G36 Heat Stress Test

thank you for tuning into an episode of in range and yes you are seeing double you're seeing two g36 rifles on this table technically they're tommy built us clones the t 36 now this one was provided to in range as a loaner by a very brave viewer and supporter named Steven this one is a custom build by Tommy built in that it's almost predominantly made from German parts everything in this has got German stampings on it German proof marks etc with the exception of course of 922 our compliance and the Tommy built polymer receiver this T 36 is the export variant of the g36 also a Tommy built gun this one is all American parts so we have one that is predominately German parts on this predominately American parts but fit function and everything else they are essentially nothing more and nothing different than a standard g36 this one being in the Bundeswehr configuration this one being in the export configuration with an LP vio on it but that's not what we're here to talk about today we're here to talk about is the controversy about the g36 in which claims are made that after firing only 60 rounds of ammunition that is two full magazines that the polymer receiver would heat up to the point that the trunnion would shift in it and you'd have a deviation of up to 50 centimetres at 200 metres so in in American parlance that would be approximately 20 inches of deviation at 200 yards from only two mags that's of course a ridiculous amount of deviation and that would cause you to absolutely miss every target on the battlefield whether it was at 200 meters 100 meters that's huge so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take both these guns we're gonna take them out to the range we're gonna do this is a 100 meters or 100 yards because it's just a little bit easier for me to do that we're gonna put it in a vise so that there's no human error involved we're gonna confirm the zero with both I'm going to use the magnified optic on this and the magnified optic on this we're gonna show a five-run group on steel should be no issue there whatsoever then we're gonna go ahead and dump 60 rounds out of this gun into the dirt not on the target we're gonna put it back into our vise and we're gonna fire another five around group if those 60 rounds mag dumps sufficiently heated up the trunnion to prove that this issue is real we should see approximately 10 inches of deviation on that steel at 100 yards for 25 centimeters at 100 meters I'm gonna do it again with the American gun and see if we have any issue with the American parts in essentially this g36 clone and we're gonna find out today if a simple thing as to mag dumps two thirty round mags is enough to actually cause enough heat in this polymer to cause the trunnion to shift and shift up to ten inches at 100 meters or excuse me 25 centimeters at 100 yrs or twenty five or ten inches at 100 yards let's find out okay as with everything it's very windy out here today typical for when we're trying to do anything like this mm-hmm I'm gonna start with the mostly German gun loaned to us by Stephen I will tell you that the optic in this was maybe really cool when they designed it but it is not cool anymore so first let's shoot our five run group on the steel I don't have anything besides just a big steel target downrange I'm gonna shoot center of mass will just get a group on there I'm not going for precision we're just doing combat accuracy here what we want to see is after I dump 60 rounds what's the difference after that so first let's take a thermometer ometer reading on the trunnion so right now this guns been laying in the Sun and it's coming in at 37 degrees Celsius and a hundred degrees Fahrenheit so it should heat up after we do our sixty round dump but first let's start the five round group alright five rounds standard group nothing precision going on here this is just a typical group downrange so let's get that mag out first mag of thirty this is just going into the dirt guys we're not shooting this at the target this is just insane but first let me reload my five round magazine so it's ready for us five all right I got five run mag and I've got two thirties this is just gonna be dumped in the dirt here we go alright that's thirty you can see the steam coming off the gun there another thirty right as you can see the guns quite hot it's going to take a thermometer reading on the trunnion area 105 Fahrenheit 107 let's let that sink in for a minute because it's not gonna trance look at a transfer through the polymer that quickly so let's let it sit for just a moment and once we get a higher temperature reading we'll see what we got 113 114 116 160 117 let's go to Celsius forty six point nine forty seven degrees Celsius forty seven point two 47.6 48 degrees Celsius for T nine degrees Celsius 50 Celsius all right through the handguard we're now getting 124 degrees Fahrenheit about 24 still have 50 Celsius 53 Celsius our 26 Fahrenheit it seems to be where it maxed out let's do our five run group but see it will get same point of aim all right here we go you I've got my five rounds that I'm gonna show a group with and let's see what the thermal right now this gun is 39 degrees Celsius 101 degrees Fahrenheit all right let's put the five round magazine in and shoot our group all right decent group nothing I wouldn't expect otherwise let's go ahead and get our 230 round mags we're gonna dump these into the dirt because what we're trying to do now is generate heat right all right all right we're not shooting the target we're just blasting here all right that's first 30 rounds all right now we're gonna let it sit and cook for a minute because the heats not gonna transfer immediately not gonna chamber cuz that'll heat up the first round let's see what we're getting for temperature its heating up 110 Fahrenheit 45 degrees Celsius let's let it sit but at 16 Fahrenheit 47 Celsius gotta let it do its thing he's got a transfer through the polymer 117 118 Fahrenheit seems to have tapered off at 120 degrees 122 Fahrenheit 51 degrees Celsius all right let's load our round let's do our five round group oh I guess I'd hit the bolt hold-open on that one and guess what the group