Picked up a copy of Autoloaders (put out by Sporting Times) today while at the supermarket, and lo and behold, they did a test on a 20" Colt match target H-Bar. So here's the low down.
They put 10,000 rounds through it in two and a half days, cleaning it every 1000 rounds. The results? Not one jam, or broken spring, pin, or extractor. They used PMC 55 grain FMJ ammo, and a 1:9 twist. For the first 9000 rounds, the groups averaged right around 1.5 inches (five round groups fired after cleaning) with some groups as tight as .079. After 9000 rounds, the group opened up, but then closed to as little as 0.60 when switched to Hornady.
Anyway, I know this doesn't simulate battle field conditions, but still, not bad. Just out of curiosity, how many rounds should be put through rifle before cleaning it to simulate battle field conditions? Anybody else out there done any kind of stress tests on their AR's?

I picked up the same issue.

Now if anyone is willing to DONATE 10,000 rds to me I would be eager to digest said rounds in my MT6700 [:D]

And since this is something that should be repeatable with any quality(read "not ASA or Hesse") AR15 then I'd be willing to do the same with one of my Bushmasters if somebody would kindly donate 12k rounds.


10k rounds for the test and 2k rounds for the trouble of me having to take time out of my busy schedule to stuff magazines and spend time emptying them, it's a dirty job but somebody has got to do it.



A buddy of mine has around 12k rounds through his duty SP1 Carbine and he has yet to replace a single part or spring on it.



I just wish they did the same test with an Armalite M15 or a Bushmaster XM15 so they could do a comparison test.

Cleaning every 1k rounds, that's full well typical.  Keeps the thing clean enough that it stays reliable yet it's still a number quite a bit higher than what people typically let their ARs go before they clean them.   Still, I'd like to have seen them do more of a torture test where they absolutely refuse to clean the thing until after it's first malfunction.  

Seeing as it was a colt. They got lucky!!!

Ya, I'm a Bushmaster fan myself. Not that I don't like Colts, just that I've heard that their qualty isn't what it used to be. And why switch to another brand that has never failed me? Just thought this spoke well to the reliability of the design.

That article is about 4 years old now. Sounds like typical Colt quality to me. It why, despite the constant whining of the Colt detractors, the non-standard pin sizes Colt has used over the years isn't such a big deal. The parts rarely need to be replaced.