Posted: 1/9/2012 2:22:46 AM EDT
|
Being new to this centrefire AR-15 malarkey, could you guys let me know how often you clean your rifles? Also, do you strip and clean the bolt every time you clean the barrel, or less often?
Cheers Dan 
|
|
Hi Dan
To be honest, only my .22AR and 9mm get cleaned very often at all, as they also see higher round counts & get dirty quite quickly. I'll run an OTIS pullthrough through the .223 AR's barrel every so often ( 2 or 3 times a year max), but don't strip the bolts down ever. If I've been out in pouring rain or mud I'll dry/clean/lube, but otherwise just stick them back in the cupboard . |
|
Quoted:
Hi Dan To be honest, only my .22AR and 9mm get cleaned very often at all, as they also see higher round counts & get dirty quite quickly. I'll run an OTIS pullthrough through the .223 AR's barrel every so often ( 2 or 3 times a year max), but don't strip the bolts down ever. If I've been out in pouring rain or mud I'll dry/clean/lube, but otherwise just stick them back in the cupboard . I like the sound of that. 
|
|
Quoted:
Once every 500-600rds or so, so that's about twice a year. It does get a thorough cleaning though. I don't believe it makes it shoot any better, but every now and again, feel like I must do something to it I don't feel quite so guilty having got home knackered on Saturday and sticking mine in the cupboard then 
I did strip and clean it properly when I picked it up last week however, it had been stuck in a cabinet unfired for years before I bought it and the bore looked like the inside of one of Fred Dibnah's chimneys
|
|
Quoted:
Due to way to much time running round the lines with various weapons above my head I am unable to leave a weapon dirty and have to remove all traces of carbon 
A rare plus for you guys is a semi AR gets filthy and traces ages to clean I know Last year in AZ, the Captain was giving everyone a hard time through the armourer about cleaning. Everything had to go back spotless and they wer finding dirt in places on the weapons that we didn't know existed. Talk about suck.....well it did until we told him that our M4's belonged to the Air Force and not the Guard
|
|
Quoted:
While we are on the subject of cleaning, I use breakthrough CLP at the moment. Is this OK to use on the AR, or should I be looking at something more aggressive to clean the barrel? Don't be too hard on the barrel, the next bullet will clean it and I only give it more than a pull through when it gets caged for more then a couple of weeks, which rarely happens. |
|
Quoted:
Cheers. I don't need to be too concerned with copper fouling then? I'm not. 
ETA: At the end of a day shooting maybe more than a couple of hundred rounds my 223 barrel is not now a 222 or (god forbid) a .17 barrel. It shoots just as well as at the beginning of the day, better than the beginning if I had cleaned it since the previous time. Most of my rifles get a good clean once a year but sometimes one or two will get left out of the cleaning (time, TV or beer was most likely more important) but even those that haven't had the clean still perform well on the next occasion. NB They are all stored in a dry environment. |
|
Don't have an AR and wouldn't know what the action would need, but for centrefire barrels I clean thoroughly after every shoot, usually with bore foam, copper solvent, and oil (CLP is decent for finishing). Started out just using a bore-snake, but it didn't do as gooder job as a brush and flannelettes.
These straight-pull designs often don't seem to suffer much fouling of the action. I usually wipe the bolt-face and change the lubricant, but that's about it. |