That guy was a Ranger reconnaissance soldier.  He did say that.  I haven't durability tested it myself, because when I was issued one, I didn't beat on it, and now that I own one, I don't want to damage it because its here to be reference item and it cost $2050.  Maybe that person lied- I can't speak to that.  Back around 2004 I called KAC and someone there told me you could run an M4 14.5" barrel in the vicinity of 400 rounds to failure- also that the failure would be holing through a weld.  That person mentioned though that you could "cook" the can if you push it hard, and then it would be weaker and fail earlier.  That was back when I too was a moron who had paranoid thoughts about what a gun needed to do to keep someone alive.  I'm also human so I'm not immune to paranoid thoughts.

The hardest I'm aware of that an M4SDK has been run is 500 rounds in 5 minutes during a "burn down" with Aaron Cowen.  That gun I don't know what the barrel length is.  Maybe 11.5?  He doesn't shoot these to time anymore (I heard him say or someone post), but he claimed he did that one in under 5 minutes and the video isn't super clear at 720P, but I can see 04:XX on the phone screen in the video.


I don't run guns that hard personally.

I found that really shocking also.  Really soft sensibilities for the same crowd that throws the like ~14 or 18 cans we over-ran on that sniper section run in my face for the rest of my life (14 year old story at this point), even when it is totally unrelated to the topic.  

I protected Iraqi people.  I wasn't bad to Iraqi people.  I let a little kid maybe 8 years old shoot at me with a revolver in Samarra on deployment and I could have totally wasted him in a heartbeat, and he was ~65 yards out, poorly using a wooden electrical utility pole like a cartoon character for cover, and I just let him shoot at me- figuring he probably wouldn't connect, and not wanting to kill an Iraqi boy for being young and stupid- not willing to live with the memory of that.  Another time I had a person with an RPG in my M14 scope (with a PVS 14 monolocked to the eyebell) at night around 200 meters out, and I could have killed him per ROE, but as I was taking up slack on the trigger, I saw a person 2 feet or so taller than him walk into the scope next to him, and I realized that was an adult and he was a kid with a toy RPG his smaller scale size, playing in the street at night (probably a future terrorist/ child of a terrorist, or terrorist sympathizing family), but at that point, he was a kid playing the Iraqi equivalent of our childhood "cops and robbers"), and I didn't shoot that kid.  It takes reasonable skill and logic to make those inferences in a night vision rifle scope and I was proud of not being the dumb bastard who killed some relatively innocent kid with a Toy RPG.  

If you hate those people in deeds, you wouldn't have that kind of care for their lives.  

When I left Iraq after 4 years in that country over an nine year period of time, it was a little sad.  It was a second home at that point,  that's a considerable chapter in a person's life to close, and I understood that there was a high probability I would never return.

The Iraqi people are a frustrating people to deal with.  They act in ways I would consider harboring extreme resentment toward westerners.  I recall a moment I reached for my Glock as a result of a woman in black hijab and garb eye fucking me 3 feet off the bumper of my armored suburban.  The Glock would be quicker, with a wider field of fire than the 249 PARA in the rear window.  We were stuck in Baghdad traffic, at a standstill on a 6 lane street downtown.  She was reaching under her hijab chest level, as if she was pulling a hand grenade to toss into the open rear window.   The moment passed and she walked by, but I understood the gesture.  I understood the game she was playing.  She hated me on some level and needed me to know it and feel it.  I didn't skin the holster.  I was ready to, but she was just fucking with me like the Iraqi people somewhat like to do.  Their lives are cheaper to them than to me probably- that's my honest opinion after 4 years immersed in the culture.  That was a dangerous place for her to be.  She knew that, and she put herself there.