MANILA, Aug. 25 (PNA) — The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) announced that all 44,186 M-4 automatic rifles at its inventory have been corrected of its rear sight deficiencies.
This was disclosed by AFP public affairs office chief Col. Noel Detoyato Tuesday.
Of these, 24,300 have been accepted and ready for issuance to ground troops while the remaining 19,886 are still waiting for the completion of their ballistic tests before issuance to ground units.
The ballistic test, in which a live bullet is fired, was done to determine the exact slug and shell characteristics of the weapon which will act its “fingerprint”.
These M-4s, with their corrected rear sights, were delivered last week.
Detoyato stressed that the modifications were shouldered by Remington without any additional costs to the government.
Fortunately, the weapon was not yet distributed to field units when the defects were found.
He said the defects on the rear sight were discovered by the technical inspection and acceptance committee.
The AFP official did not give specifics on what the defects are but stressed that it seems to be moving and could open the weapon’s long-range capability to engage targets.
Remington also delivered 5,000 M-4 carbines to the Philippine Marines Corps but these did not have any rear sight defects as it was equipped with a much advanced optical sight.
The first 24,300 M-4 units were delivered in July 30, 2014 while the second batch of 19,866 were handed on Aug. 13 of the same year.
The AFP spent Php1.9 billion for the acquisition of the M-4s which was done to replace the Vietnam-era M-16 automatic rifles in service. (PNA)