Tag Archives: firearms

On Light Machine Guns

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The US Army has decided that they might could replace the M249 with something. Possibly. Or maybe it’s just Lucy Van Pelt with her football. Anyway, the US Army claims it wants “Overmatch”. Or something.

Overmatch

The fear is, of course, Russians (or Chinese or whoever) with level IV-equivalent body armor. Let’s think about this for a minute. Level IV hard plates are rated to stop the .30-06 M2 AP round, which is a pretty darn good steel-core AP round. And no existing round short of .50 BMG is significantly better at penetrating armor than .30-06 M2 AP; it’s actually better at penetration than both Russian 7.62x54mmR B-32 API and 7.62x51mm M61. I’m not sure how a new 6.8 mm cased telescoped round is supposed to be massively better at armor penetration than .30-06 M2 AP, unless it’s supposed to use a tungsten core. Tungsten becomes problematic once you look at the cost and where most of the world’s tungsten is mined.

It could also be some sort of Magnum 6.8mm CT round with tons of velocity, but then managing recoil becomes a huge problem. After all, steel core .30-06 is not enough, so we need more energy. More energy means more recoil, because physics is a real jerk sometimes.

Let’s also recall my usual criticisms of some sort of radically new and unproven small arms technology, which is exactly polymer-cased telescoped ammo is. We’re talking about completely new ammunition manufacturing techniques, completely new cartridges, plus massive changes in how a firearm operates. We’ll let the US Army put up and prove the stuff or shut up. Come back and talk to us in five to seven years, and then we’ll know if it’s more than the next SPIW.

Okay, so that should deal with all the WONDERCALIBER advocates. Don’t trust Big Army to buy crazy new stuff. Wait for ambitious programs to come to a conclusion. Don’t be a beta tester. Wait for bugs to get worked out. And there will be bugs.

If we’re sticking with conventional calibers and known solutions, that makes our lives a lot easier. Let’s take a brief look at squads to see how we might use the LMG. I’ve been on record before that I don’t think squad size matters too much, and I still don’t. Picking the Namer as our (Heavy) IFV of choice lets me have a nice big dismount element of nine, which makes life easy. Nine men is a pretty classical dismounted infantry squad size. Squad leader, two fireteams of four men, and one LMG per fireteam. Two LMGs in the squad is a lot of firepower, and lets either team cover the other for fire and movement if desired.

Had we gone with a smaller, more conventional IFV with a dismount team of six or seven men, I would have copied the Australians and gone with two fireteams of three men each (plus a leader in the seven-man case) and kept the two LMGs per squad. Again, fire and movement. Also, it allows for better implementation of parapet foxholes.

And now, a brief word on command. In general we’d expect the IFV commander to be in overall command, and to remain in the vehicle when the troops get out. The vehicle commander would be senior to the dismount commander.

There is the pressing matter of caliber, configuration (i.e. mag fed or belt fed), and model. Let’s take those in order. Caliber is pretty easy. It should be our usual 5.56mm to maximize bullets per pound of loadout and (therefore) volume of fire capability. It’s also a lot easier to carry, since most GPMGs aren’t workable with a single gunner (i.e. without an assistant gunner).1

And we’re going belt-fed, because we want that big ammo reserve for suppression and sustained rates of fire. Large capacity drums are bulky, heavy, annoying, and generally unreliable. They also usually have to be stowed when empty. Screw that. Belts it is, by God and John Rambo!

Belt-fed 5.56mm light machine guns. They’re super fun to shoot. We just have to pick one. For the most part, they’re all pretty similar. The one that stands out weight-wise is Knight’s LAMG, which is significantly lighter than all the rest. Which should make it a slam dunk, except that no one else has bought them. And such a massive weight savings has me nervous, since there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I have some concerns about durability, and since no one has issued them on a wide scale, no one has worked the bugs out. Again, we don’t do beta tests. So we’ll pass too. Which basically leaves a whole bunch of equivalents in FN’s Minimi/M249, HK’s MG4, IWI’s Negev, and some others that I’m forgetting. They’re all pretty much the same, and I don’t think you can go wrong. Of course, this also means that there’s not much of a reason to switch, unless you wanted to beef up your local firearms industry. Since I hate wishy-washy conclusions, I’ll go with the proven M249, mostly because it’s the only one I have any time on. It’s also been licensed to a number of other countries.

