I took my New (to me) Olympic arms Ar15 out to the range today. It is a 16 inch carbine with a Muzzel Brake.
Well I took it out with 20 fully loaded 30 round mags intending to see how it would hold up to a lot of sustained rounds.
What is the answer to that question you may ask?
Not near as well as I had hoped. LOL
THe procedure was this. One mag at about one round per second with a one minute cool down period in between each mag.
after about 15 mags the gun was getting very uncomfortable to handle, but not to bad yet. NOw on mag 19 I knew something was wrong. My hand suddenly started to feel burned.. I stoped and held the gun by just the Pistol grip (which was also quite warm by now). Well I proceeded to watch the fron handgrip slowly melt away from the barrel. The front drooped about an inch before it cooled enough to stop. You can also see where I was gripping the handguard where I left a handprint. The nylon sling also melted completly through and is now useless.
I was firing at a steady but slow rate of fire(Ok I ripped one mag off really fast). Yet this occured. How does a Carbine hold up to full auto use in the military if it can't handle this? I have done this test with my old colt 20 Inch Hbar and My Bushmaster Dissipator with no problems, so I can only assume the shorter handguard is the culprit by not allowing as much heat to dissipate.
As it stands I am going to have it rebarreled in a 20 Inch Configuration. But this was still an interesting and educational day at the range..
Oh and by the way I only had one round jam and it was a failure to extract about half way through mag number 17. I think the chanber had gotten to hot and expanded.
Test Ammo was russian Steel Cased Manufactured by Wolf.
Well I took it out with 20 fully loaded 30 round mags intending to see how it would hold up to a lot of sustained rounds.
What is the answer to that question you may ask?
Not near as well as I had hoped. LOL
THe procedure was this. One mag at about one round per second with a one minute cool down period in between each mag.
after about 15 mags the gun was getting very uncomfortable to handle, but not to bad yet. NOw on mag 19 I knew something was wrong. My hand suddenly started to feel burned.. I stoped and held the gun by just the Pistol grip (which was also quite warm by now). Well I proceeded to watch the fron handgrip slowly melt away from the barrel. The front drooped about an inch before it cooled enough to stop. You can also see where I was gripping the handguard where I left a handprint. The nylon sling also melted completly through and is now useless.
I was firing at a steady but slow rate of fire(Ok I ripped one mag off really fast). Yet this occured. How does a Carbine hold up to full auto use in the military if it can't handle this? I have done this test with my old colt 20 Inch Hbar and My Bushmaster Dissipator with no problems, so I can only assume the shorter handguard is the culprit by not allowing as much heat to dissipate.
As it stands I am going to have it rebarreled in a 20 Inch Configuration. But this was still an interesting and educational day at the range..
Oh and by the way I only had one round jam and it was a failure to extract about half way through mag number 17. I think the chanber had gotten to hot and expanded.
Test Ammo was russian Steel Cased Manufactured by Wolf.