For years I have used a light film of grease on semi-auto sliding surfaces.  Just a tiny bit on the end of a q-tip goes a long way.  I have used it on my 1911 pistol, AK and SKS rifles and have shot thousands of rounds through them with minimal wear to the sliding parts.  I clean and relube after every shooting session.  I’m new to AR type rifles and don’t understand why this is not good for them as well.  Can anyone educate me?  

I like CLP for protecting from rust, but prefer Hoppes, hot water and dish soap for cleaning with Hoppes gun oil for general lubricating.  Old habits and all that :-).

Thanks

Hoppy

Believe the "no grease" thoughts relate to it's propensity to cause an accumulation of dirt, sand and grit which most associate with it's use.

Mike

Exactly.

The AR-15 is in a league of its own regarding lubrication, due to the fact that a huge gust of crud is blowing into the action with each shot.

Add to that the fact that a whole bunch of .223 can be fired in fairly short order from one rifle, and the resulting carbon, soot and residue buildup rapidly becomes an issue.

Grease will work if you just want to fire a few rounds per session, with degreasing between sessions...and then only in warm weather.

CLP has the wonderful quality of being able to dissolve and 'float' fouling inside the action. This means that even though the lube really does catch the crap, it redeems itself by breaking it down and keeping things slick.

Add a big dose of powder fouling and soot to your average grease, synthetic of otherwise, and you soon have lapping compound! Rub steel and aluminum together in the presence of this gack and watch those parts shrink! Yikes.

That's why grease isn't used much on AR-type rifle actions.

I do indeed grease the pin-holes on the lower, however; the hammer & trigger pins revolve in their holes, and since this is a low-gunk location, I find I cut friction the most with Militec grease. So I use it and replace the grease monthly, or more often if shooting excessive amounts of ammo.

Nothing on the bolt carrier needs greased, although since Militec's oil and grease are said to play nice together perhaps you could coat the bolt carrier's action rails, if that makes you happy. Definitely do NOT grease anything inside the BC. It will carbonize!

I use their Firepower CLP on everything from the bolt lugs to the gas rings to the action, and also the external parts as a protectant. Works great.

Thank you sir.  As I think about it I guess the AR is unique in that it blows directly into the bolt area instead of utilizing an op rod type of gas system.

How about the sear/hammer point?  I've had good luck with synthetic, teflon light grease here.  Is a light oil or CLP adequate here also to protect against wear and lubricate?  When I got the rifle (secondhand) it had some pretty substantial wear at this point.  I polished it out with a piece of Crocus cloth and put a little dab of teflon grease there.  It seemed to help smooth out the trigger a lot.

Thanks for the education.

Hoppy

Mine had some pretty significant wear there after probably less than about 50 rounds. I, too, polished it as best I could, but I read somewhere that that area is supposed to be hardened, and if you polish it too much, you'll go through the hardening and cause accelerated wear. I picked up the parts kit from a gun show, and I don't know the brand, so I figure I might have gotten some parts that were not hardened or are otherwise out of spec. Since the trigger group seems to be a pretty important part, I went ahead and ordered new parts from Bushmaster.