FirstSpear TV

SURG – A Viewpoint

This is some commentary on USSOCOM’s Special Upper Receiver Group requirement sent to me by someone I know in the small arms development world. He wishes to remain anonymous and I will respect that request.

Dear Readers;

First off, the guys who wrote the Navy patent are really smart and have insider knowledge of what is really going on in combat, I know them personally. SURG is a suppressed weapon with the same length as an M-4, with all the commercial improvements you could want, and which is very hard to detect with thermal or IR imagers. You would have to try and burn yourself and it has secondary flash reduction built in. Everyone who wants to be visible by a $200 thermal camera from farther away than he can shoot back just go on and complain all you want. We are no longer talking about screwing a muzzle can on a 10” barrel and hoping for the best…if you need to go back to war, or even go the first time, ask for one. When it is 1,000 degrees inside the forend, it is just ambient on the Carbon fiber and “No” I am not saying how that works since we all love speculation…it confuses the Enemy.

In Mogadishu the sound of our guns brought thousands of opponents, in Afghanistan they remove IR filters from cheap video cameras and spot IR flashlights miles away…now they have cell phone thermal imagers and can see a fired weapon even without a muzzle flash.

Love the chatter, but let’s build up some facts first…that is one of the SURG candidates, and you don’t want one? Really? Because I don’t believe you…

Gotta start thinking and get planning for the next war, not the last one, Guys.

-Anonymous Source

36 Responses to “SURG – A Viewpoint”

  1. Alex says:

    Is there a link to the Navy patent?

  2. Diddler says:

    If the forend doesn’t get hot and you can actually use it that would be amazing.

  3. Nik says:

    Where can I get one?

  4. Bill says:

    cool, so where does the heat go?

    • Bushman says:

      Pretty much the same way as usual – to the air.
      There are several types of heat transfer, including IR radiation and convective transfer with air. Latter one doesn’t go away, and it creates very small footprint since air density is low. But IR radiation, blocked by some screen, just doesn’t go far away in every direction. Indeed, screen will be warming up by absorbing certain amount of IR radiation, but if its surface is large enough, it will successfully sink it via convective heat transfer too. Remember, radiation is the least effective way of transfer in given circumstances.

      Simply speaking, if you cover a flashlight with your hand, where does the light go?

      • Texas-Roll-Over says:

        There is not several…There is three. Convection, Conduction, Radiation.

  5. Vince says:

    Very slick. Who built it?

    • jbgleason says:

      Looks to be an OSS can on that barrel.

      • SecondGradeMath says:

        Nah, but it looks like their end cap. Stealth Development Group, although I don’t know anything about them.

  6. Geoff says:

    That they did this based on the existing M4 foundation is remarkable. This amount of change almost begs to be on a completely new platform.

  7. Hubb says:

    That is very interesting. It appears to me to have a carbine-length, piston-operated system…that would help keep the Bolt Carrier Group and Upper Receiver somewhat cooler.

  8. Cy says:

    I wonder what the weight is? It looks like a lot metal as a heat sink.

  9. Seamus says:

    Appears to be a pretty simple design. A barrel with essentially multiple gas port sized holes along the length of the barrel with the baffles on the outside of the barrel thus eliminating the risk of baffle strikes. The vortex style flash hider on the muzzle should reduce what is left of the flash, the new resin should help reduce heat and thermal/IR signature and the piston will reduce heat transfer back to the bolt and BCG.

    The barrel design is extremely similar to the De Lisle Carbine in the 1940s. It had a ported barrel into a wrap around suppressor. It was reported to be very effective.

    I do love when going retro come back into vogue. I hope with new technologies added to a combat proven design that Team America really gets something amazing here. Lord knows there are a lot of bad guys that need killin’.

    Thanks SSD for bringing this to us.

    References:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lisle_carbine

    • LaughingAtRuss says:

      I’m lost… I don’t see the port sized holes you are referring to?

      This design is fantastic as I have seen other SURG submissions. The copper looking baffles are more than likely Beryllium Copper, because of the high thermal conductivity and strength ratio over standard steel. Very dangerous to machine though..

