M4gery???? Hu?

[Didorian]

Question: Where did the term "m4gery" come from???
It does mean the shortened ar15 right??
I'm cornfused

 

[sumpnz]

The M-4 is essentially a shorty M-16. The civvy (aka semi-auto only) version of the Colt M-16 is, of course, the AR-15. Due to Colt being a stick in the mud about the name AR-15 Bushmaster, Rock River, et al have had to slightly change the names of their AR-15 copies. However, due to convention everyone still calls the non-Colt versions AR-15. Not so with the M-4. Since the Bushmaster, Rock River, et al copies are a "forgery" of the M-4, people combine M-4 and forgery and call them M-4geries.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Yes, an M4gery is basically any civilian look-alike designed to look similar to the military M4 carbine.

If you want to delve deep into AR15-geekdom, then you have a whole variety of 16" carbines:

Commando - a copy of the early Colt XM177 carbines - usually with a 5.5" flash hider permanently attached to an 11.5" barrel or a flash hider that telescopes back over the barrel.

M4gery - copy of current military M4 carbine

Middy - 16" barrel with midlength gas system

"Recce" - a broadly used term to cover any number of 16" carbines that are designed to have a precision mid-range capability. The original "Recce" gave birth to the "SPR" rifles and was not much more than a modified M4.

You also get people mixing and matching elements of each of the above to suit their own personal desires.

 

[jobu07]

Anyone have a defination for the CAR-15 then? Just curious.

 

[boofus]

CAR-15 is pretty much the same thing as the XM177

Just a shorter 'carbine' version of the M16. The XM177 and CAR-15 were both ancestors of the M4.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Anyone have a defination for the CAR-15 then? Just curious.

Strictly speaking, I believe the original CAR-15 was the name given to Colt's initial carbine effort that preceeded the Commando XM177 series. It had a funky retractable stock that looked like a short fixed stock; but had a lever on the end for extending/retracting. These are so incredibly rare you would probably never see one outside of a museum.

For whatever reason the name stuck and has been kind of generally used to refer to any carbine version of an AR15 since then; usually the XM177-styled versions; but also to the 16" barrelled Colt AR15 carbines sold on the civvy market and the various other pre-M4 AR carbines.

 

[Father Knows Best]

This is interesting.

So what's a "dissipator"?

 

[Red_SC]

It's a Bushmaster AR15 with a 16 inch barrel, but with the front sight at the very end of the barrel and the handguard reaching all the way to the front.

http://www.bushmaster.com/shopping/weapons/pcwa3s16d.asp

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Yes, and even then you have three different styles of dissipators (Dissy).

1. Bushmaster style Dissipator - has carbine length gas block underneath handguards and additional non-functional gas block/forward sight base to get full length sight radius on 16" barrel

2. KKF style Dissipator - has only one front sight base/gas block and gas port is opened up to address reliability issues that occur from having insufficient dwell time due to short length of barrel after gas port. These often have same reliability issues as 10.5" ARs.

3. Rail Dissipator - carbine or midlength gas system with a lo-pro gas block and a full length rail system. Front sight is attached to end of rail system instead of using a second gas block.

The AR series are like the legos of the gun world. You could spend the rest of your days trying to describe all the different variations.

 

[Father Knows Best]

So what's the raison d'etre for the dissipator? What are its supposed advantages over a non-dissy?

 

[Zundfolge]

IIRC the CAR in CAR-15 stood for Colt Accurized Rifle ... but I'll need verification on that one.


As for the dissipator, the advantages are longer sight radius (for greater accuracy with iron sights) and a carbine with the same gas system (more reliable, less recoil) as the full size gun.

I also think they look cool (especially with the old A1 style triangular handguards)

 

[TexasRifleman]

So what's the raison d'etre for the dissipator? What are its supposed advantages over a non-dissy?

The Dissipator format puts a full length handguard on a 16 inch barrel. The sight tower is out front, but the gas block is not used. Gas is instead tapped at the appropriate place for that barrel length in a special gas block hidden under the handguard.

So, you get longer sight radius but the gas block being in the proper place means that function is not hurt.

That's the selling point anyway.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

The main advantage is the same sight radius as a 20" rifle in a 16" package. Originally it was claimed that Dissipators with the gas port opened up and moved to the rifle location offered greater reliability (for the same reasons as the midlength systems - less gas pressure acting on the bolt). However, unlike the midlength systems there is only a tiny bit of barrel left after the gas port on those Dissipators and that often causes new and different reliability issues as gas pressure drops off rapidly because the bullet exits the barrel before the gas port can tap enough gas.

 

[BigG]

CAR = Colt Automatic Rifle. All the Colt FA AR15s were CARs, but the name stuck to the CARbine sized, a misnomer but appropos.