I’m sure the Wondercaliber advocates are going to ask about body armor. Well, okay. Fine. Shoot them more. It’s a belt fed. Ceramic plates are only good for a few hits. Even the multihit rated ones. You have 200 rounds in the belt. Use ’em. Also, the real killer is and always has been high explosives. 40mm grenade launchers, rocket launchers, recoilless rifles, mortars, and especially artillery. More on that in a few days.

  1. I think this might be a change from the last time I wrote on squad support weapons. It happens. ↩

Overanalyzing John Wick’s TTI Combat Master 2011

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The trailer for John Wick Chapter 3 dropped some weeks ago. You can bet I’m super excited. With the trailer out, we see Keanu Reeves with some cool new hardware. And the NDAs on said hardware got lifted. John Wick has a snazzy new sidearm: a collaboration between STI and TTI to make a cool, tricked out 2011. Since I love John Wick, custom1 guns, and 2011s, I thought I’d take a crack at it.

The TTI Combat Master 2011 is built on a 2011 platform. It’s single action only and appears to have a government-length barrel (i.e. a 5″ barrel). The barrel is an “island” barrel, with a large milled rib on top, and a corresponding area milled out of the slide. This rib contains the front sight. Since the front sight doesn’t move, it’s easier to track through recoil. It also means there’s less slide mass, which means less reciprocating weight, which reduces felt recoil. The slide has also been “tri-topped”, which means it has a trapezoidal top cross section instead of the usual round one. This reduces weight and looks cool. There are also aggressive looking front and rear slide cocking serrations, plus some slide windows to show off the barrel finish, reduce weight, and look cool.2

The grip is a standard plastic model from STI with Taran Tactical’s excellent stippling applied all around. I would also expect it to have a tuned trigger. There’s also TTI’s 2011 magwell at the bottom for faster reloads.

One more thing to note is that, according to Taran himself, the TTI Combat Master is designed to shoot 9mm Major. Or, 9x19mm rounds where the muzzle velocity times bullet weight in grains divided by 1000 is greater than 165.

Let’s talk about caliber first. I like 9x19mm. 9mm Major is hot stuff. Really hot stuff. Hotter than most +P+ loads. In fact, it’s really hard to find commercial 9mm rounds from large manufacturers that make Major power factor. And it’s a really niche thing. Most of the people interested in 9mm Major shoot in USPSA Open Division, which is the only division where you can permissibly use rounds with a caliber of at least 0.354 inches (9mm) in diameter to make Major. And we open guys like shooting 9mm Major to get those power factor points and get gas to work the compensators and barrel ports you see in open guns. Gas is good. Those guns are based around lots of gas. Mr. Wick’s latest gun has no compensator and no barrel ports. In limited division, where iron sighted guns play, major power factor rounds must be at least 0.40 inches (10mm) in diameter. And, of course, from a “tactical” standpoint, pistol rounds that make major power factor don’t really perform any better than ones that don’t as far as defeating bad guys. Pistol rounds suck at that. Major power factor ones still do. You can pass the FBI standards with well-made 9mm rounds, and nobody sees much benefit to going hotter in the people-stopping department. At least, to the best of modern ballistics science.

I look forward to a fun movie explanation of why he’s rocking the major power factor ammo, of course.

Honestly, the biggest thing that confuses me here is the plastic grip. I know, that’s STI’s marketing campaign, some nonsense about “transmitting less recoil” or somesuch. I don’t know why it would “transmit” less recoil. Maybe it’s that notion of “polymer flex” that comes up sometimes when talking about recoil characteristics of polymer-framed handguns. I have no idea to what extent “polymer flex” is a thing, and frankly, I don’t care. I do know that competitive shooters love weight low in the gun. Like in the grip. Steel grips are super popular on 2011s that people modify/have built for them. SVI, Phoenix Trinity, and CK seem to have no trouble selling steel grips despite the added cost. Since I follow the top USPSA Open Division guys, I can say that the top 10 shooters at 2018 Open Nationals all had steel grips. And that’s in a division with compensators. From a shootability standpoint, steel grips are better, full stop.

Now, there are reasons you could argue to go with a polymer grip, like that it’s less annoying to carry (because it’s lighter) or because some people like them. But I’m betting this is STI marketing. At least it has a nice stipple job.