      My question about this design would be durability vs m855a1. using the standard gas block design with their piston is going to cause massive torching to their barrel in the port as well as potential melting of their piston system altogether. Same thing for their blast chamber and back pressures this design can put on the bolt. The lack of a sufficient blast chamber and the reflux in the back of suppressor is minimal. Against mk318 mod 0 pressures, probably not as bad as Alpha 1…

      • Iceman says:

        I am not so sure that what you are looking at is a piston system. I have not seen one with a spring on the front of a rod before. Most springs on piston rods are on the chamber side to allow for the rod to cushion against the barrel nut/upper receiver and not over-travel. I believe that this gun is a standard DI gun with an insulon shield over a gas tube and the spring is being used to hold the shield in place and potentially act as a heat sink. But I could be way off.

        Additionally, for a SURG candidate to be successful they must:

        Not reach 140F anywhere along the length of the handguard throughout a fairly robust course of fire

        have a barrel life of 15,000 rounds with M855A1

  10. Reseremb says:

    IIRC they’re using Inconel 718 to reduce the heat signature

    • LaughingAtRuss says:

      I’m confused by your comment. How would 718 reduce heat signature? I can see where the product would be more durable using inconel, be it extremely heavy, but I didn’t know of any advantages this would have for thermal mitigation under IR…

      • Reseremb says:

        From what I can remember in of DTIC’s NDIA Powerpoints, is an Inconel tube containing insulation. If I find the PPT will post it here, sorry not being more precise

        • LaughingAtRuss says:

          Familiar with the Insulon products. Problem with a VIP is that when you throw it on a sub or deploy from high altitude, these things will rupture. They are great during normal atmospheric conditions but deploying with one, then quenching it swimming back to your boat would prove to be too much. I do believe these were still SS unless they switched materials at the last minute.

          Looking at this, it still looks like a di upper with relief to get the gasblock to breathe (spring portion). SEG did a hell of a job on this design. Extremely well thought out and developed from their original design that was floating around months ago.

          Inconel is great in certain areas on the design but to meet the 5.5 lb weight limit the PM was seeking on the RFP, this design still looks extremely overweight and exposed over the gas system for IR to glow like a candle.

  11. Jason says:

    Something that prevents gas-face for us lefties would be MOST appreciated.

  12. Baldwin says:

    If I understand this “benefit” correctly, the heat/thermal/IR signature is significantly reduced because it is “contained” within this new layout shown above. How does this translate in sustained high rate of fire situations? Trapping all that heat can only have a detrimental effect on the barrel and accuracy. Is that an accurate assessment? If so is this degree of reduced signature truly worth that particular trade-off?

    • LaughingAtRuss says:

      Baldwin, that’s an extremely great question. The answer is that you need a material that can handle being heated up and cooling down over a sustained period of time without causing distortions as well as having enough ultimate tensile strength when heated up to over 1100 degrees with the current ammo SOCOM is using. So to answer your question, yes trapping heat is bad, yes it can distort accuracy with standard 4140, 4150, or even 9310 for barrel material. All will temper itself to death over the period of a short few reliability testing rounds. As the upper ages, so to does the accuracy. If the barrel doesn’t foul before the life of the unit, with the trapped heat and copper stripping into the lands of the barrel, it is sure to cause baffle strikes, inaccuracy or a non functioning weapon. It’s an extremely difficult task to accomplish. I think that’s why very few companies submitted to such a large RFP… Very few people figured out everything the government asked for IMHO…

      • Hey “laughingAtRuss”, you obviously know your suppression but must have missed the lessons on courage while hiding behind an alias.

        All other patrons,
        The authors (a distinguished gentlemen who knows his stuff) intent was to highlight capability improvements requested by the End Users and the validity of those capabilities inclusion into the SURG project as they push the benchmarks forward. If you don’t push the bounds of technology and development how do we improve the lethality and survivability of our warriors on an ever changing and technologically challenging battlefield?

        I say hell yes to the private companies innovating, engineers, scientist, program managers, SOCOM S&T, the components that support them, and the End Users who ask for, push for, and demand better kit through the SURG and any other programs!

        You have talent and knowledge laughing at Russ, try pushing the current “limits” of capabilities with it, may be surprised what you accomplish for our warriors and yourself

        Best Regards to all, see you in about 7 months!

        Russ Oliver

  13. LaughingAtRuss says:

    Epic mic drop..

    Wish you were here. Soldiers are absolutely more important than personal wealth. Sometimes that gets clouded, huh??? Maybe our paths will cross again in 7 months and be like old times, maybe not. Shhhh, goes the silencer that doesn’t go boom.