The M249’s air-cooled barrel is equipped with a mechanism to remove and replace the barrel assembly with a spare, this makes it easy for the operator to easily change the barrel on the field when it gets too hot during extensive amounts of fire. The barrel has a rifling twist rate of one turn in . A folding bipod with adjustable legs is attached near the front of the weapon, though there are provisions for hard-mounting to a M192 Lightweight Ground Mount tripod or vehicle mount.
