nice weapon, gas piston operated. nice departure from direct impingment operation, but too costly for casual use. There are a lot of manufactures that make AR uppers in with the same configuration, and Colt is releasing one soon, I believe it is called the M5. HK also made a 7.62mm version of it as well.
They did a piece on this weapon on FutureWeapons back in December. They did all the standard ruggedness tests (dunk it water, bury it in sand) and then fired off 30 rounds with a glitch. If I remember correctly they field stripped it immediately after firing a group of rounds and the host gripped the barrel with his bare hands without burning himself...the barrel was cool. Pretty slick weapon.
Remember the Union Army Quartermaster General who refused to purchase repeating rifles because he was afraid the troops would "waste ammunition"? The M-16 was designed as a pretty decent weapon but McNamara's Whiz Kids cheapened it and a lot of guys died in Viet Nam as a result. Some things never change...
I saw that one, they fired full auto, then broke the 416 down and the host held the bolt assembly in his bare hands. Like i have heard before, it's nice not having a weapon that sh!t$ where it eats. I had the pleasure of being part of some torture testing that the Marine Corps did with the G36. Awesome weapon, as hard as we tried we could not kill it. Very light and rugged, you could stand on the barrel while the tripod was locked down and the thing wouldn't break. The Marine Corps was evaluating 3 other weapons as a potential replacement for the M249 SAW, and the other candidates didn't even come close. Not sure what happened with the program though, that was back on '01. I have some photos of it, somewhere at home, when I get back I'll see about uploading them.
You can get a short stroke piston driven AR derivative rifle from POF, Bushmaster, and Leitner Wise today. There's even a retrofit kit made by a company called Ares. To heck with H & K if they won't sell uppers to we poor unwashed masses of civilians They do make very good stuff though. I've had 2 USP's that were scary accurate.