Cleaning ARs

Nubz said:

My opinion is if you don't clean it everytime you are a fool

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too much cleaning still a fool.

i can see if you shooting in the couple hundreds of rounds through it or you shooting corrosive ammo.. yeah.. i would agree.

Every second or third time I take it out. I usually only shoot about 200 rounds or less at a trip. I always at least pull a bore snake through the bore and squirt a little oil on the bolt before packing it away otherwise dirty. But I don't scrub the bolt carrier group and chamber every time, or thoroughly clean the bore every time. It just doesn't get that dirty.

My mistake, it was the hammer pin that used to walk out. Wasn't thinking straight.


Hmm, guess I'm a fool then - I've played both sides of that coin, over-cleaning and under-cleaning - meh, not the worst thing I've ever been called...

After every range trip. I like my guns clean and working.

God forbid, if I or my family needed the closest one and it malfunctioned because I was too damn lazy to clean/repair/maintain the SOB.

That said, sometimes I'll forget altogether and flog my back with the ole cat-o-nine-tails when I find out.

I'm not so religious with my bolt actions or shotguns, although I feel I should be.

I clean mine everytime I use them

I end up cleaning them after every 5 or 6 outings. I do "wet" the BCG before I take them out shooting though.

guthook said:

After every range trip. I like my guns clean and working.

God forbid, if I or my family needed the closest one and it malfunctioned because I was too damn lazy to clean/repair/maintain the SOB.

That said, sometimes I'll forget altogether and flog my back with the ole cat-o-nine-tails when I find out.

I'm not so religious with my bolt actions or shotguns, although I feel I should be.

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one handgun is always clean, lock and loaded for that...

lx1x said:

too much cleaning still a fool.

i can see if you shooting in the couple hundreds of rounds through it or you shooting corrosive ammo.. yeah.. i would agree.

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Well when I go out to shoot it's not just a few rounds anyway

Nubz said:

Well when I go out to shoot it's not just a few rounds anyway

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Every 200-300 rounds, BCG is kept oiled but other than that I prefer mine a little dirty for matches otherwise it takes a few shots to settle down.

I just bore snake the barrel twice, wipe down the BCG with a paper towel and squirt some CLP on the bolt.

For my piston gun I like to remove the piston and really buff it clean with a special Vera Bradley lap towel I keep in my Limited Edition Hk Range Bag. I then lube it up good with Full Synthetic Mobil 1 and dream of the day ARs in 40SW are as common as sand on a beach... pink sand that is...

I clean all my guns after shooting them until I don't get carbon on the wipes I use. I normally don't scrape metal on my weapons because I don't want to put wear on the parts and I never take it apart past field stripping. It's a habit that I blame on the army. I usually put around 260-400 rounds through my AR every trip to the range in order to keep my skills sharp/ improve my skill set. You probably only have to clean the bcg, star chamber, inside the buffer tube, wipe off the inside of the upper reciever, and snake the barrel in order to keep in running malfunction free.

if its cheap ammo i clean after shooting...

Had my lwrc since valentines day...hasn't been cleaned at all yet. Not even from the factory. It's got some slip 2000 ewl shot in it as new and a few other times and about 1500 down the tube so far. Bad, I know. The lmt was cleaned from the factory before it went out the first time and not since. About the same round count.

Duty, every chance I could (not often) but used Lube constantly.

Non-Duty...I haven't cleaned Wifey's in almost 5,000 rounds without issue. Should probably clean it tonight. Mine, get's cleaned every couple hundred rounds.

I clean mine every time, regardless of the amount of ammo I put thru it.

I'm sort of running my own little torture test on my 11.5" SBR which has a BCM BFH upper and BCM BCG. I've got about 1500 rounds through it, 600 of those suppressed. Haven't cleaned it yet. It has sat for up to 2 months without being shot, I just add a couple drops of Slip 2k about every 500 rounds. I cleaned the barrel after running half a mag through it when I first got it, I think I've run a boresnake through it twice.

My plan is to shoot it until it stops. Then I'll inspect all the components (including the barrel with a borescope) and see how much wear & tear I'm getting and what if anything has broken. I went shooting with my dad and brother the other day at the NRA HQ and posted an approximate 6-7" group standing, offhand, pretty quickly at 50 yds with my Aimpoint. Good enough for what I'm using it for... I will sit down at some point and put it on a sandbag and see what sort of accuracy I'm getting with it. But for about 1500 rounds through the barrel with no cleaning I think that's pretty decent.

