Aye

@Sylvan
I disagree

We want to Geissele all the things, yet you can Geissele all the things on the 416 as well. You don't need to spend an obscene amount of money on HK rails and triggers. If the HK416 became the defacto weapon of everyone tomorrow, companies like DD, Geissele, etc would still be developing things for them when the time comes that the military released a RFI/RFP. Delta and DEVGRU have both Geisseled/wilcoxd out their 416's, they did not have to go to HK and they did not get stuck with the 2004 model either.

I'm pretty certain every item on the M4A1 for both the Army and SOCOM were not in wide circulation prior to being developed for a RFP put out. What items come standard on the rifle that were developed through civilian companies, for civilians, before being adopted? Do you have any specific examples to text in red?

At the end of the day, the Military could completely swap weapon systems to whatever they want and the civilian market can keep chugging away at the AR-15...and the Military will still upgrade parts of the rifle as they need, because government contracts are worth money and when a RFP gets put out companies will build what is needed in a hope to win.

Is that based upon your experience?

Troops exchange issue for personally procured all the time.

For the infantryman, spending 1500 dollars on your deployed kit for a better grip, trigger, extractor spring, and optic is money well spent.  maybe a nitrided or NiB bolt.  Upgraded spring.

really the rail is the only thing that might get some looks.  

As a former commander, you could drop an entirely different upper on as long as it wasn't retarded and I wouldn't say shit to them as long as it was better than issue.

I know Freefall7 did that on his last push.

The 416 uses the same grip, stock and optics as the M4...So that's a moot point.

The 416 can also have the same uppers put on it as the M4 so also moot.

Also I find it interesting that soldiers would need to buy entirely new bolt carrier groups, the heart of the M4, or new springs.

What you're telling me is that the standard BCG with copper washed extractor spring doesn't get the job done, it's a sub optimal part that requires spending a couple hundred dollars on after market solutions to make the M4 work.

If a gun needs an entirely new heart....Maybe it's time for an entirely new gun that won't require $1500 worth of aftermarket parts to make work.

The gun should work as issued.

It's a damn shame we issue a weapon that requires an extra $1500 to make work.

Imagine if the Army would put that $1500 towards the $678 of the M4A1 and actually buy a weapon that doesn't need that extra money to make run.

Apparently others feel the M4 is inadequate without aftermarket parts as well.

Current issue weapon does fine. Hk perfection has required a lot more modifications to even make it usable.  M4a1.  416a6.  And counting

Then why does the M4 require a new BCG and springs to make it work?

The M4 has had 92 performance related engineering changes since 1994.

Really the M4 should be the M4A92. I mean PEO love to tote out how many ECP(engineering change proposals) the M4 has had to undergo to keep it running

The 416 has had 5 performance related engineering changes since 2004.

13 years and 5 upgrade vs 23 years and 92 upgrades.

The 416 seems to be doing pretty good compared to the M4 in that area.

Also what is this 416A6?

You are confusing work with better
You should read more and post less.

You incessantly desire to argue with men who use these tools professionally and to do so poorly.

None of the people i shot with my m4 would be any deader with a piston. And. No one i didnt shoot would have been shot had i a piston

The only point you have successfully made in this thread or any other is to demonstrate your ignorance on both the military and firearms

LOL.

The 416 has had five whole generations. It's had dozens of performance changes itself to fix the receiver cracking issues on up.

Works better with better components =! requires better components to work.

Remember, contracts are generally won by the lowest bidder. Service rifles are a compromise of cost and reliability, and there is a point of diminishing returns where a major cost increase causes only a slight improvement in functionality.

It's also fact that the ergonomics and human engineering of any given rifle will not, as a rule, fit all individuals issued said rifle. Stocks, grips, and optics are very much a matter of personal preference.

And remember: the M4A1 does not beat its upper receiver to death like the HK416. Likewise, SOCOM dropped the HK416 for the M4A1.

Come again? No one's dropped the 416 for the M4A1.

The guys who adopted the 416 still use it.

AWG?

Yep huge success for the M4!....Not, the AWG had no choice, they were forced to give up the 416.

Pay attention to the end, AWG called the M4 a reduction in capability.
AWG found a capability gap and fixed it with the 416. Army Brass didn't like them having a gun that was superior to the M4, so they made them turn it in and use the M4.

LOL

Are you implying AWG willingly went back to the M4 of their own volition?

AWG was pissed because they were told to stop using their SOF gear and look like they belonged. And the one thing most SOF dudes don't want to do is look like legs. You think they went back to BDUs because it's better or so everyone would know?!

BDU woodland vs UCP?

