Ok....I know for us non-military it mkaes sense to get it to the 16" mark.  What I have always wondered though was why did they use it on the XM177 and earlt carbines.  If they are gonna use the 11.5" barrel then why did they stick such a long flash suppressor on it?  Is there any advantage to such a long FS?  Does it do a better job of flash suppression than a normal length one?  I just wondered if anyone knew if there was a logical reason behind it.  I`m just curious....

The original 'hiders' as used by the military also worked as a sound suppressor.

(dupe)

There never was a legitimate reason why the design idiots at Colt took a 10 inch (later 11.5 inch) barrel and stuck that beer can suppressor on it---rather than simply going to a 14.5 incher with the standard flash suppressor. They just did it that way, and got first the Air Force, and then the Army, to buy them.

Understand something.  Colt has been a totally screwed up outfit for at least the past 75 years, and some would argue that it's been ever since Sam Colt died. Both their design, and their sales operations are inhabited with fools who have managed to use the Colt name to sell misdesigned products to unsuspecting buyers; including the US Government.

Examples?  Well, they pissed John Browning off enough to send him to Belgium for all his later designs, and the 1911 .45 was last last pistol Colt ever made that was worth having. This is a compeny who  hired, in the 1970s, a guy to be corpotate President, after he'd been fired as a sales manager by Ruger, for totally screwing up his job.  Under his "enlightened" stewardship, Colt brought out a .380 pstol, and a double action .45 theat was a complete piece of junk.


Now, sfter having said all that. I have to tell you that my very favorite AR is the SP1 carbine that I had built into an XM177E2 clone over 25 years ago.  I like the M4gery I built up a few years ago very much, but it will never replace that 177 in my heart, or in my hands, if the feces ever hits the fan in my part of the world.  

I have an 11.5/5.5 A2 upper and I use it to piss off people at the range because it's louder than hell with XM193 ammo. That said I wouldn't have it if it hadn't come with a preban lower I bought earlier this year....

-sc