FEATURE M4 - GENESIS & HISTORY
M4 HISTORY IT IS BY FAR THE MOST COMMON, AND MOST POPULAR, AEG IN AIRSOFT, IT’S ALSO ONE OF THE MOST WIDELY CRITICISED. SO THIS MONTH, AS MUCH TO SLAKE HIS OWN CURIOSITY, FRENCHIE DELVES INTO THE HISTORY OF THE M4, WHY IT HAS LASTED AS LONG AS IT HAS, AND WHY IT’S PROVING DIFFICULT TO REPLACE.
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very manufacturer will have a host of these in their line up and you can spend from ‘not much’ right up to ‘small car’ sorts of money on them. I am of course referring to the ubiquitous M4 carbine. I have been as guilty as any gun snob of slagging them off but the truth is that they are still one of the easiest long arms to carry and use despite the design being decades old. Even the US Army has the same problem; despite several trials over the years they have failed to find an alternative which offered a significant improvement over their current issue weapon.
FROM GENESIS...
The genesis of what would become the M4 rests firmly with the original M16 rifle. Early attempts to produce a carbine resulted in the CAR-15 series of rifles which sported a 10 inch barrel - half that of the rifle. This made for a very compact weapon but did nothing for accuracy and resulted in massive muzzle flash as the barrel was too short to permit all the power to burn within it. This latter problem was addressed by fitting increasingly large flash hiders, epitomised by the suppressor-like muzzle device found on the XM177-e2. The name, CAR-15, (Colt Automatic Rifle 15) was an ultimately futile attempt by Colt to associate themselves with the AR series of rifles they produced for the US Army rather than the original manufacturer, Armalite. The term CAR-15 however did become synonymous with all the shortened M16 rifles produced prior to the development of the M4, so you will see the term applied to a number of weapons, some of which were used for decades by various branches of the US military. 82
DECEMBER 2021
It wasn’t until 1982 that the US Government requested that Colt design a carbine based on the M16a1. This resulted in the XM4, with the Picatinny Arsenal producing 40 prototypes. Originally this was a joint program between the US Marines and Army, however the Army withdrew their funding leaving the Marines to request 892 units in 1987 and designating it “Carbine, 5.56mm. M4”. The Army didn’t show any interest in the carbine until after the 1991 Gulf War when it placed orders with Colt for M4 carbines and M4A1 variants for their special forces. The Army’s experience in Somalia in 1993 seems to have prompted greater interest in the shorter rifle as Rangers complained that their M16A2 rifles proved unwieldy in urban warfare. By 2005 the M4 had, by and large, replaced the M16 series in the hands of forward-deployed troops. Despite championing the carbine at first, the Marine Corps would not officially replace its full-length rifles with carbines until 2015.
TO REVELATION
The original M4 had a two-piece receiver, with the fixed carry handle of the earlier M16A1 variants and with a safe-semi-three-round burst trigger group. Experience had shown that some improvements were required and in 1991 the M4A1 variant was introduced. This featured the now familiar removable carry handle, a heavier barrel profile and a safe - semi - full auto trigger group. It was found that the S1F group gave a more consistent trigger pull than the earlier burst variant, thus improving accuracy. The heavier barrel increased barrel life and allowed the use of additional ammunition types which exhibited higher chamber pressures. Although these changes had in