Isn't the woodland camo on the BDU the better camo, like isn't anything better than UCP.

You're really telling me the only reason they were mad was because they now fit in. Not because the M4 was inferior, no it was because they weren't special?

Are you trying to imply that you have any firsthand knowledge of SOF?

It doesn't work like that.

USSOCOM has its own procurement system completely separate from the Army.  It also has its own funding, separate from the Army's money.

Woodland vs. Multicam.

Multicam was the absolute best camo available right until it was issued to the regular army.

then it was woodland.

Odd how that works.

Well I guess when the Army finally begins issuing piston guns, Delta and JSOC and all them will immediately go back to the DI M4.

You're badly misinformed if you think they abandoned them before.

Since this is tech, lets keep it technical.

Tell me what happened then? Because from what I'm seeing they are rocking 10" and 14.5" HK416's. Do you have some form of proof showing they are actually using M4A1's?

I'm not in the proof business. But you'd be fucking shocked what people will tell you in PM around here.

Are you using this as an example of when they used the 1911 while big Army had the M9?

No.

And the fact you said that just highlights how out of your depth you are.

Look closer.

And then you will realize the dirty little secrets of gun buying even by elite forces.

Didn't a bunch of guys flirt with .40 back in those days?

At the same time didn't the G20 have a ton of issues with WMLs?

That said are STI 1911s bad? Im not a huge 1911 fan and I've only purchased colts.

Anyways...That's actually a really compelling argument about wanting be unique....

No its not.
The story I heard, which could be wrong.

They started off with 2011s.  But nobody trusted them.  but they had bought a metric ton of 40, probably more than that considering how much they shoot.  So they went to G22s.  But then they sucked, so now they are using G17s (I think) which is right back to Austrian standard issue circa 1987 plus some fancy dodads.

The point being is every wants the latest hotness and when you have fat budgets you buy it.  then you realize it is worse than what you had.  So everyone talks about what you bought instead of what you use.

you should know these things if you are going to be a jock sniffer.

But they appear to be using the 416. They were seen with the PKK just the other day with them.

Thread sucks now.

The HK GD thread was full of tech. But it got nuked because some procurement industry guys got in a hissy.

And here we are far off the subject. In a Tech forum

Bro, I could not agree with you anymore with that statement. I bought a HK MR556 upper, and had it modified by IGF to be similiar to the HK416. Very nice upper, and based on Augee's advice, will be buying a AAC M4-2000 to mount to it to see how it shoots suppressed. The concern I had with it was the gas block, and no matter what people do and say, there is no set fix to the gas block problem that hopefully the HK416A5 solves. Each individual gun performs different according to what I read from many people on this and the HK Forum.

That being said, the HK is a very nice gun, but IMHO, it really does not do anything better than any of my DI AR's or my work M-4. As long as I keep them cleaned and oiled, the guns go "bang" every time I pull the trigger

This should be the period at the end of every HK vs Everything else thread that ever existed.

Wow...

This thread is still going?  

I really like the 416, it's got a lot of features I like, small touches like the handguard/barrel nut setup, the flared magwell, the raised receivers, etc.  I could frankly take or leave the piston.  Quality of parts and materials is very high, many components will last far longer than the M4, but some will not last as long.  

Little touches aside, the 416 will do nothing that a top of the line modern DI gun won't do for cheaper--and for the civilian shooter, greatly complicating anything resembling "logistics."  

What the HK did was provide a "system" solution, and was able to deliver to those who could push it through and pay on the right timeline.  Sub-compact DI ARs have gotten to the point today where they're frankly boring in terms of reliability expectations.  In the early 2000s, up through 2004-5 when the 416 was making its way into limited service, this wasn't the case, we forget how unreliable sub-14.5" ARs were considered back then, and short guns were a big reliability compromise, a compromise that the organization asking for the HK416 wasn't willing to accept.  Again, we're talking the days before improved extractors, when you still had to put "O" rings in your bolts to run short guns, when folks were flirting with pigtail and "fat boy" gastubes, etc.  

HK made a short gun that worked reliably that could be bought as a full package, not just the gun and the support, but new magazines (days when "polymer mag" mean Thermelts), and were it up to them, new suppressors, too, but that's neither here nor there.  

The folks that could adopted them.  Those that couldn't waited for the CQBR.  Some tried to get them, and even got to use them for a little bit, but got their peckers smacked for going around the system, and not using the "in house" solution.  

My opinion alone, the A5 is no improvement, and AGBs are snake oil, cause more problems than they solve. ::shrug::  Besides that, they come with some ambi features and some detail changes to the receivers, most notably the magwell angle--but really just amounts to being tarted up for the aborted IC competition without any real performance improvements, but folks drool over the AGB... so be it.  