didn't move at all it's exactly in the same place so let's go ahead and take our five rounds and see what happens with our zero god this optic is terrible it's not the same zero as the other gun that's just where it happens to be zeroed I'm using the original impact points from the American parts gun as my aiming reference point let's go ahead and do our 60 round mag dump and see what happens if shifts or not it's hard to do out here by yourself first thirty rounds second 30 rounds all right that's 60 as you can see she's smoking let's pull that Mac out while sitting and cooking a minute let's get our five round mag ready I'd have an aim at the exact same point I did last time so it should be in the same exact zero I had last time unless it shifted because of heat let's see what's happening with the heat on the gun 54 degrees Celsius 130 degrees Fahrenheit a little bit less on this side let's just to this side this was the hotter side anyway 58 Celsius it's not really moving 58 seems to have leveled off there let's do our five around group this one did shift a little bit so here we have both targets from the first iteration after the 60 round mag dump and the second iteration after the 60 round mag dump the left side is the first attempt the second target is the second attempt in both instances we see that the first round coming out of the German barrel post 60 round mag dump shoots aberrantly low you'll see that here right now with the second iteration on the right we see the second round also shoots low but then subsequent to this it starts to return to its group I feel that this is an issue not with the trunnion or with the barrel well this whole thing turned into a pretty interesting result I have to say first of all the opportunity to have to D 36 clones here both bye Tommy built but essentially g36 is in the same video here in the United States is a rare opportunity even more of a rare opportunity is to be able to use this one loaned to us by Steven which is manufactured from predominantly German parts as referenced in the video German barrel German bolt etc this one being American parts and I after watching the video and seeing what happened I actually called up Tom Bostick of Tommy built and he turns out to be a really cool guy and we had gosh I think an hour long conversation and he manufactures of course these t36 rifles now out of predominantly or entirely American parts that he's reverse engineered and built a perfect g36 clone out of but there are occasional g36 parts kits that come into the United States that are exceptionally expensive and there are people that absolutely must have the German parts they must have the German Barrel looked a little proof the N mark proof ond and the Eagle and the German bolt and I even saw in discussion here on n reins on our discord server that people absolutely wanted the German parts and the reality is I don't think that that's what you actually want unless you're looking for a collectible and here are the reasons what we've saw here on the video today I don't think have anything to do with overheating a polymer receiver a trunnion shift or anything and I think that the lore about the amount of issues that exist with this rifle is completely nonsense the idea that these melt get hot lose their zero to a point that make them combat ineffective is nonsense HK defended themselves in a lawsuit and prove that that was nonsense I think today in this video while these are american-made receivers this one with predominantly German parts we've proven today that that the concept and that the amount of shift that has been asserted in the past is absolutely false however we did see that with the German parts we did see in not only an opening of the overall average group size but after the in the first round of testing we did see one round go quite aberrantly low and then in the second round of testing we saw two rounds go aberrantly low and we also saw a shift of zero not a significant though certainly not the amount that's been described in the past and the reality is is that even with the shift that we saw in the German gun it would still be absolutely combat effective up to 400 meters you would not use maybe you'd throw an errant round or not but in reality when it comes to combat practical accuracy 400 meters and in even with the shift we saw on the German parts the reality is you're likely to have the ability to get a hit on a man Sally's target well we saw what the American barrel was absolutely no shift whatsoever and after talking to Tom Bostick there's reasons for this and it's even stuff that we've talked about here on in range TV already if you go back a couple years in the original 2017 what would stoner do project we tested an original colt ar-15 with its original pencil barrel and that was with only a 30 round mag dump and that gun moved over for minute of angle in terms of at zero and the reason is is that there was in the old-school manufacturing of barrels the way we manufactured them now and the heat and stress relief that we can do today versus then are very different things we have a whole series of videos here on in range TV that we talked to Nathan who was at fax on at the time and we standardized on facts on barrels for the what would stoner do project and pencil barrels manufactured today are not the pencil barrels of yesterday and when you include the concepts of the proper stress-relieving that can be done in the metallurgy that can be done with a pencil barrel now as well as the fact that this modern American barrel is nitrated not chrome-lined and you saw no shift whatsoever and absolutely actually the group size didn't even really open up after a 60 round mag dump but after a 60 round mag dump on the german barrel this chrome-lined barrel from the probably the 90s which is about the time we're talking about when things started really improving in terms of metallurgy and barrel manufacturing processes we see the same exact thing with this g36 pencil barrel to a lesser degree though than we saw with the old colts Porter the zero shifted to a certain degree the the overall zero moved a little bit and it opened up and that's because the parts kits that