I am not that familiar with all the different rifles or weapons in use today. I just never was that interested in all the different weapons. With that being said the picture of this weapon does look familiar to me. And M4 could be the weapons that was referenced in the new program on TV. M4 sounds familiar. Last night I did a Google search on Jamming Rifles and found some interesting material. There are a lot of problems with weapons jamming according to the Google articles. I know someone above wrote that the AK47 doesn't jam as often because it's POORLY made. The manufacturing tolerance are very loose for the AK47. Therefore it does not jam when it gets mud in the thing. The US weapon manufactures make the parts to very close tolerances that are more susceptible to jamming. And they changed the power in the M16 from rod to ball type powder to reduce the gumming up of the internal parts of the M16. Or maybe they went from ball to rod type powder. I can't remember which one they ended up using. But one type of powder burns cleaner than the other.

The problem is my faulty memory and my lack of paying close attention to the news article. I think I am mixing my memory of the future weapon's program with the news article . I went to the Future Weapons web site last night and looked at all the programs that have appeared in season 1 and season 2 and not one of the weapons rung a bell. Now I remember each and ever Future Weapons program but like you said none of these weapons are in mass production.

I think that knowing which weapons is being mass produced today is the key to figuring out exactly which weapon the TV NEWs program was talking about. I did some web googling last night and I am leaning toward the M4 as that weapon best reminds me of the one in question. It's subject to jamming when dirty and it's being ordered in large numbers. Although I could not find any information on anyone ordering 100,000 of these weapons. I did see where there was an order for around 20,000. I questioned the 100,000 number myself.

Did anyone else catch this news program? I have read all the posts in this thread and not one other person saw that news show on TV. This was a news show on TV and not the future weapons program.

Now that's blowing it quite too far out of proportion. Oh, and M-16's aren't cheap.:cool:

• 1965 - 1967. Field reports from Vietnam began to look much more pessimistic. M16 rifles, issued to US troops in the Vietnam, severely jammed in combat, resulting in numerous casualties. There were some causes for malfunction. First of all, during the introduction of the new rifle and its ammunition into the service, US Army replaced originally specified Dupont IMR powder with standard ball powder, used in 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition. The ball powder produced much more fouling, that quickly jammed the actions of the M16 unless the gun was cleared well and often. This pitifully combined with the fact that the initial M16 rifles were promoted by the Colt as "low maintenance", so, for the sake of economy, no cleaning supplies were procured for new M16 rifles, and no weapon care training was conducted fro the troops. As a result, soldiers did not knew how to clean their rifles, and had no provisions for cleaning, and thing soon turned bad. To add the trouble, the ball powders also had a different pressure curve, so they produced higher pressures at the gas port, giving the rise to the rate of fire, and, thus, decreasing accuracy and increasing parts wear.

• 1967 - 1970. The deficiencies discovered in previous years began do dissolve. 5.56mm ammunition was now loaded using different powders that produce much less residue in the gun action. The barrel, chamber and bolt of the rifles were chrome-lined to improve corrosion resistance. Cleaning kits were procured and issued to troops, and a special training programs were developed and conducted ever since. Earliest cleaning kits could be carried separate from rifle only, but since circa 1970 all M16A1 rifles were manufactured with the containment cavity in the buttstock, that held the cleaning kit. At the same time (circa 1970) the new 30 rounds magazines were introduced into service instead of the original 20 rounds ones, to equal Soviet and Chinese AK-47 assault rifles, which had 30-rounds magazines from the very beginning.
• 1977 - 1979. NATO trials lead to the adoption of the improved 5.56x45mm cartridge, developed in Belgium by FN. This cartridge, initially developed in conjunction with the FN Minimi light machine gun, featured a slightly heavier bullet with accordingly slightly lower muzzle velocity. The resulting long-range performance, however, improved due to the better ballistic coefficient of the new bullet. The SS109 required a faster rifling twist to stabilize its bullet, than the original 5.56x45mm US M193 ammunition. The M193 was used with barrels rifled with 1:12 twist (1 turn in 12 inches), and SS109 was preferred to be fired with 1:7 twist (1 turn in 7 inches). Some arms manufacturers preferred to make their guns with intermediate 1:9 rifling, which would be equally good (or bad) for both old and new loadings.

courtesy of
http://world.guns.ru/assault/as18-e.htm

Think maybe you could put a word in to capitol hill and see if they can fix my paintball gun too? The gun jams when my CO2 charge drops to 50% up on full auto causing the paintballs to explode in my face.

thanks

Well, to my knowledge the most recent small arm reviewed on Future Weapons was the Barrett M468 (which Subman provided a picture of), but AFAIK that weapon has not been adopted and there are no current plans to do so (SOCOM may have a few on limited trial basis, but that's about it), so if that's the one you're talking about, I doubt the weapon that's jamming in Iraq is the same as the one featured in the show.

As far as I can tell, of the mentioned weapons only the Mk. 48 and the HK 416 are in service, both exclusively with Special Ops outfits. It would be suprising if the HK 416 is jamming, since it was designed specifically to rectify the shortcomings of the M-16, namely, jamming!:doh: