It was awesome. Had an actual design engineer walk us the whole factory floor and answer whatever questions he was legally allowed to answer. Don't know if it's everybody's thing, but getting to pick up all that stuff was the bee's knees for me.
Left to right is: raw bar stock, after light machining and gun-drilling, the mandrel, after hammer forging, and a cross-cut of a forged barrel.
It was badass.
Really was fascinated at the hammer forging process. Had always wondered how you got the mandrel out after forging. It was eye opening to find out the short, tapered mandrel is constantly rotated and withdrawn to form the rifling AND chamber.
...full auto M4s boxed up and ready to go. Just as we got to the end were the fellas putting in the fine hand work that goes into upper and lower assembly. It was amazing. Go if you get the chance.
***edit, I had to steal the pics because no cameras allowed, but found what we saw on the web***