i have a couple questions that don't really pertain to anything... but whatever. first, what is the idea behind the 11.5" barrels with the 5.5" flash hider? i understand it's to take a short barrel up to pre-ban legal length, but does the long flash hider do anything else? if not, why sacrifice a few inches of barrel for no reason? (i'm assuming that there is some loss of ballistics is using the 11.5 with the 5.5 fh instead of say a 14.5-16 with a smaller fh)My other question i just conjecture, but i was thinking about it the other day... everyone is getting kind of amped about the sunsetting of the AWB. when this happens though, do you think we will just be able to go out and put pre-ban features on our now pre-post-ban weapons, or do you think there will be some weird BATF thing where pre-bans are how they are now, pre-post-bans (current post bans) are how they are, and post-bans are how they are? i'll be pissed if weapons before the ban and after the ban can have all the pre-ban gadgets but the ones made and sold during the ban cannot.

yeah, that's what i figured, and i'll give them that, they do look pretty sweet. i'd like to pick up an 11.5" at some point, but just as a toy... not really anything i need to depend on. although, a lot of the short barrel guys swear their rigs run flawlessly. i don't doubt they do, i just have heard or read of a lot more instances of malfunction in the short barrels then something in the 14.5+ range. if i do go the SB route, i'll most likely pick up a pistol caliber upper/barrel and go the 9mm route. then at least i have something i can lock the house down with if need be (hopefully never).

Bushmaster makes a slipover CAR style flash suppressor for those who don't want to lose velocity but gotta have the XM177 look.

[url]http://www.bushmaster.com/shopping/brakes/mmt-0019.asp[/url]