My one other big gripe is with the lack of red dot support. At this price point, it really should give you the option for a slide-mounted dot. Most other 2011s in this price bracket have such an option available, and dots are better. Some rules (e.g. Limited) don’t allow them, but it really ought to be something the end user can request. For 3-gun. Or for fighting one’s way through an army of angry assassins from the Continental.

It is a small thing, but the lack of even minor customization options is lame. No options for different trigger shoes? Seriously? This isn’t a 1980s Colt. Again, in this price bracket, lots of other places will let you pick trigger shoe length/color for no extra charge.

Overall, it’s a really nice gun, but it’s kinda overpriced for what it is: a pistol with zero options. If its set up the way you want, go for it. Rock on with your bad self. Otherwise, you can do better for just shy of four grand.

  1. Actual, properly custom guns. If you can’t specify every detail down to the screws of your gun, it’s not really custom. You just have some marketing-speak for “fancy”. ↩
  2. There are other ways to reduce slide weight and make it look cool. Consult your custom smith for details. If you can’t specify your own slide cuts, you aren’t at a custom shop. You’ve been had by the marketing guys. ↩

New Life for an Old Police Magnum

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When we last looked at my old 870, it had been through a ringer, and I changed a few things. I got a cool magpul stock and a magazine tube extension. Class notes gave me a few more things I wanted to change.

First: the sights, which entailed a new barrel with (bonus) fresh parkerizing. Basically, I wanted some sort of rear sight. I found myself dissatisfied with a bead (and no sight rib for the bead to sit on). I settled on a barrel set up for rifle sights that came from the factory with XS Express-style rifle sights. Perfect! These sights were originally designed for quick acquisition at close ranges while threatened by dangerous game on the African Savannah, and I can’t think of something more appropriate to what I want this shotgun to do. Plus, being barrel-mounted, they require exactly no gunsmithing of the receiver. Now I have a rear reference to avoid making elevation errors at range.

I could have gone with ghost ring sights, but those end up needing gunsmithing (to drill and tap the receiver), and I didn’t feel like doing that. A red dot would also have been a good choice, but that would have cost much more, and I didn’t feel like spending the money here. It would also probably have needed a gunsmithing trip.

Sights sorted, I next wanted to deal with the problem of illumination. I’m a firm believer of defensive weapons needing a light to identify targets. There are a bunch of ways to do this, and I settled on the most turnkey: the Surefire DSF-870 forend. It replaces the factory forend, and has a light and controls for said light built right in. Controls include momentary and constant on buttons, as well as a lockout switch so your batteries don’t run down in the safe. This solution isn’t the lightest or the cheapest, but it stands up to recoil pretty well and tends not to smash hands up.

So that’s that. And my shotgun is more or less done, aside from a likely future trip for some cerakote to refinish the receiver. Let’s take a brief moment to talk about something that isn’t on the gun: ammo saddles. There’s no cuff on the stock for ammo either.

For my purpose, I question the need for ammo on the gun. I’m not a law enforcement officer. I currently have a capacity of 6+1 shells. I really can’t see myself needing more than that in a defensive encounter. Shotgun shells are pretty good at making people stop doing whatever it is that they’re doing. Given that, plus the size of recorded home defensive encounters, plus the complete lack of relevant1 encounters where people run the shotgun dry has led me to skip the bother, cost, and weight of playing around with sidesaddles.

  1. For law-abiding civilians who are non-LEO. ↩

Parvusimperator and the Attack of the Pistol Caliber Carbines

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When first introduced, I, like many others, was not a fan of the PCC Division in USPSA. Frankly, I thought it was rather silly to shoot a carbine at a pistol match, even if the “P” in USPSA stands for Practical. Given some time, I’ve come to reconsider the division. And frankly, I could do with some carbine practice, even if that carbine is firing 9mm rounds. I love shooting carbines. It’s my first shooting love, if I’m to wax romantic for a bit. Anyway, this is an opportunity to get some carbine practice in, with the benefit that I don’t need a rifle-rated backstop. This allows me to get some close-in practice on pistol ranges, which are a bit easier to find in my current area. Plus they’re fun to shoot.

