Life expectancy of various EBR(evil Black Rifles) actions

[ccd]

I listened to a podcast this morning and on it a FNH USA rep started talking about the action life of one of their rifles being 10,000 rds and then he said for the M16 it was only 6k rds. There are some very knowledgeable people on this forum so I was wondering what are the best actions as far as allowing/surviving high round counts assuming proper maintenance, and also what should we look at when browsing used AR's, Mini14's, FAL's etc..

Thanks

[Big Frank]

If you said 60k I would find it easier to believe than 6k. All of the M16s we had in basic training were still working when I left. I'm talking about some OLD M16s including a GM Hydra-Matic and an H&R that was marked "AR-15" being used in 1980. That one wasn't even the right color it was so old. They had to be some of the oldest ones made. Maybe 15 years old and used by 90 or more people one class after another. No idea how many rounds we shot in 8 weeks but 10 mags is 300. 90 x 300 = 27,000. My best guess would be they had closer to 30,000 than 6,000 rounds through them already.

[TAB]

Think about it for a second.  6k rounds, while it does not sound like alot to us shooters.  6k rounds thru a gun on the battle feild is Alot of ammo.  Mud, water, sand and god knows what, is going to get in a rifle on the battle feild.   Would you pore sand into your cars engine  and still expect the engine to last 100k miles?  I have very little doubt that any semi auto rifle/carbine, seeing heavy combat use would be warn out well before it ever got to 6k rounds.   I have a friend that was in the teams,  he told me they were issued sigs before a week of intesive CQB training, at the end of the weak they were all junked.

[USSA-1]

I don't know who the FN rep was, but I think that's a load of crap.  I think he was trying to compare the service life of the barrels, not the entire rifle.  I think the service life for a standard 20" M16 barrel is 10-12K.

Maybe, and let me emphasize, maybe, it's 6,000 rounds for an M4, but even that is hard to believe.  We've had several "Teams" come through USSA with week long packages.  They easily shot over 2,000 rds. per rifle.  I find it hard to believe that 1/3 of the barrel service life is gone after one training package.  At that rate, they would be replacing barrels every 3 months and I just don't see that happening.

It's funny, I was just talking with another person in the industry who's providing an add-on component for the FN SCAR-L and he said FN made them test their part for a 30K service life because they wanted it to match the service life of the SCAR barrel.

Obviously, someone is mistaken, but if anyone has a barrel that is close to the end of it's service life, send it to me and I will dispose of it properly!

USSA-1

[Big Frank]

Since a reciever is by some definitions a firearm I think service life refers to it specifically. The lowers were the only part I couldn't replace when I worked on M16s in the army.

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

I heard that comment on Gun Talk as well and thought it was FN marketing BS. I agree with Jumbo Frank, none of us are likely to wear out a properly maintained utility rifle.