overheating or not?

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - overheating or not?

Posted: 1/15/2006 4:29:20 PM EDT

well i cant seem to keep my finger off the trigger...i mean i guess i just like the sight of smoke and fire, and the sound, and the shells and dirt flyin...but i dont know when the barrel gets tooo hot. What would be some effects of it overheating beside accuracy and how hot would it have to get to do damage. btw i have a bushmaster with A3 upper and M4 profile 16" barrel. I frikin love it so much. i shot it for the first time yesterday and again today. already put about 600 rounds thru it. Tried seachin but not to much found. I think many people would find interest in this topic or i wouldnt have posted. Thanks so much for any help fellas

Posted: 1/15/2006 4:42:55 PM EDT

[#1]

Dont worry, you wont get it hot enough to hurt anything

Posted: 1/15/2006 4:52:30 PM EDT

[#2]

thats exactly what i wanted to hear, and i want to believe you, but there has to be some kind of limit. i am a fan of the 30 round burst haha. maybe im just overcausous if thats even possible. but it gets hot to where i cant realy touch it. what would be awesome is if there was a temp guage that would go on the barrel under the handguard and have a small readout somewhere. now that would be nice. i greatly appreciate your response and i dont feel as bad now haha thanks again. any more input would be appreciated greatly btw everythign is stock on it (stock handguards)

Posted: 1/15/2006 4:57:42 PM EDT

[#3]

If it glows red you need to slow down.

Posted: 1/15/2006 5:02:02 PM EDT

[#4]

is there ne chance of it failing and exploding or blowing up i just want to make sure we are all safe and thanks again

Posted: 1/15/2006 5:04:38 PM EDT

[#5]

Quoted:
well i cant seem to keep my finger off the trigger...i mean i guess i just like the sight of smoke and fire, and the sound, and the shells and dirt flyin...but i dont know when the barrel gets tooo hot. What would be some effects of it overheating beside accuracy and how hot would it have to get to do damage. btw i have a bushmaster with A3 upper and M4 profile 16" barrel. I frikin love it so much. i shot it for the first time yesterday and again today. already put about 600 rounds thru it. Tried seachin but not to much found. I think many people would find interest in this topic or i wouldnt have posted. Thanks so much for any help fellas

Fired six 30 round magazines, and then a ten round magazine as fast as I could pull the trigger on my Bushmaster M4 14.5inch barrel with Phantom. My finger was really getting tired, but I did melt the handguards a little near the top, so this would be damage. You should be ok for about 4 magazines.

Posted: 1/15/2006 5:05:22 PM EDT

[#6]

I went thru 2 Beta-C's and 6 30 round magazines in less than 20 minutes with a M4 upper yesterday.

That Barrel got really hot, I mean really hot

Posted: 1/15/2006 5:10:34 PM EDT

[#7]

Quoted:
If it glows red you need to slow down.

Posted: 1/15/2006 5:19:39 PM EDT

[#8]

thanks a lot fellas i hope this is useful to others btw im shootin wolf polymer. i liek it so far. guns smells like amonia kinda . but im ok with that. haha this is stupid but how do you use the sights on it where exactly do you put the front sights in accordance to the rear aka where do you line them up

Posted: 1/15/2006 5:28:11 PM EDT

[#9]

If you are really curioius to see how hot the barrel gets, you could possibly try an infrared thermometer. They're available for under $100 and are pretty darn accurate. Just point and shoot.

Posted: 1/15/2006 5:55:58 PM EDT

[#10]

Cook off happens around 600F. If you do a 30rd mag dump from a 14.5" M4 barrel in 90F ambient temperature, you will get the temperature to around 210F. Sustained rate of fire (the rate of fire that can be maintained indefinitely) is 12-15rpm.

Of course any heat will accelerate barrel wear; but if you just need 4MOA @100yds, then you can be pretty abusive to an AR barrel and still get 20k rounds out of it.

Posted: 1/15/2006 7:20:01 PM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:
thanks a lot fellas i hope this is useful to others btw im shootin wolf polymer. i liek it so far. guns smells like amonia kinda . but im ok with that. haha this is stupid but how do you use the sights on it where exactly do you put the front sights in accordance to the rear aka where do you line them up

Good info here

Posted: 1/15/2006 8:29:19 PM EDT

[#12]

When I go to the range, I usually will shoot the first 2 mags pretty fast, and then let the barrel cool off some. It helps to take 2 rifles if you have them and just alternate between the hot one and the cool one.

As rule of thumb, I would stop shooting when the exposed part of the barrel gets too hot to hold with your bare hand. This practice has worked well for me, but then I usually only shoot 150-200 rounds per range visit. YMMV.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - overheating or not?

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