With my goals of ‘fun carbine practice’ in mind, let’s see what I’ll end up getting. I do need a competition-worthy PCC. Since I explicitly want this to drill carbine handling and shooting up close, I can ignore all of the faux-SBR “pistols” out there. I don’t have a desire to fill out a Form 1 on this. My goal, strangely enough, is to buy my PCC, add a red-dot sight of some sort, and get shooting. For once, I’m not looking to build or tinker my way to a solution.

So. Ignore the faux-SBRs and just about anything that isn’t intended as a turnkey-competition gun. And, non-SBR barrels are going to get me closer to the handling of my carbines, which are also not SBRs. I’m also going to require my PCC to use Glock magazines, because those are cheap and good and I already have a lot of them (yes, I have some of the 33-round mags). That disqualifies a lot of perfectly good guns, but I don’t care. These are my criteria.

Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I’m getting a JP GMR-15. It’s AR-15 based, so the feel and controls are the same. JP makes really nice stuff, and their 9mm carbines ‘just work’. Like their other carbines. It takes Glock mags, and it even has a functional last round bolt hold open. Not that it matters for a competition gun, but it’s nice to have. Oh, and it can be had with a sweet trigger.

The GMR-15 is a blowback-operated gun, like most other 9mm AR conversions. Technically speaking, a gas-operated gun would be softer. But we’re talking about a 9x19mm round fired from about seven pounds of carbine. Recoil is not going to be an issue. We’re principally concerned with movement of the dot, which can be controlled by adjusting the weights of the buffer and carrier. If we want to.

All that it’s going to need is a dot.

Deploying the 6.8 mm SPC 2 Cartridge

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The 6.8 mm SPC cartridge was designed to improve the firepower of US special operations forces without requiring the issuing of an entirely brand new rifle. It’s one of many alternative calibers for the AR-15. While it had the backing of Remington, and was designed with the help of some active special operations forces, a number of issues have come up to get in the way of its popularity. These include (in no particular order) two different SAAMI specifications for the cartridge, more effective 5.56 mm cartridges, ready availability of 7.62x51mm carbines, a whole bunch of other important gear that’s not going to pay for itself, and the round not being a non-NATO standard has mean that it hasn’t been adopted by the organizations that worked to develop it. However, a middle eastern special forces unit has adopted the weapon as a compact carbine. Let’s take a look.

This unit contracted with LWRC for the gun, with the goal of having a very short barrel (8.5″) and plenty of firepower. Given a relatively large order of more than 30,000 carbines, LWRC decided to make some changes. To ensure reliable feeding, they worked with Magpul to design 6.8-specific magazines. These are wider than standard AR-15 magazines, and the magwell on the new guns was widened to accept them. The new magazines have that same great windowed PMAG design, hold 30 rounds, and weigh 1.32 lbs fully loaded.

Other than the aforementioned 8.5″ barrel, the rifle has a quadrail handguard, pistol-length buffer tube, PDW-length stock, and a short-stroke gas piston system. The top rail of the handguard is removable to clean or service the gas piston. The rifle is the SIX8-UCIW. A version with a longer barrel, as well as an SBR version are available for civilian purchase, though obviously without select fire capability.

LWRC also worked with ATK (the parent company of Speer) to get a round that would function well in a rather short barrel. ATK obliged with a special round that will do the job, even with military flash suppressants. And yes, it’s SPC II spec.

Ok, what do we think? Well, it’s a solid execution of the “PDW” concept for a protective detail rather than for rear echelon troops. A short, relatively light package with plenty of firepower is exactly what this will deliver. I’m not a big fan of ‘nonstandard’ cartridges for general issue (who, admittedly are not expected to have super-short 8.5″ barrels), but I like the thought process here. Another tool in the toolbox, and one that fills a useful niche at that.

Best-in-Show, SHOT 2019

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Here, you’ll find our selections for most interesting things from SHOT 2019.

Parvusimperator’s Picks

Best Optic: Aimpoint Acro P-1

I like more options for my pistol optics, and Aimpoint has a great red dot sight track record. Seeing as there have been several revisions to the current sights targeted at the market, this late entry might still make a strong showing.

Best Pistol We’ve Been Wanting For Years: Glock 48

Seems a no-brainer to put ten rounds in something that’s Glock 19 sized, but thinner. For those who prefer carrying a slimmer pistol, are happy with (or legally restricted to) ten rounds, and want something to just work. Fortunately, Glock has finally delivered. I hope they put the time into getting this to work without issues.

