m4 SPR

[carljii]

Anyone wish to fill me in on this piece of kit?

I've noticed a fair few US spec ops teams seem to favour it - care to suggest reasons for this?

cheers

[maw]

it's been discussed here earlier, the mk12 is another "minor misinterpretation of requirements" by crane. the original requirement originated from some ideas kicked around at nsw. it was essentially a dmr evolution of the m4 (think 16" bbl), it was dubbed the recon rifle. the requirement was handed over to the sopmod team at nswc crane indiana. what came out was something no military unit anywhere wants: a 20" heavy barrel, full auto .223 sniper rifle!?! talk about **** on a bull. wtf!
with all the stink coming back from the lines the barrel has apparently been reduced down to 18". an army buddy told me that it's still nose heavy.
to this day, i've yet to see a spr in the hands of any of the nsw guys.
the closest i've seen to a "cots" implementation of the original recon rifle concept was put together by the guys at mid-south:
http://www.mstn.biz/images/Guns/MSTN-PRI-16-M4.JPG
notice it's still got the pri forearm and the ops inc. flash suppresor.