By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com Pictured Below: FERFRANS SOAR Gas Piston/Op-Rod SBR

By Mike Pannone June 15, 2009 In the early months of 2006 while I was helping to write and refine the curriculum of the Asymmetric Warfare Group’s Combat Applications Training Course (CATC) I took it upon myself to research performance enhancements and reliability upgrades as an integral part of educating the soldier on how to maximize his M4/M4A1 carbine. The …

By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com May 20, 2009 According to Army Times magazine, The 75th Ranger Regiment is scheduled to battle test the Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR) very soon. The Rangers will reportedly be taking 600 FN SCAR rifle/carbine/subcarbine/SBR (Short-Barreled Rifle) weapons packages into battle, but DefenseReview doesn’t know how many of these are the …

By Michael Pannone This article is the follow-up to the author’s first article on the subject, titled "M4/M4A1 Carbine Reliability Issues: Why They Occur, and Why They’re Our Fault!". March 15, 2009 If your Explorer gets a flat does that mean "Fords are unreliable"? If you put bad fuel in your Tundra does that mean "Toyotas run crappy"? Stay with …

Why M4's have reliability issues…and why it's our fault! By Michael Pannone December 24, 2008 I fired 15,000 rounds through a semi-automatic M4/M4A1-type direct-gas-impingement (DGI) carbine in 31 weeks without a single malfunction attributable to anything except bad ammunition or bad magazines, with a grand total of 9 malfunctions. The least number of rounds fired between cleanings was 960 rounds, …

By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com November 4, 2008 So far, DefenseReview has covered the Colt SCW (Sub-Compact Weapon), Colt APC (Advanced Piston Carbine) and Colt AHC (Advanced Hybrid Carbine), but those aren’t the only newly-developed weapons in Colt Defense’s bag of tricks. If you’re interested in an upgraded/modernized version of the standard, direct-gas-impingement (DGI) Colt M4A1 Carbine, …

By David Crane defrev@gmail.com All photographic images contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com, and they are the exclusive property of DefenseReview.com. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. All photos were shot with a 7.2-megapixel Sony Cyber-shot digital camera (Model #: DSC-P150). Knight’s Armament Company (KAC) had a number of interesting items at their booth at SHOT Show …

by David Crane david@defensereview.com If you decide to check out the TangoDown vertical foregrip, you might also want to take a quick look at Buffer Technologies’ BATTLEGRIP, which they’ve designed specifically for AR-15/M16 series rifles and M4/M4A1 carbines. The BATTLEGRIP is an ergonomic, highly durable "rubberized" pistol grip/battery storage system that can simultaneously store two Aimpoint CompM2-type batteries AND two …

by David Crane david@defensereview.com DefRev discovered this item at SWAT Round-Up 2003 back in November at the Lewis Machine & Tool Co. (LMT) booth. It’s called the "MRP", which stands for "Monolithic Rail Platform". While the MRP is interesting, the most interesting aspect of the system is the quick-change barrel feature. MilitaryMorons.com (a very cool and informative site, by the …

by Charles Gaines This is the first time I’ve written anything here. The following is just a collection of my observations on the effectiveness of the M-4 with it’s current standard-issue systems based on my experiences here in Khandahar province. For starters, I’d like to take on the myth of how the M-4 doesn’t have enough range for this country …