Best Knife: Ka-Bar TDI Flipper Folder

Previous knives from the Ka-Bar/TDI partnership have been fixed blade. They’re generally well thought out and come in at a reasonable price. This one is also well thought out, also at a good price point. And it folds.

Best In Show: Walther Q5 Match SF

This had a soft launch before SHOT, but was there and was a star of range day. For more on this pistol, look at my write-up. This is also the product on this list that’s most likely to be purchased by me. I’m happy to see the best striker-fired handgun trigger get a cool steel frame for competition.

Fishbreath’s Picks

Best Glock In Disguise: Faxon Firearms FX-19

Building a polymer-framed striker-fired pistol is basically trivial nowadays. Start with a box of Glock parts and some calipers, and soon after, voila. Faxon Firearms gets bonus points for very aggressive styling and being known less as a gunmaker and more as a barrel manufacturer.

Best Video Game-Inspired Accessory: Radetec Glock Slide Shot Counter

Already known for round counters in smart grips, Radetec has gone further and made a smart slide which indicates whether there is a round in the chamber, how many are left in the magazine, and whether a magazine is inserted at all. Straight from the pages of your favorite dystopian fiction or the in-universe UI of your favorite sci-fi game.

Best Kel-Tec Vaporware: CP-33

Alternate heading: Most Innovative Magazine Design. The CP-33’s magazine is a double-double-stack design, which holds 33 rounds of .22LR out of the box, or 50 with an extended magazine. If only I could get one with a giggle switch.

Best MP5 Clone: Palmetto State Armory

It’s a true, roller-delayed MP5 clone, with nice Magpul furniture and a price tag HK would scoff at: $1100. I won’t be buying one, but it’s nice to see someone in America making a reasonably priced replica gun. I wonder if I could get them to do a Mauser C96 clone…

Best In Show: Franklin Armory’s Providence

A magazine-fed, manually-operated rifle where all you have to do is pull the trigger. By using a long pull and presumably a lot of leverage, the Providence trigger cycles the bolt and fires the next round all in one motion. A delightfully clever poke in the eye to jurisdictions with bad firearms law.

Extra: Hudson in Trouble

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Original (Jan 24, 1249)

From SHOT Show:

This is the space reserved for the Hudson booth. It’s curiously empty.

If we dig, we can see why:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7754152/cambridge-valley-machining-inc-v-hudson-mfg-llc/

Hudson’s parts supplier alleges that they have not been paid. Hudson alleges that the parts were not to spec. It’s ugly, and the court filing goes back to September. I suspect that the parts supplier is too small to take the hit, and Hudson lacks the cash flow/line of credit to simply get parts elsewhere.

Regrettably, setting up a manufacturing business in the United States is very hard.

Update (Jan 24, 1308) (Fishbreath)

As it turns out, the first $15/quarter of PACER access is free, so I went ahead and registered, installed the RECAP extension to upload anything I view to the Free Law Project, and scored Hudson’s counterclaim. Here you go.

Journalism-ing.

Walther Q5 Match SF

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Not quite a “New at SHOT Show” piece, since it came out just before, but cool nonetheless. Walther has introduced a new PPQ derivative. They’ve taken their excellent Q5 Match and put it on top of a brand new steel frame. It’s aimed squarely at the competition market, combining the PPQ’s fantastic trigger1 with a lot more weight to soak up recoil. This gun is intended to compete with pistols like the Tanfoglio Stock II and CZ Shadow 2, now that IPSC changed the trigger pull weight rules. Let’s take a look.

Q5 Match SF

Let’s talk through the features. It’s got the same slide as the regular Q5. So it’s got slide cuts to look cool, catch your eye in the display case, and keep the slide weight down so they can still use the same recoil assembly as the regular PPQ. It also has a really excellent optics mounting plate setup that’s very sturdy. It’s great at keeping the optic of your choice securely mounted. Factory sights are fiber optic front and black rear, in case you want to compete in a non-optics division.

That steel frame is the kicker, upping the empty weight to 41.6 oz. from the 21.9 oz. of the standard Q5 Match. Weight fights recoil. For competition, weight is good. The most popular pistols for Production are steel-framed CZ 75 derivatives. Even in Open, where compensators and porting are allowed, all of the top ten shooters in Open Nationals (and a whole lot more besides) have opted for a steel grip to add weight.

