Watching a promo for the FN Scar... Barrel life question over M16

[Kingofthehill]

watching "Gun's and Ammo" and they did a review on the FN Scar. They were going through the benefits of the Scar and one of them was that the barrel life of the scar was far superior at 30,000 round life over the M16 and its 6,000 round barrel life.

Is this true? and if so, how and why would the M16 let technology hold them back so much and for so long to only last 6,000.

The other part to my question is about the popular AR-15's... Are those on average only supposed to have a life of 6,000? or is that 6,000 number, if realistic, because of the full automatic option over the semi auto AR?

JOe

 

[dom1104]

That is marketing son, doesnt have to be true.

There are a LOT of people that have shot more than 6k thru an AR with no issues at all.

"My FN is superior, the AR is junk, please give us 1/100th of the AR market so we can make bagillions"

The SCAR, the ACR, they are all trying to prove "something" over the AR to get people to switch.

So fabrications are fair play.

 

[Uncle Mike]

heheheheh....Toyota's never have a problem either!...right!!

Don't believe everything you hear, see or read in the mainline media.

The SCAR is approaching 'whoops, we tooted our horn a little too loud' status for FN. Sales have not been even remotely close to what the company had hoped for, both on the civilian and military fronts!

The SCAR does not live up to all of the performance parameters as was first touted by FN. Over priced for the civilian tacticool crowd and under performed for Uncle Sam, sales have foundered.

 

[ktn65]

I saw the same episode but I thought it said the M4/M16 barrel had a 16,000 round life.

 

[ArmedBear]

How much does a SCAR barrel cost?

Why would it have a longer life than the same type of barrel screwed onto an M16?

AFAIK M4 barrels are being changed out as we speak, for some that are a bit heavier and don't heat up as quickly or get as hot when fired rapidly.

M16-family barrels can be swapped out easily by a military armorer in theater. If it is more cost-effective to use longer-life barrels, we can do that. If we want lighter guns, we can do that, and have.

No doubt the 30,000 round barrels cost more than 16,000 round barrels, or they're heavier to carry in the field, or both -- just like on hunting rifles. The caliber is the same. FN makes some great guns, but they're subject to the same laws of nature as everyone else is.

The SCAR may or may not be a great rifle, but regardless of that, on modern modular weapons it's about as silly to use the barrel as a selling point for a more expensive firearm, as it would be to say, "Well, our sights are a different color!"

 

[ktn65]

So I just watched the segment again. (Ain't DVRs great) And he did say 6,000 rounds.

 

[dom1104]

FN. F'n rediculous if you ask me.

 

[Justin]

That's ridiculous. The most nit picky AR shooters out there, the High Power crowd, only change barrels about every 10,000 rounds, and other shooters go a lot longer before noticing degradation in accuracy.

 

[taliv]

actually, lots of high power shooters change barrels after 2000-3000 rnds.
but... that's because the stainless barrels wear out faster than the chrome lined ones

i think i need to rebarrel mine soon. i've got about 4 seasons on it. figure 88 rnds / match x 10 matches/yr for me

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

6,000 rounds is just ridiculous. Off the top of my head, the only military rifles I can ever recall even reading about needing a barrel replacement at 6,000 rounds were the ones used in the dust tests - and that was because wear was so bad that headspace was unsafe (The FN SCAR particpated in that test and also had unsafe headspace after 6,000 rounds).

I suspect you could also hit the 6,000 round mark with a lot of suppressed full-auto, which would burn out the throat pretty fast; but in general I would expect about 12,000-15,000 out of a military barrel before it starts shooting 24" groups at 300yds.

My Bushmaster 16" HBAR was still 8-9" at 300yds after 9,000 rounds when I replaced it.

I'd also note that Pat Rogers has a BCM midlength with 30,175 rounds through it (and this is the older non-hammer forged BCM barrel) and it has not had the barrel replaced, though I think he did mention it was nearing the end of its service life and was used at relatively short distances where accuracy loss would not be as apparent.

As far as extending barrel life goes, I think it is mostly a cost issue. As I recall, Noveske once offered a barrel made out of some enhanced stainless steel that had twice the barrel life of a chrome-lined barrel; but it also costs almost three times as much. I don't know what happened to that particular offering; but it looks like Noveske now just does a normal barrel with heavy chrome lining.

