ive got a $130 Plumcrazy Lower, and a $400 Rock River upper. a whole bunch of the GI issue OKAY mags. works flawless.
been reliable for over 2000 rounds.
been reliable for over 2000 rounds.
I've had flawless feeding with aluminum and magpul mags in Colt, Bushmasters, Rock River Arms and LWRCI carbines, but oddly, the Olympic Arms (third tier) carbine won't seat Magpul mags. Mag catch will not engage. GI style aluminum mags work fine, though. Interesting characteristic to me. Some slight variation on the magwell I figure.
Got a Bushmaster a few weeks back, have ran 200+ rounds with no issue using the standard Bushmaster and Colt magazine I bough with it, each loaded 30 rounds each.
Sustained rate of fire is 12-15 rounds per minute for the standard M4 carbine. To me that means it should be able to fire 12-15 RPM indefinitely, with only the addition of lube on the BCG occasionally.
GTG posted it for the M4. It's not my standard, it's Milspec and it isn't uniform across all types of guns. Know your equipment.
For my piece of mind, reliability for an M4/M16 type is not blasting off a couple mags at the range and putting it back in the safe every other weekend. If that works for a given user, cool, but it isn't enough to bestow the "reliable" tag to an entire brand or type of rifle and advise others that said rifle is "reliable".
Exactly...on the flip side, knowing your equipment, and knowing existing standards is important before labeling a rifle as unreliable as well.
For example, lots of outrage and publicity over the weapons failures during the battle of Wanat in Afghanistan. If you read deeper into the investigation and testimony, there are hints that weapons exceeded the sustained rate of fire for a long period of time before the failures occured...even approaching cyclic. That doesn't indicate unreliability...it indicates that some machines broke under conditions that exceeded the designed capability.
For example, lots of outrage and publicity over the weapons failures during the battle of Wanat in Afghanistan. If you read deeper into the investigation and testimony, there are hints that weapons exceeded the sustained rate of fire for a long period of time before the failures occured...even approaching cyclic. That doesn't indicate unreliability...it indicates that some machines broke under conditions that exceeded the designed capability.
Good points. I've literally burned the finish off my M42K suppressor testing my hard use rifle. I've also run in excess of 800 rounds through it without cleaning OR lube, with zero malfunctions. Frequent inspection of wear items such as bolt lugs, gas rings, firing pins, charging handle roll pins, etc. will also help keep the fail monsters at bay. 
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