[Barn Owl]

Gentlemen, Thanks very much for your replies.

Reaper,

My idea was to sum up some of the conclusions made in other threads by people with much more knowledge than me. I suppose I did a poor job, or drew the wrong conclusions from the old SCAR threads. Apologies.

Tukka,

I have close friends in both the Wanat and Kamdesh outfits, and I have copies of the investigative reports. Some of the weapons went down. Perhaps the M4 wears worse than a gas piston design.

JustinMd,

I couldn't agree more on piston weapons. I run an LWRC M6A2 in multi-gun and it has never failed me. I prefer it to the SCAR, but now we're talking 5.56mm again. What model of LWRC do you shoot?

As far as the dust test ... the gas impingement weapon gets much hotter, and the heat+carbon fouling turns the whole oil/dust/lube/carbon mix into a very gritty paste. If dirty was the the only issue I don't think the M4 would jam like that; it's the heat that causes the high failure rate.

I've never had to fire my weapon in a dust storm either, but I've had the M4 jam for no apparent reason in Anbar. We'd clean and barrel cap our weps, but that really fine moon dust would still coat the internals a couple hours into a patrol.

Very Respectfully,

Barn Owl