Quote Originally Posted by Firn View Post
The above post, with a quote from the linked thread, raises for me a very general question:

What exactly is reliabilty when it comes to firarms, specifically issued one? Is a gun reliably because you can fire it after a quick cleaning after having been buried in African sand for decades? When it fires in a bitter Russian winter with little care or after it was dropped from a house hitting the pavement?

What is it's relationship with durability, as witnessed in the M4's upper and lower receiver after so many rounds fired reliably?

Overall it seems fairly easy to stack the deck against or for a specific firearm, by using a tailored mix of conditions.

P.S: I wonder how often just the usual wear and tear without proper maintance or replacement parts grinds down the reliability of a weapons system which afterward gets a name for unreliability.
To paraphrase I, Robot, "Those are the right questions."

Culturally, there are many ways to frame "reliability".

In engineering terms, reliability = predictability

If a machine fails, but does so predictably with relatively simple repairs, it is still reliable.