have come in to the United States here for these German guns predominately are by the way well used when you buy a Germans parts kits for a g36 the odds of it having a new barrel are highly unlikely if impossible I guess there's a small number of them but in reality these parts kits come from agencies and police agencies that cut them up and send them out and when you're a police agency or someone that's been issued a rifle you use it like you rented it you put it away wet and run it hard so the amount of wear and tear on a German parts kit barrel that comes into the United States that you pay a premium for is unknown as well as the longer barrels for this standard g36 configuration isn't something that HK did for a long time they landed focusing on shorter barrel systems so that means that these barrels that are nitro proof from Germany are likely early 90s barrels and the reality of that is that's early 90s barrel manufacturing as well as they're mass-produced in chrome line which we know does have some reduction in accuracy and as a result the heat and stress relief of the barrel is what we're seeing in this g36 pencil barrel has nothing to do with trunnion shift or overheating the actual polymer receiver the same exact design gun with the same exact length barrel are very similar lengths barrel with made out of by the way the barrels are provided by Green Mountain as blanks to tommy built I talked to him about that they're almost the same exact barrel profile and same barrel length with a nitrated barrel using modern manufacturing processes and stress relief showed no deviation whatsoever so very interesting conclusion in this regard I think that the reality of this issue with the g36 as HK has proven is false the gun is absolutely within the parameters for which they issued it to the to the Bundeswehr and the gun is a fantastic rifle it was absolutely capable of delivering what it said it would and provides whoever's adopted a very effective combat rifle however when you take the g36 and put on a modern barrel that's nitrated versus chromed with modern barrel manufacturing processes these issues of any form of zero shift or group opening up is reduced dramatically even after a sixty round mag Dom so I hope that you'll watch this video and come to the same conclusion that the idea of this lure of the d-36 being melty and inaccurate is wrong that is a false narrative as I believe that we should believe already but that there is something there in terms of old pencil barrel manufacturing processes and that when you make a barrel that thin get that hot you are going to see some form of zero shift zero opening or the actual group size opening up and or both and when you go to modern barrel manufacturing processes you see a lot of that mitigated and completely removed from the weapons system I want to thank Tom from Tommy bill for the one hour conversation I had with him he's doing a lot of fascinating things with these rifles and we're gonna talk about this g36 which is gonna stay within range this one's gonna go back to Steve and ultimately and there's a lot of things that he's doing with this platform that modernize it in a way that the g36 didn't get to have done to it in the field and that's content for another day but it is interesting that if one were to want to build a g36 today or a t36 here in the United States I would highly recommend that you don't bother with the very expensive German parts kits first of all you don't know the wear and tear on them as well as they were manufactured at a time and place in which barrel manufacturing processes just are not what they are in 2020 so you'll pay a premium for a gun that doesn't perform as well putting in a Green Mountain nitride a barrel in a modern t36 g36 produces a better weapon and I joked with Tom from Tommy built that perhaps they should be procuring their barrels from him anyways guys I hope you like this kind of content the reality is that while this gun was loaned to us by Steven this one was purchased with patreon support and all the ammunition that was used in this which by the way was an exorbitant amount was purchased by patreon viewers like you people that support this channel because this channel is not sponsored not advertised or sponsored we received no financial support except from viewers like you who want to see in range stay alive and man I spent a lot of five five six ammunition to do this test I'd like to thank the patrons for being making it possible to do a video like this and hopefully if you're not a supporter you should thank them as well because they made it possible to do a video like this if you like this kind of stuff please consider joining our page here on the support group it is truly the only thing that keeps in range alive if you can't I do understand just subscribe to one of our multiple distribution points you can find them all at in range TV thanks and share with your friends

Channel: InRangeTV

Views: 398,118

Rating: 4.8754725 out of 5

Keywords: G36, T36, Heat, H&K, heckler and koch, tommybuilt, bundeswehr, zero shift, inrange, inrangetv

Id: g4StCCv8QW0

Length: 23min 0sec (1380 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Duncan-M]

At 15:53, Karl mentions "HK defended themselves in a lawsuit, and proved that was nonsense."

But that firearmsblog article Karl shows the screenshot of, and the original Reuters and DW articles its based on, don't say anything about testing done. Quite the opposite, they state that HK won the lawsuit by proving that the original 1996 Bundeswehr requirements and testing never included anything about heat, therefore any deficiencies about heat testing weren't HK's fault.

The case centered not on whether the G36 experienced point of impact changes in extreme conditions, but rather whether the rifle met the initial requirements laid out by the German government during its development. The court, which favored Heckler & Koch’s case as early as June, ruled that the rifle did meet these requirements, and that therefore the company owed no compensation to the German government.

Can someone point to actual MOD or other evidence that proves no accuracy degradation or zero shift from heat?