The stock trigger is about 5.6 lbs. or so. At least according to Walther. It’s smooth and nice though, so you’ll think it’s lighter. And if you actually wanted lighter, it’s a simple matter to swap two springs to get the pull weight down around 3 lbs. Contact Springco if you’d like a set.

A factory magwell is available for the Q5 Match SF as well, should you want one and be permitted one in your competition of choice.

Walter’s PPQ magazines are well-designed as well. For those of you interested in loading up, here’s a recipe that should get you 23 rounds. Start with the Walther mag body. Order the Grams spring and follower kit for a P320. Shave the tab off the follower that engages the P320’s slide stop, and it’ll fit wonderfully in your PPQ mag body. Add at TTI baseplate and you’re ready to shred.

As for the price, MSRP is a little high, but not unforgivably so at $1,399.99. A bit pricey, but it is a niche market that they’re going for. It’s roughly what you’d pay for a Shadow 2 with all of the Cajun Gun Works goodies.

And yes, I want one.

  1. Fishbreath and I agree it’s the best striker-fired trigger on the market. ↩

Witness Protection Shotgun

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There are a number of shotguns released today designed to avoid classification as a “short barreled shotgun”. For our international readers, under the complicated and confusing US law, a “short barreled shotgun” has to be registered with the ATF, which means a $200 fee, fingerprints, photos, and a six month wait. But a short, “stockless” gun like the Tac-14, Shockwave or V3 Tac-13 is not legally an SBS, and so you can buy it and take it home with you immediately, with no extra fee.1

Now, lots of people will debate the utility of such a weapon. I think the utility might be best understood with a little history, not that every weapon needs to serve a practical purpose. Some guns are fun guns, and that’s awesome. But this weapon has good applications. For one, shotguns with slugs are good bear repellent, and a very compact, stockless shotgun can be strapped to or thrown in a backpack pretty easily.

What many may not know is that the US Marshals had a professional gunsmith make something an awful lot like the Tac-14 back in the 80s. They called it the Witness Protection Shotgun. Being law enforcement, the US Marshals could buy what the NFA would call “Short Barreled Shotguns” with 14″ barrels and stocks no problem. But that’s not what these were.

The Witness Protection Shotgun started life as a Remington 870. It had a 12.5″ barrel, which was as short as they could cut the 870’s barrel given how it attaches to the rest of the gun. It also had a cut, shaped, and refinished “bird’s head” grip of wood, shaped a lot like you’d see on the Tac-14. They also added a sling plate at the front, much like the Wilson Combat vertical sling plate. The idea here was to both attach a sling and provide a handstop to make sure that the support hand didn’t end up in front of the muzzle. Magazine capacity was four 2 3/4″ shells.

You may have figured out the intended role from the name. The idea was to have a tremendously powerful, concealable weapon for use in the witness protection program. With a very short barrel, no stock, and general lack of bulk that comes from a pump shotgun (as compared to say, a Colt Commando), the Witness Protection Shotgun was easy for a marshal to hide under his coat. These were popular with the US Marshals in the 80s, and then fell out of favor.

And with proper technique you won’t hit yourself in the face when shooting one either.

  1. Your mileage may vary. Some restrictions may apply if your state is run by communists. ↩

Let’s Bash: The “Combat-Reliable” AR-15 Build

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TFB ran an article about a so-called “Combat-Reliable” AR-15 build. It’s silly.

First, the concept is dumb. What does “Combat-Reliable” even mean? Looking at the parts list, lots haven’t been used in actual combat. And that would be “combat tested”. If you want a “combat reliable” rifle, here’s one, albeit one with a slightly longer barrel. And technically, without burst or auto fire capability. Let’s say you’re an army and looking to buy carbines. You’re not going to gucci it up and spec out specific parts. You’re going to call your preferred FMS-approved vendors, buy some M4s,1 and go have beers. You don’t want to bother with parts compatibility and testing. And carbines aren’t all that important anyway. They need to work. Savings can go into more important things like bombs and artillery.

And really, if we look at how many rounds are fired in combat, it tends to fall way short of the MRBS numbers on an existing Colt/FN/whoever M4. Not to mention that there’s a big supply chain for parts for boring old M4s already. If your bolt breaks, replace it. Which you can do with the existing supply system.

