As an armorer I love going down these developmental rabbit holes on why programs came to the forefront and what they all entailed.
The M4A1 SOCOM Block II wasn’t just a freefloated rail on the guns. Daniel Defense, although making a near correct Block II, doesn’t actually since Colt made the guts of the SOCOM guns. Josh, Henry and their guest Jeff Gurwitch get into that.
For those who don’t want to sit through the very entertaining 40 minutes of excellent information, here’s a short take until you do.
The Block II and later the URG-I were attempts by SOCOM to maximize the performance of the M4 for special forces use. The SF groups are obviously operating (pun intended) at a higher level of weapons proficiency than your typical soldier or Marine, even those in ground forces elements.
They had great success by offering improved optics, improved ancillaries, improved ammunition, and the improved uppers to cover down on the configurable nature. They had shooters who could use these at their full performance envelope.
That is one of the reasons the standard M4A1 hasn’t followed the full URG-I update force wide. Most shooters cannot shoot to the enhanced performance envelope because they cannot shoot to the standard one. The standard one is quite good, but since SOCOM was maxing it out, and needing these rifles to do more with less, investing in the SOCOM inventory made sense.
What we received was what would become the foundation for the General Purpose Carbine, a gun that could do a good bit of everything.
Hit play and learn.