 

[briansmithwins]

M16's can have the throat eroded out at 6k rounds, if the rifle is fired a whole lot on full auto. 20-30k seems to be more typical for semi-auto rifles with hardchromed bores.

It's gas erosion that kills barrels. 5.56 is a small bore, high velocity cartridge that's hard on bores. The SCAR and ACR can't escape the how gas erodes barrel steel.

BSW

 

[Jaws]

I found this pdf looking trough some Ndia docs:

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2009infantrysmallarms/thursdaysessionxi8469.pdf

Is a presentation material for some USSOCOM round counters with the acompanying software.
I took this image from one of the screen captures in that pdf (i added the red arrows):



This image shows a rifle with 5000 rds fired, that is 1393 rounds away from planned barrel replacement.

FN makes high quality cold hammer forged barrels for machine guns that can go to very high round count. I wouldn't be surprised if the SCAR can do better than a mill. spec. M16 in this department.

 

[briansmithwins]

I think that's just a software mockup. Weapon serial number W111111?

Also, the parts that are listed don't have round count replacement standards listed in any manual I've ever seen. When the part fails a test it's replaced, not at a round count limit.

For example, bolt gas rings get replaced when the bolt falls out of the bolt carrier, according to the TM. BSW

 

[Onmilo]

I think 20,000 rounds is a more accurate barrel life for an M16.
30,000 rounds is reasonable for the SCAR since the barrel is hammerforged and I have heard, stellite lined in place of chrome lined.

Big advantage the SCAR offers is a quick barrel change which can be performed by the troops without the need to send the rifle back for depot repair.

 

[Blakenzy]

FN makes high quality cold hammer forged barrels for machine guns that can go to very high round count. I wouldn't be surprised if the SCAR can do better than a mill. spec. M16 in this department.

FN makes the M16s for the US military.

 

[Jaws]

FN makes the M16s for the US military.

The M16s they make don't have cold hammer forged barrels.

 

[Acera]

The M16s they make don't have cold hammer forged barrels.

If it would make that much of a difference, then why not make them produce the better barrels for the military??

 

[Jaws]

If it would make that much of a difference, then why not make them produce the better barrels for the military??

Maybe it wasn't in the contract. The military doesn't like much to change specs to rifles already in service.

 

[Coronach]

Government procurement makes lawmaking look straightforward. The reason FN doesn't make cold hammer forged barrels for the M16 is because the contract doesn't say it has to do so. The reason the contract doesn't say that it should would be a myriad of reasons, from parts commonality to bureaucratic inertia to cost-savings to competence/incompetence on the part of the people making the decisions. Oh yes, and there may actually be a real, "good" reason why it doesn't, too (though I dunno what that would be).

The short answer is the best: the .mil didn't say it wanted it in the contract, so FN doesn't provide it.

Mike

 

[ArmedBear]

The point here is that, even if M16 barrels have a shorter life than SCAR barrels, it has nothing to do with the platform. It has to do with the barrel screwed into the platform. And the same type of barrel could be used for either gun, and with the same ammo and duty cycle, it would have the same life expectancy.

WRT a barrel that can be changed out by the troops, that's neat and all, but given the design of the M16, it's even quicker to change the upper, and an upper can be kept zeroed, which a new barrel will not be.

 

[Owen]

FN doesn't provide hammer forged barrels on the M16, because the drawing says the barrels are button rifled. If FN were to supply forged barrels, they would be in violation of the contract.

The SCAR does not live up to all of the performance parameters as was first touted by FN. Over priced for the civilian tacticool crowd and under performed for Uncle Sam, sales have foundered.

What have they missed? They've met or exceeded every performance paramter set out in the contract. The reason sales are so low is because, so far, the rifle is just coming out of the development phase, and is just beginning its preliminary fielding. The units that have it are returning positive reports, but fielding is slow, because the military is a fundamentally conservative organization, that remember the M16 fiasco. On top of that there is quite a bit of resistance to change because all the decision makers have used the M16/M4 for their entire careers.

RT a barrel that can be changed out by the troops, that's neat and all, but given the design of the M16, it's even quicker to change the upper, and an upper can be kept zeroed, which a new barrel will not be.

