During a trip to the range today I was
told by a bystander that my shooting of an
AR15 would "burn out the gas tube".

I was shooting a BushMaster 16" Dissipator upper, and using aimed fire to go through a
30-rd. mag. in about 2 minutes.

Given that the rifle was originally designed
as a machine gun, and most manuals I've seen
list the SUSTAINED rate of fire as 12-15 rds.
per minute, I didn't put much stock in what he
said.  However, I'm willing to learn from those
who know more than I--is there any validity to
what he said?  Thanks.

Maybe it was all that cheap ammo you were shooting, [:K]!!!

I've done 2 back to back beta dumps (F/A 200 rounds) before and failed to melt the gas tube.  Rumor has it that it fails during the third Beta.  I didn't go that far.


I have melted my gas rings before. [:D]

My two cents, if they're made to handle full auto in the military version, I don't see how semi "would burn it up".  But I'm not a gunsmith.  by the way don't listen to markm.  He's just some nob posting negative garbage.  He's probably some lib.

What frisco says is correct.  

If you keep shooting that way you will burn out your barrel before your gas tube.

In eight years of Army and USAR seevice, I've never seen a gas tube burn out. We also never cleaned them either. It's an urban legand.

I would think that if this was a problem, they would have seen it in vietnam and corrected the problem.  I have fired a bunch of 30 rd mags, 8+, as fast as I can pull the trigger and it has never effected my bushmaster.

What a stupid statement.

Some people grasp at straws to sound smart I swear.

In my own experience, I had my M16 at a night shoot and I fired 3 or 4 30rd mags of tracer back to back, then fired off a Beta-C mag.  I was shooting at aerial targets with fairly long bursts (maybe 10rds or so per burst). The gas tube was glowing cherry red, but it did not fail. I let it cool down for a few minutes then continued firing without any problems.

I have seen  a couple of gas tubes that have failed so I know it can happen; although, I saw them after they had been removed from the weapons and I don't know under what circumstances they failed. I guess they were either defective, or were abused even worse than I abused mine.