A buddy of mine is finally scraping together the money to buy his first AR kit. He emailed me a question about the differences between the CAR and the M4. I explained it to him in a nut shell but thought I'd enlist the help of the experts here. Can you guys help my buddy decide which kit to go with by posting the differences between the two weapons, maybe with some pics to help out.

Also, if possible, your choice of who to go through to order a good kit.

Thanks, Quib.

The term CAR can mean colt automatic rifle but is more commonaly used to describe the early carbines the first model with short triangle handgaurds and the xm177e1 and e2 the model 653 but it wasnt until the army officialy adopted the M4 in 93,wich the earlier carbines are its ancestors the M4 continues the designation of army carbines M1,M2,M3 and 50 years later ,now the M4,even though the military,more commonly special forces have always used a carbine M16 version they were never officialy adopted the way the M4 is now an issue carbine.Go to www.isayeret.com its the israeli special forces site they have alot of examples of carbines.I would say the more current ancestor to the M4 was the 653 carbine wich was the first variant to have the 14.5 inch barrel the xm177s had the 10" and 11.5" with the 4" supressor on it.