no special fascination with the M4 profile, and would frankly rather not have it at all. Reading Lilja's articles about barrels has done quite a bit to influence what I want in a barrel (a consistent contour that promotes overall stiffness, for example, rather than the multiple steps or tiers of the M4 profiles).
-B
RIP, Jeff Dorr: 1964 - July 17, 2009
"When young men seek to be like you, when lazy men resent you, when powerful men look over their shoulder at you, when cowardly men plot behind your back, when corrupt men wish you were gone and evil men want you dead . . . Only then will you have done your share." - Phil Messina
My SP1 Colt CAR back in the 80s had the light barrel, which I liked. Rather foolishly I got rid of it. The highly inferior (?) BM I now just came with the M4 profile. I don't dislike it intensely but neither do I need the weight. Comes the day I will replace it with a light "pencil barrel".
I actually don't think most buyers really care, from the safe-stuffer and internet-picture-poster to the "hard-use" guys, I don't really see much preference across the board. Yes, you have the replica builders that care, but beyond that there's little concern for the barrel profile.
I do think that there is a perception in the industry that buyers want a visually identical gun to what they see on CNN, I just don't think that "want" is really as strong as many think.
One could easily look at picture threads here and on TOS and make the assumption that everyone "wants" that profile, but it's much more common that people buy what they find available.
Manufacturers are coming around. BCM's midlength uppers are "government" profile with a thin .625" barrel under the handguards and a fatter .750 outside. Paul has posted that they will be putting out barrels that keep that .625"+/- all the way out. Take a look at Grant's thread on Colt 6520 barrels and you'll see a lot of people with interest in them. CMMG's "pencil" barrels were very popular as well.
To be sure, there are people that don't care either way. They don't mind the extra weight, or maybe even prefer it, but as Grant posted consumers are becoming more educated and are looking for things like the Noveske N4 barrel (which maintains the same overall weight but in a more sensible profile) and the 6520 or other .625" diameter barrel that is a more sensible profile AND lighter.
So yeah, I'm sure that somewhere out there you can find people that bought the M4 profile on purpose just because that's what they saw on CNN (or even what they were issued), but I truly don't think that most people really care. And if they did care at the initial purchase, it only takes 3 hours of a basic drills night to totally change their mindset.
Last edited by rob_s; 10-08-09 at 06:48.
Bookmarks