New, insulated gas tube for M-4

[vaskidmark]

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2013/11/06/armor-development-group-insulon-m4-thermal-shroud/

Extends the time it takes to melt the gas tube during sustained fire, which was a cause of catastrophic failure.

Now if only we had a war to test it out.

stay safe.

[AJ Dual]

Too bad it's just thermal images, and AR's/M4's didn't have a last-ditch "lightsaber option" for CQB/Melee fighting, where the handguards fell away, and you could swing the ultra-hot barrel, making a "Voom" noise that went "Fisssssssss" when you cut some charging hadji in half.

[Gewehr98]

Well, there's always the time honored practice involving a red-hot poker... 

[MechAg94]

How many rounds of sustained fire does it take to cause a normal gas tube to fail?

I have dumped 8 to 10 mags of 5.45 through my 5.45 AR with the bump fire stock.  It was hot, but it still worked. 

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

If you're toasting gas tubes in a firefight the solution is not a better gas tube, but a water-cooled Vickers and a lake.

[TommyGunn]

If you're toasting gas tubes in a firefight the solution is not a better gas tube, but a water-cooled Vickers and a lake.

  OK not VERY funny, but I got a good chuckle out of that!

[brimic]

Gas piston, FTW.

[tokugawa]

If you're toasting gas tubes in a firefight the solution is not a better gas tube, but a water-cooled Vickers and a lake.

 At Verdun one British machine gun section fired over one million rounds in , IIRC, one day. The guns were so hot they were urinating in the water cans as they had no water left.
 
 

[Scout26]

Yep, if you're toasting gas tubes in a firefight, you are clearly not using enough Artillery and Close Air Support.



Never toasted any M16 gas tubes, but we did ruin an M60 barrel by linking far, far too many 100 round belts of 4/1 ball/tracer mix together.  To the point where it became highly noticeable that point of the impact had significantly dropped from earlier even though the gun was mounted on a tripod with the T&E mechanism locked down.

  

[HankB]

Yep, if you're toasting gas tubes in a firefight, you are clearly not using enough Artillery and Close Air Support.

Don't today's ROE's preclude a lot of that due to the risk of "collateral  and infrastructure damage?"