Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Diamond
The M4 SOPMOD came out around 1997 and was in frontline units by 1998 so as far as assault rifles available during the T2k era it just barely squeaks buy. The M4 SOPMOD allows for all of the accoutrements that we take for granted now but were groundbreaking in the 90s and before the gun porn rifle modifications got too crazy.
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It was actually first rolled out with Block 1 in '95 (!), just a year before the M16A4 was type classified (and which they'd been kicking around with as the M16A2E4 since about the same time the SeaBees started kicking the M16A2E3 around), and '97/'98 gave us the M16A4 rollout, and in vastly greater numbers, with all the same rail space (and more) with flat top and longer KAC quad-rail Picatinnys as the M4 SOPMOD. None of this is to disagree or nitpick, but only to emphasize that the RIS and RAS systems were around much earlier than most folks imagine. The kicker is that the rollout could have gone MUCH quicker; the forging house at Colt was only dedicating a tiny amount of capacity to this upgrade, and KAC was doing the RIS and RAS work essentially at a back office, with Crane working in essentially the same capacity toward these integrations for the SOCOM side of the house.
Also, how did they go crazy? Practically everything we do to a rifle for the past 20+ years is more or less what anyone halfway serious about shooting would have done to their rifles back in the 70s, 80s or 90s, except you don't have to hunt down a legendary mythical gunsmith that everyone in the country knows the name of to get it done; you just drop the parts in yourself after having them delivered to your door.
All that happened was that you now have better quality glass on top without drilling on your gun or mounting an interface, can mount a light without needing a clamp that holds a giant Maglite, and you don't have to zip-tie your handguards together while having parts zip-tied to your handguards, and we don't have to mess with the D-ring assembly anymore, cuz D-rings suck rancid, overripe dog turds.