An upper with a quad rail costs a lot more than just a barrel, is heavier and has a larger volume. Even with interchangeable uppers, the upper will still end up coming back to the depot for rebarreling. With the SCAR, nothing will ever come back to the depot. Everything is field replaceable. When the receiver is trashed, its will be destroyed. I don't have the exact numbers on barrel shift for barrel changes, but IIRC its pretty good, less than a minute.

Why does the barrel last longer? I have no idea, but agree that the 6000 round number is low. Part of the reason the SCAR happened is because SOCOM wanted control of their weapons. They were having issues with sending back weapons to the Army depot for accuracy issues. The Army would check the bore erosion, decide the gun was fine, and return it when the gun was clearly showing sub-standard accuracy.

 

[ArmedBear]

An upper with a quad rail costs a lot more than just a barrel, is heavier and has a larger volume.

Of course. However, I'm going to assume that a unit in the field is not going to carry a 100% inventory of spare parts for every single weapon carried by anyone, at all times, anyway. So the real-world advantage is grossly overstated.

Even with interchangeable uppers, the upper will still end up coming back to the depot for rebarreling. With the SCAR, nothing will ever come back to the depot. Everything is field replaceable.

Everything may be field-replaceable, but this won't actually happen. Work on weapons is not all going to happen in the field, parts are not going to be supplied that way or in the numbers required. The logistics of doing so are far more prohibitive than for a unit to carry a couple of spare rifles in case of a breakdown. I mean, I've tried to do gun work in my back yard, and it's a PITA. I'm just not really seeing that it's practical to do all work in the field, just because parts are "field-replaceable."

So, like I said, it's neat, but in the real world, it doesn't make as much difference as it sounds like it does. It doesn't hurt, either. Should it be a spec of the next US rifle platform? Yes. But it's probably not a reason, by itself, to switch to a new, expensive weapons system.

 

[Al Thompson]

"Field" in a military sense means fixing by the user or organic maintenance at the small unit level. I would imagine that the unit armorer (every company sized unit has at least one) would be the guy doing the replace/repair. Here and now, if a M4 breaks, it would have to be evacuated to a unit further up the food chain to repair or replace. Maintenance in the Army is a tiered system.

I think it's one heck of a selling point, speaking as a former Army guy.

unit in the field is not going to carry a 100% inventory of spare parts for every single weapon

When you go to a car dealer for replacement parts, he carries a small per cent of parts as opposed to the thousands of cars he's sold. The dealer, like the Army, knows every single car isn't going to have to be replaced at one time. He (and the Army) carry enough repair parts based on anticipation and usage history to make the system work.

 

[SHvar]

The cold hammer forged barrel was until more recently a feature almost exclusively found on European model rifles, these were not known for their accuracy, but durability.
Button forged barrels were a feature used almost exclusively by American rifle manufacturers, known for their accuracy, but shorter service life.
Think of it this way, Ruger outsourced for its cold hammer forged barrels for most of its companies life, they were not known for accuracy. After Ruger bought its own equipment (multi-million dollar equipment) to produce its own barrels their reputation for accuracy greatly improved, they controlled more of their own quality control, and bought top of the line equipment.
H&K 416 has a cold hammer forged barrel, is known for its 30,000 rd barrel life according to the manufacturer.
In the army the armorer (company level in combat units) repairs basic broken ports that are very simple to install. The depot maintance done for a few brigades involves hundreds of lower ranking soldiers (chosen at the last minute) working for weeks in a production line effort, Im sure mistakes make it through regularly.
Major repairs involve sending the weapon to someone who more specializes in this work, Im sure the time involved in getting parts, etc is at least weeks, or months on major repairs.
Id love to see what reports eventually come from the field after a few years of extensive use with the SCAR.
If it wasnt for the price of the ACR or SCAR Id like to have one someday, maybe prices will drop more.

 

[Al Thompson]

The depot maintance done for a few brigades involves hundreds of lower ranking soldiers (chosen at the last minute) working for weeks in a production line effort, Im sure mistakes make it through regularly.
Major repairs involve sending the weapon to someone who more specializes in this work, Im sure the time involved in getting parts, etc is at least weeks, or months on major repairs

Not in the US Army. At all. SHvar, this may apply where ever you served, but is completely incorrect in almost every way for the US. As the SCAR is being discussed as a US Army rifle, your comments are inappropriate, inaccurate and misleading.