But ok. Let’s suppose we want to make a rifle as reliable as possible for our own reasons. Which is fine. That’s a thing we can do as a civilian with our own money. Let’s just not make too much of a fetish of combat. It’s not 2006 anymore. So let’s look at the particular parts.

Lower, why? Billet because it’s cool? There are other lowers (Radian AX556, LMT MARS) that do all this one can AND let you lock the bolt back from either side, so they do ambi better. The LMT is also forged, so it should be lighter. Billet lowers look awesome, but do nothing for reliability.

Upper: Why?! Again, are we picking this part because it looks cool? Fine, but don’t try to tell me it’s somehow “more reliable”. Why still have the forward assist? Where’s the reliability/functionality gain? If you want “more rigidity” (not that I think it matters), get the Vltor MUR. Otherwise, go forged. On the other hand, if this build was sponsored by San Tan Tactical, good on your for getting a sponsor, and why aren’t you touting their awesomeness for being part of your project?

Bolt carrier: It’s a standard full-auto spec carrier, which is a fine part. Let’s look at the coating though. There are a lot of coatings out there. Hard chrome is chosen here, but there’s also DLC/Ionbond, NiB and NP3 (nickel-teflon). What I have never, ever found is any actual data showing that these are actually better than the standard parkerization in field use. Yes, some coatings are harder or more naturally lubricative. But the AR-15 is normally run with oil on the carrier and bolt, and the mil-spec phosphate coating “holds” lubrication pretty well. Now, if you want to make the argument that some other, non-standard coating is better, you need to tell us what we’re trying to improve. NP3 is the slickest and DLC is the hardest, so those seem like obvious choices. Hard chrome is great for abrasion resistance, and it looks awesome, but these are internal parts and the existing phosphated carriers don’t really have a problem with abrasion.

Bolt: This is a standard bolt with a hard chrome coating. There are bolts out there made of better steel that have extractors with better tension and lugs that are more resistant to shear. If your goal is to make a super tough rifle, you should probably have one of those.

Rail: The centurion rails are a nice upgrade to a milspec rifle build because they fit the stock barrel nut and are freefloated. But this is built from scratch, so why use the “stock” barrel nut at all? Geissele Mk 16 (from the URGI) seems the obvious choice here, because MLOK is lighter, cheaper, and doesn’t require rail covers. Geissele claims that their rail is the most rigid, which is good if you plan on attaching lasers to it and are looking for the last 1% of awesomeness. Also, most aftermarket barrel nuts that are reasonably modern don’t require timing for the gas tube, which is great. As a builder, timing is an annoying step.

If you want to argue that quad rails are the right choice, you need to tell us why. Most people are going another direction, including USASOC. USASOC going mlok seems to indicate that it’s certainly tough enough. Even if you want to go quadrail, why 9″? Why not go longer and have more room for accessories/your hand/bracing on a support? I’ve seen no data indicating that quadrails are actually any better at retaining accessories, if that’s a concern. They’re also more expensive.

Gas block: Why bother with a folding front sight block in 2018? Irons are not your primary. Get a longer rail and put folding BUIS on that like a normal person. You can’t even make a durability argument here, because those still fold. A fixed FSB would be more rugged, but that’s not what you have here.

I would argue, like Ian and Karl did with the WWSD rifles, that buis are superfluous these days, but I recognize that not everyone agrees. If you want irons, get something that is made of better materials than the ARMS sights and is elevation adjustable. Those rear sights aren’t all that durable, and isn’t that our goal here? Not to use old parts from 2006?

Barrel: Why is midlength gas optimal on a 16″ We’ve just seen Crane testing show that midlength is better than carbine gas on a 14.5″ barrel. So maybe intermediate gas is better on a 16″. Also, that is a government profile barrel, and that is a stupid, muzzle-heavy profile. Either go with a lightweight profile to save weight, or go with a medium profile for better accuracy/automatic fire capability. The government profile makes no sense.

The chosen flash hider should be able to mount a suppressor. If we want “combat” suppressors, maybe the Surefire SOCOM ones that have seen combat. But in any case, suppressor capability should be there. Even the basic “A2” flash hider can mount some suppressors.

Stock: Again, a really old part. Why? There are better stocks. There are certainly tougher stocks, to the extent that such things matter.

  1. Or HK 416s, since those are about 95% M4. ↩