Originally Posted by Mackay_Sagebrush
The standard M4 handguards, grips and other OEM equipment made by Colt/FN have been working for decades in actual use. People get bombarded by advertisements about "upgraded this and upgraded that" but the fact is that the standard equipment works and works well.

Just like Glocks. When I was working at the embassy outposts whenever someone would bring me a gun with a problem the first thing I would do is detail strip it and see if they had put any aftermarket/unauthorized parts in it. Then I would replace those parts with standard factory parts. Normally that fixed the problem right off the bat.

M16/M4 series were the same way. The more you stay true to mil-spec, the better they run. The more aftermarket crap guys would put in them, the more problems they would have. Putting extra power this and upgraded that was usually just a recipe for unreliability. Believe it or not, the engineers who designed produced and support the weapons systems for militaries that are in use all over the world actually know what they are doing.

I have worked on literally thousands and thousands of M4s, among other weapons systems.




[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]


[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]



In my personal guns I stick with bone stock Colt factory bolt carrier group parts and springs to ensure reliability, and my personal guns run, and run and run.

When someone who asks for a recommendation for an out of the box, simple solution rifle, I tell them to pick up either a Colt 6920, or 6720 (the skinny barrel version) or an FN model of the same thing. Both Colt and FN have been supplying our military with weapons for decades and know what they are doing. Skip the bushmasters, DPMS, and other bargain basement stuff.

So much iron in the words of this post.

The source.
The explanation.
The outcome.

Been thinkin about it for a couple days.