What is the notch for on an M4 flash hider?

[Aunty Pasty]

Like the notch on the end of this flash hider.

http://shop.ehobbyasia.com/a-p-s-steel-m4-muzzle-flash-hider-14mm-ccw.html#.VUhuZGTBzGc

Last Sunday some lad asked me whether his flash hider was broken. He showed me the end of his gun and he thought there was a piece missing from his flash hider. I said no it was like that as it was painted rather than bare metal. However I couldn't say what it was for.

Perhaps it's a bottle opener or a bayonet mount?

 

[Airsoft_Mr B]

Pretty sure it's for breaching

Definitely not a bottle opener, and the bayonet lug is a piece on the front sight

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

I've wondered before too, though I've only ever noticed it on Combat Machines.

I thought it might be some sort of QD thing for suppressors or something, to lock them and stop them rotating. Though I'm probably wrong.

 

[TheFull9]

lol, if there's one thing that the military hierarchy likes to facilitate, it's warfighters getting drunk on the battlefield..

It's a good question to be honest I've never really considered it; the muzzle device on the L85 is a very similar 'bird cage' but it doesn't have the same cut. Without googling it I'd say it's to index some sort of common attachment but I'm not sure what as I've never seen a suppressor that uses it and I'm pretty sure the US issue BFA and Bayonet don't use it either (could be wrong on one of those though).

 

[Samurai]

I'm not sure about the M4 flash hider but on some other, similar flash hiders it's a wire cutter for barbed wire. It keeps the wire in position to shoot it.

 

[Mack]

As CK mentioned above its for the Indexing pin inside a suppressor.

 

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

 

[Albiscuit]

I used to think my raider had a broken one until I saw someone elses

 

[Shizbazki]

Hi all

I replaced the flash hider on my G&G TR4-18 (HK 416) AEG to have the notch in the flash hider, the reason for it is that it goes with the Knights Armament QD Supressor.

The suppressor fits over the flash hider and inside the suppressor is a pin which fits in the notch on the flash hider to stop the suppressor from spinning around.

Watch this video here from Airsoftology, FFW to the 4.30 minute mark

 

[Hudson]

The old Marui SR16s used to come with the same style too, I thought it was broken too, when I first saw mine!