“Requirements”: A military development and procurement term that has leaked out a little into the civilian sphere. Requirements are only as good as the people that make them; sometimes requirements can get out of control, and sometimes they can result in innovative products that have everything you need and nothing you don’t.

It’s with this in mind that we take a look at Colt Canada’s 2015 products. Colt Canada – formerly Diemaco – produces their own AR-15 pattern weapons for Canadian military, law enforcement, and export customers. Due to its close relationship with the Canadian government, Colt Canada is often tasked with finding solutions to somewhat unique problems. One such solution is the IUR-16, a variant of the C8 carbine. This rifle has a totally monolithic handguard: Unlike it’s Colt counterpart, its receiver and quad rail are left as a single forging, with a prominent protuberance at the rear of the 6 o’clock rail:

What problem does this solve? It acts as a recoil surface for Colt Canada’s 40mm grenade launcher:

Due to the single-piece forging, the upper takes the entire recoil force of firing a 40mm grenade, instead of a lower rail attachment which might weaken. To compensate for this recoil surface (which the Colt Canada representative noted has a tendency to burn the hands after sustained fire), Colt Canada also developed a unique rubber rail cover:

On many of their rifles was also a new flash hider, with some interesting details:

The top of the flash hider is left unported, to help preserve visibility through night vision devices. The flash suppressor also has ridges running along its length, which were designed to help alleviate the sticking tendency of silencers and other muzzle attachments.