The A3 is a good gun, and it makes for a great sub-compact assault rifle.  Barrels and bolts typically last longer, but you need to learn to maintain the 416 differently than you would an M4.  It's not a better or worse issue, it's a different enough gun that different parts need to be serviced/replaced at different intervals.  Again, some of those are longer and some are shorter than on an M4.  

This whole "HK416 is bestest gun ever" vs. "HK416 is piece of shit" argument is a little ridiculous.  Beyond that, if nothing else, it's historically significant to those who care about such things, as something of a "proof of concept" that a 10"-barreled assault rifle was a viable option for a primary individual weapon.  

Couple other notes worth mentioning:

SOCOM =/= JSOC.  If you confuse the two, it's pretty much a 100% indication that you have no idea what you're talking about.  I'll leave it at that.  

Specialty weapons and outliers aside, it's disingenuous to suggest that the HK416 is not "widely" used, and generally well liked by end users.  Whether that's because "most end users are gun guys" or however you want to justify it, there's always someone somewhere who thinks they know better and will tell everyone they meet.  According to "insiders" like the ones on M4C and P&S, the HK416 has been "on the way out" for about ten years now.  Yet here we are.  It's still a standard weapon for organizations that use it.  

.40 is still in use, but has never been "exclusively" used, hence the need for different colored magazines.  

"Rumor" is that when, for a variety of reasons, the decision was made to move past custom 1911s to a double-stack gun, a certain someone wanted the organization's duty weapon to be the same as his competition gun, which was... a 2011 in .40.  

Early 2011 magazines (IIRC, the 140mms) were problematic, so G22s were bought as "backups."  After a work-up, no one wanted to carry the STIs over the LD, so the G22s went instead.    

~Augee

Care to elaborate on your opinion here? I ask as I feel they're the only way to run piston guns optimally suppressed and unsuppressed.

Adds complexity and moving parts, many of which are small, not to mention expense--and a lot of it when HK is involved.  In general, I am not a fan of AGBs, HK or not.  

My opinion is that a well balanced combat rifle should be able to be fired suppressed or unsuppressed without changing any parts or settings, again, this adds unnecessary complication to using the weapon.  With a 5.56 in particular, I am more than satisfied eating a little bit of extra recoil (let's not forget the big weight hanging off the end of the gun mitigating recoil) and a nominal decrease in parts longevity compared to a "tuned" weapon.  I don't bitch about "gassy-ness," and not that "overgassing" is not a thing--but I think it is overblown the way most people discuss it, and usually they have no clue what they're talking about anyways, and are basing their judgments off a "chart" that they saw posted on the internet without really understanding what it meant.  Ultimately, besides an increase in fouling, I have not seen any indications that there are practical benefits to immediate reliability (again, as opposed to longevity) to a properly set up weapon.

This is weight against the fact that you're often talking about complex assemblies with small parts that are receiving a lot of heat, not to mention the fact that the weapon will invariably be on the "wrong" setting when you need it most--that's just the way Murphy works.  

In the specific case of the HK416--the A5 AGB is a second attempt at an AGB, the 416N gas block was dropped for admittedly having problems, and was not adapted for the A5--instead, the AGB from the HK417 was used as the basis--another gun that HK has never been able to get to run very well, making the choice to use its gas system as the basis for the 416 not a confidence inspiring one.  

~Augee

think a Knights QDSS  would work for 14.5 416 ?

since some of you guys are inside the machine and might know...., how did the LWRC rifle do in the testing? what were its weak points?

thanks.

I would imagine it would work "better," honestly have never used that combination.  

Does not really change the fact that the QDSS isn't the best can for the system.  

The Marines have been using QDSS on some of their M27s (16" barrel versus 14.5", but should generally behave the same).  

QDSS were used on the 416 for a while, but again, were fairly quickly replaced by Surefire and AAC in military use.  

~Augee

which AAC do they use ? m42000 ?

Maybe?

AAC made 416-SD cans. They may still do for outside the displace cases...
Not sure what the difference is. The 416SD, 556SD, and M42000 are all very similar.

hope they dont have to deal with the new 51T m4-2k cans. mine has a horrible POI windage and elevation shift, had to shim the mount to get it in a vertical shift. the back pressure in the newer ones is pretty bad too, lots of blow back into the receiver and mag.

my older m4-2k 18T had much less POI shift, less back pressure too.

my favorite AAC devise is the old original SCAR-SD can that was short. not as quiet but it doesnt foul out the receiver as fast.