Quote Originally Posted by BigMat View Post
I can't speak to this with the experience as most of you, but I wonder what "machine gun” the soldier switched to, as it failed too. That is some terrible luck, and it makes me wonder if the problem was more than just a crappy M4, instead it may be an issue the two guns share. Maybe lube, or ammo in the case of a M249. If it was an M249 I wonder if it was one of the models that can take M16 mags, in which case that could be an issue. Perhaps conditions of the area(fine sand), maintenance/cleaning schedule, or age condition of the firearms.

Thanks to all you guys who served.
The M249 is most commonly called a SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), and made by FN. It can take belt 5.56 or mag fed 5.56 from M4/M16 mags. It's very much like the FN made M240 7.62 belt fet machine gun, the replacement of the M60. But, the M249 has a locking bolt where the M240 is a slam fire weapon and the bolt doesn't lock into the chamber when fired. The most common terminal failure from an M249 is case head separation. This essentially leaves the case fused to the chamber wall and the back of the case has been ripped off. They make a case remover tool for this, but it takes at least 10 to 15 minutes to extract the case. The M249 comes with two barrels so it can be swapped if one becomes too hot. Based on the limited info in the article, the second barrel was either not available, not used and the gun severely overheated to failure, or the operator didn't know how to swap the barrel. The cyclic rate on an M249 is extremely fast for a belt fed. In the heat of an intense battle, I can easily see an operator failing to control bursts and not swapping a barrel to the point where the SAW was literally toast.