Every Gun That Tried to Replace the M4 and Failed Explained

For thirty years the U.S. military has tried to replace the M4 carbine, and the M4 has outlived almost every challenger. The XM29 with its airburst grenades, the XM8 that won a sandstorm test and was cancelled anyway, the FN SCAR Mk 16 that special forces handed back, the Remington ACR, the Beretta ARX160, Colt's own "Enhanced M4", the HK416 that lost in the Army but won in the Marines, Textron's plastic-cased rifle and the General Dynamics RM277 bullpup. And the rifle trying right now: the M7, whose new carbine brings back a very familiar name. Sources: • GlobalSecurity.org — "XM29 Integrated Air Burst Weapon" and "Objective Individual Combat Weapon (OICW)" • Military.com / Defense Tech — "M4 Comes in Last Place in Dust Test" (2007); Stars and Stripes — "M-4 performs worst in extreme dust test" (2007) • We Are The Mighty and Warrior Maven — "What happened to the Army's M-16 replacement rifle" (XM8) • Sandboxx News — "This is why the SCAR Mk16 rifle never became a special operations weapon" • Military.com — "House Blocks Cancelation of Carbine Competition" (2013); Soldier Systems Daily — "Army Concludes Individual Carbine Competition Without Winner" (2013) • The Firearm Blog — "Individual Carbine Competition To Get The Axe" (2013); The National Interest — "Colt Individual Carbine: The Super Rifle the U.S. Army Said 'No' To" • Marine Corps Times — "Marines want 50,000 more infantry automatic rifles to replace M4" (2017) • Army.mil — "Soldiers may soon have lighter machine gun" (LSAT); Military.com — "Textron Shows off New 6.5mm Case-Telescoped Carbine" (2016); The Firearm Blog — "Is Textron Out of the NGSW Program?" (2021) • The War Zone — "This Exotic Bullpup Rifle Is Competing To Replace The Army's M4 Carbines And M249 SAWs" (RM277) • Military.com — "The Army Has Finally Fielded Its Next Generation Squad Weapons" (2024); Task & Purpose — "Army says M7 'production line has changed to the XM8' carbine" The photographs and archive images in this video come from public collections and are credited at the link above, along with the short video clips used. All stick figures, diagrams and on-screen layouts were drawn by the channel; no AI-generated images are used. #guns #firearms #military #M4 #history #weapons #explained #army