There is one I'v eseen that shows a drop and a hand. IT goes through each part and how much oil to put everywhere.

click here for youtube.com video of field stripping your AR-15

it shows complete disassembly then reassembly without tools. really helpful when i got my first ar15.


eta:

i would not suggest using WD-40 or dish soap on your AR-15. stick with hoppes #9 solvent and oil or just use Break Free CLP if you want an all in one cleaner/lubricant.

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In case that embedded youtube does not work, here are the links
- Part 1/3
- Part 2/3
- Part 3/3

I see this thread is a little dead, so I thought I would revive it a little.

First off, I have read things on here that make me cringe. I was an Armorer in the military for many years and have seen about every attempt to clean weapons imaginable. Some work, some don't, some cause more damage than not cleaning it at all. I thought I would post a few of the non-standard methods and why they should not be used.

Some definite don'ts:

Do not use oven cleaner! There are two types of oven cleaner; one is full concentrated, and the other is supposed to be more environmentally friendly. Both contain sodium hydroxide (caustic lye) as an active ingredient. Caustic lye disolves aluminum and the mil spec III hard coat anodizing/parkerizing and teflon coating on the aluminum. This cleaner leaves the parts discolored (left on long enough––completely stripped) and more suceptable to wear and corrosion. Disbelieve? Do an internet search for anodizing/reanodizing and what chemical is used for stripping protective anodizing/parkerizing from aluminum. The removal of the hardcoat actually changes the dimentional sizes of the parts. Softens some plastics. Requires neutralization or washing off.

Do not use Simple Green! Again, it has a PH balance that will stain Teflon/anodized/parkerized aluminum parts. If applied in full strength, and left to sit long enough, it can soften the Teflon coating and hard coat.

Do not use products containing Amonia! Windex, 409, etc. Same as above

Brakeclean: Comes in two versions; chlorinated and non-chlorinated. The chlorinated version is a definate no-no. Chlorine is corrosive and eats aluminum––makes the receivers turn foggy white. The non-chlorinated doesn't seem to have any major ill effects besides completely stripping all of the lubricant off of components––even some that are difficult to re-lubricate. Not sure about long term exposure (it evaporates fast and residue free) on plastics and silicone (such as the extractor spring elastomer insert) or plastic stocks.

Carburator Cleaner, Throttle Body cleaner: Same as non-chlorinated brake cleaner, but not quite as harsh.

WD40: Do an internet search. WD40 was originally designed as a Water Dispersion agent (WD), the 40 was their 40th formula tried. It is not a great chemical to use for weapons cleaning. It is a solvent, 1/2 of its chemical composition is hexan––simular to kerosene––which makes it flammable. It lacks protective oils that the metals in firearms require. Plus, it smokes, burns your eyes, and smells like crap when heated up from firing. It really doesn't work that great at removing carbon either. WD-40 as weapons cleaner In an emergency once, lacking anything closer to CLP, I had to use this to keep an M2 .50 running––swore I would never use it again. The gun smoked, blew hot gasses every where, and the evaporation burned my eyes and made it hard to breath––I actually thought the gun was going to catch on fire!

Washing in the sink with hot water; This is the old sneaky soldier stand-by which causes damage not immediately noticed. One thing that has to be remembered, is that there are several bare metal surfaces in the bolt and lower receiver that are extremely difficult to get the water out of, or even see without complete disassembly. The very fine polished trigger engagement surfaces, the trigger group pins, the take-down pin detents, and safety selector detents. Hot water strips away the lubricants and is extremely difficult to remove from those little tiny and long springs that most people do not even know are there. With those springs, frequently the water breaks down the lubricant, but it cannot get out (the lubricant turns milky white and gummy) Problems usually start after the pieces have slightly rusted. The Trigger group pins rust, and because rust (iron oxide) is harder than aluminum, the rusty pins break the surface of hardcoat causing the aluminum to corrode and waller out the receiver holes. The trigger almost instantly gets surface rust on the polished sear surfaces and loses its smoothness. The take-down pins, detents, and springs rust making it difficult to push out the take-down pins. The bolt ejector spring develops a rusty sludge of milky oil, corroded brass flakes, and rust––causing many ejection problems. I repaired all of these kinds of problems in the Army caused from this type of poor maintenance. To the average person, this kind of cleaning looks like it works.

Some people claim to be able to get all of the water out with compressed air or a hair dryer––wrong! The compressed air forces the water further into the detent springs, and a hair dryer can't reach those areas. On old black powder weapons, water and soap can be used––they do not have the hidden places of a modern assault rifle. For those in disbelief: I recommend you go out to your car, spray a fine mist of water on the front brake rotor, leave it set for an hour, take a white paper towel and wipe it. Then, look at the fine rust that the paper towel wipes off. On your car, that fine rust is removed the first time you step on the brakes––on your trigger, that fine rust, almost invisible to the naked eye (if you could see it on an assembled weapon) makes the pull feel sandy and creepy. On the front take-down pin you can actually see part of the detent spring through a tiny hole on the side of the receiver––the rear pin and the safety selector detents and springs are hidden by the pistol grip and rear stock/extension tube plate. The buffer retaining pin & spring, front sight post detent, and rear sight detents all have places to retain water. When these are stripped of their lubricants, the parts can rust rather quickly.

Manufacturers, Military, and LE spend billions of dollars on firearms and have been instrumental in developing and adopting cleaning products and procedures that work––not just in the short-term, but over the service life of the firearm. The civilian market has several extremely good products that the military has not adopted. CLP is one of the best cleaners, lubricants, and preservatives there is––for a single source. In the field, the soldier cannot carry seperate bottles of oil, bore cleaner, and Gunscrubber as civilians can. Some of these products are great, and I use them on my weapons. Even so, there is alot of crap out there.

My advise to the new, is not to deviate to far from products and procedures that are not designed specifically for weapons. A good clue, is if you are looking under your kitchen sink for something to clean, you are probably looking for trouble. Buy the right products for the job. The military TMs have cleaning procedures for operators that are a good starting point. The cleaning videos listed elsewhere in this thread are also a good reference. Using some latest, fastest trick of the week/product for cleaning, will probably cause more harm than good.

An armorer's course is intensely "hands on". It's not for the faint of heart. I went through one and it was two, 10 hour days of almost non-stop disassembly and reassembly. Every pin, spring, and part was removed, inspected, and reassembled. Even the barrel was removed, gas tube realigned, applied anti-seize where barrel and revceiver mate, and barrel retorqued. It was FUN !!!

Remember, knowledge not used is knowledge lost. If you don't disassemble and reassemble an AR every day (like a police or military armorer would), you get rusty and may eventually forget how to do it.

Good luck.

I don't mean to be contentious, brother, but I have used Break Free for many, many years and I have never had it gum up and render my revolver useless. I hunt with a S&W 657 and after the season, it gets cleaned with copius amounts of Break free and put away for next year. Never had a problem when the next season rolls around The problem I HAVE seen with Break Free is that it evaporates and leaves my gun(s) "dry".

I have since solved this problem of Break Free evaporating. I now use Slip 2000.

Perhaps your revolver has some residue of other "oils' that combined with Break Free?

Perhaps "pull it through the barrel" from the crown end?

Here's how: Insert your cleaning rod and bore brush DOWN the barrel from the the crown end toward the breach/chamber. Attach your bore brush and soak it in solvent. PULL the rod out of the barrel while allowing the brush to track the rifleling. Do the same when you are ready to use cleaning patches.

Hope this helps.

Great post thanks for the info.

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