How bad have you abused your AR and it still went bang? I really don't have too many horror stories,but I did drop an old CAR down the concrete stairs once while having my hands full of range stuff on my way to a shoot. A lot of scratches and a slightly bent front sight lip but the lady still shot great.

I would like to hear about your beatings you have given to your battle rifles.

I once put a friends USA mag in her but I felt so bad I pulled it out quickly.  She told me it was horrible and to never stick things that didnt belong in her again...

I could tell some stories. I am in the Army, I have lost track of the times myself or others have dropped their M16 or other weapons on the concrete, mud, rocks, or snow. They always went bang. I've' seen them thrown or used as a hammer to drive in tent stakes. The M16/AR-15 is a more durable weapon than some people give it credit.

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life is to short to drink cheap

I haven't shot or seen any of mine for 13 months ... the worse abuse of them all.

I packed my barrel full of wet sand and shot Wolf ammo through it to see if it would still shoot.




OK, I made that up. I just shot Wolf ammo through it.

Quoted: I haven't shot or seen any of mine for 13 months ... the worse abuse of them all.

You're right that is terrible. I don't know how you live with yourself .

Quoted: ...I have lost track of the times myself or others have dropped their M16 or other weapons on the concrete, mud, rocks, or snow. They always went bang.

Just to clarify:  did they go bang when you dropped them or are you talking about reliability afterwards?  My guess is that nobody was pounding in a tent stake with a loaded, round-chambered M16.  

In the field during AIT, we use to throw our rifles in a 55 gallon drum that held the artillery stakes.  Literally, the M16A1's would get dropped in the drum muzzle first until there were 5-10 in there.  Some would even get thrown in there, depending upon whether or not we were under time pressue.  I can still remember the sound of the banging metal and plastic.  This was SOP for the training units and I had never heard of a problem due to that mistreatment.  No broken front sight posts or assemblies, etc.  Despite this my rifle still managed to let me qualify expert.  These were all very worn and banged up rifles on a training base.

Now, when we used REAL M16A1's (and not rubber ducks) for bayonet practice against the tire and steel "enemies" at another unnamed school, that was a different story....  We had zeroed prior to this and when we reached the qualification range (pop up targets, so very difficult to see your POI re-zero while firing the Q course) I could barely get hits on the 50 meter targets, much less the 100-300 meter targets.  Needless to say that I did not qualify expert that time.  Had I been able to see my POI (the range was very green, not dry) I could've probably adjusted.

So, in my experience if you throw your rifles in a pile in the corner of your safe, you're probably okay (though I don't advise this practice).  OTOH, if you spend an afternoon vigorously whacking a large tree at various angles with the barrel, you might experience some shift in your zero -- though the weapon will still continue to function without malfunction unless you've actually managed to bend something at the chamber/upper receiver point.

My friend and I both agree that we generally pamper our AR15's and do not subject them to the abuse they're designed to take.  If the Krime Bill sunsets with no replacement, I might be willing to abuse a new $750 evil featured Bushmaster.  But I'm going to continue to pamper my $1,500 preban, especially if I can't replace it.  The rifles of most AR15.com members will never see 5% of the abuse that military rifles see.

Military rifles, however, have a very hard life.  Based on what I have seen, the M16/AR15 is more than able to take heavy amounts of abuse.  I have been very impressed.

Just to clarify:  did they go bang when you dropped them or are you talking about reliability afterwards?  My guess is that nobody was pounding in a tent stake with a loaded, round-chambered M16.

they still went bang later on and it was a round-chambered, loaded M16.

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life is to short to drink cheap

there was this one time, in band camp...


Really, I was a Ranger Instructor in Camp Frank D Merrill, mountain phase in north Georgia.  I seen em dropped over the 60ft cliff for rappel training.  I've seen em dropped end over end down the side a Mt Yonah - about 400 ft of high-angle rappel face.
I've used mine as a probe/cane in the swamp of the jungle phase in Florida.
My reputation and concious prohibits me from telling more.
TSL

I doubt that most of the folks on this site who don't have either Marine or Army experience will ever believe the abuse that these rifles take on a regular basis, and continue to fire reliably. The rifle I had in basic was just about beat to death, (an old Hydr-matic A1), I know that I gave it hell, throwing it, dropping it, using it as a hammer, lever, crutch, and god only knows what else, I asked the unit armorer how old it was and he said it had probably been in the unit for twenty years, and it still functioned fine at the range. The first A2 I was issued was when my unit got left overs when the seventh infantry deactivated (I think it was the seventh), the Colt I was issued was in worse shapw than the Palmetto A1 I had been using but it shot well and was extremely reliable. I took my colt with me on about a million missions and FTX's and it just kept going (I know for sure it went to Robbin Sage at least four times), I don't recall ever having to have anything replaced other than a dust cover spring that I lost. The barrel looked like it was chromed on the outside, and the handgaurds were pretty raggedy as well as the butt and if you shook it it made plenty of noise, but it still worked fine.

6 30 round mags as fast as I could unload them.
My bushie "gooks in the wire vietnam special" never has let me down.
GG

I shoot Wolf .223, 7.62X39,and 9mm in my prebans

I have seen alot of M16 abuse's and i admit i have abused them too,not on purpose mind you,but it happens none the less.

They are tougher than what you think how ever one guy in my platoon was doing the range 400 at 29 palms and landed hard on his rush and his butt stock hit a rock and split down both sides.Still to this day nobody knows how or why it split the way.

Bump firing Beta Cmags in the desert sun.

Oh and the case of Wolf ammo that totally gummed up the chamber..

Forgot to leave the night light on when I tucked her in last night.....

The worst abuse I've seen given to a M-16 was while at the qual range at Ft Hood TX. The "range saftey" used a issue cleaning rod to stick down the bbl. This was to ensure that there was no round in the chamber.  As the rod went down the bbl I could hear each section hitting the crown..."dink dink dink". I'm sure that it damaged some of them. I asked about it and the saftey just said "Its SOP."
While assigned to a LRS det. I saw a couple of them get beat pretty bad but it was usually just cosmetic damage.