People often overclean bores, causing premature wear, and underclean working components...leading to malfunctions. Properly built ar's really aren't too sensitive to being dirty. Just keep the bolt carrier wet with some good lube(synthetic motor oil works, currently i'm using breakfree LP) and it'll continue to migrate carbon away from the metal and things will run fine.

Barrels need to be cleaned at different rates depending on your needs and gun. Some bores are rougher and will foul quicker, some are smoother and will foul slower. Some barrels are intended for target use and an unacceptable group would be over .5" and some are duty use and need to be pretty damned fouled to make a noticeable difference in desired performance.

If you're just anal about things, are storing the gun for a while, or just like cleaning(i actually find cleaning cathartic and use it to destress after a day's work) then feel free to clean whenever the gun is dirty...but it probably doesn't actually NEED it.

Barrel- Use wipe-out, a good one-piece rod, a good jag to run a patch with, and a bore guide. Anything else is too much work and probably causing premature wear to your barrel. Run a patch with accelerator up the bore, then shoot some wipe-out in there. Angle the bore down slightly and let it drip on to a paper plate for an hour or so. Come back and run a dry patch through the bore, using the 1-piece rod, bore-guide, and jag from the chamber to the muzzle. Take the blue/grey patch off the jag after it pops out the muzzle and talk to yourself in amazement for a few seconds at how much crap wipe-out got out. Run a few more patches and then repeat accelerator and wipe out...come back in 15 mins to run more dry patches...if they're clean, you're good. If they're dirty, let the next treatment sit a few more hours(or overnight) and repeat until done.

BCG- Take the thing apart and scrub with hot water and soap with a toothbrush. I used all kinds of gun cleaners..but hot water and soap seems to be fantastic at getting things clean. Hot water is important to help left over water evaporate after you're done. Feel free to scrape extra tough carbon off the bolt and firing pin with a fired casing or wire brush. Oil the bcg up again with some clp, lp, froglube..or whatever is your favorite lube/preservative to displace moisture and further migrate what carbon you missed with the detergents in them and re-assemble.

Upper- just grab a rag with some hoppes elite, clp, or whatever and wipe down. It's not that crucial it be spotless.

Lower- same thing, not a big deal if it's dirty. Wipe junk off and toss in some light oil to the fcg.

Buffer+spring- give the buffer face a wipe down and inspect it for premature wear. Also look at the retainer detent and buffer tube for premature wear. After wiping things down, re-apply synthetic grease to buffer spring(gets rid of "sproing") and stuff it back in.

Whahlah, you're good to go.

There is no need to clean an AR every time you shoot, or even very often. A quality AR (like Colt or BCM) should perform reliably even when dirty. Contrary to popular belief, the AR is a very reliable platform even when dirty. Keep it lubed is important, but more important are good magazines and not having a weak buffer spring.

When I feel like my gun is dirty I wipe the crud down from the BCG, receiver, and chamber. That's it. I don't even do this every time.

Once in a while I do a full cleaning, but not that often as it isn't necessary.

Nubz said:

My opinion is if you don't clean it everytime you are a fool

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That's sort of a ridiculous statement.

That being said, I do clean mine every time I shoot it. Thoroughly. I'm not an expert...but I think the whole "overcleaning your gun will damage it" is largely a myth. I mean, you have guys in the army and marine corps taking drills and putting chamber brushes on them and cleaning that way. Hell yes, that's going to cause damage. Things like that, definitely.

But if all you're doing is running a bronze brush/patches through your bore and using a chamber brush properly, I find it hard to believe you're going to damage your gun, even if you did it twice a day every day. I mean, how is a bronze brush going to damage your bore when copper going 3k fps (I think) through your bore doesn't hurt it?

That being said I had an interesting problem the other day. Hoppes elite down the bore, bronze brush, patches through until clean. But then I sprayed a patch with hoppes elite and ran it down, and it was dirty again. So...I kept running patches until clean. Tried another wet patch. Dirty again!! So I soak the bore in hoppes elite and let it sit for half an hour. Push patches through until totally clean. Take a patch, put some hoppes elite on there, and run it through....DIRTY. What the hell is going on?