Hi, I just purchased a brand new Bushmaster M4A2 Carbine, and it's a beauty.  I own several guns, and whenever I inspect the chambers of them, I usually let their slides/bolts ease forward as I close them, so as to increase the life of components.  I was reading the manual to my Bushy, though, and for inspecting chambers, they recommend pulling back the bolt, letting it catch, inspecting the chamber, then just slapping the bolt stop to send it slamming forward into a presumably empty chamber.  Is this safe for AR-15's?  It also says never to ride the charging handle home, just pull back and release.  That makes sense for chambering rounds, but am I to assume that simply letting the bolt close on an open chamber (instead of easing it back into position) will have no effect on the life of my gun components?

Yes, it's completely safe and doing so is part of a function check.

Might just be me, but I always ease the bolt carrier assembly closed on an empty chamber.  The motion/inertia of the BC is cushioned by the action of stripping a round from the magazine and inserting the round into the chamber.

Letting the BC drop without the cushioning effect, atleast in my mind, is completely un-necessary and should prove harder on the components than actually chambering a round/firing the weapon... I've seen what happens to a couple of 1911's from the practice of simply dropping the slide on an empty chamber, and while an AR B/BC is a completely different design from a 1911 slide, I never saw any reason to tempt fate...

Slam the bolt home, dry fire, use it as a step to get up a wall, you should have no problems beating the heck out of an AR.

DarkStar:
Don't worry about it. with all the MILLIONS of bolts crashing home on a empty chamber in the service, none have failed.
pull 'er back and let 'er fly!

Let it slam it won't hurt a thing.

I've got 8 years of military service behind me. During that time I learned something. You can treat a military issue weapon roughly because there exists an infinite amount of repair parts and a support system to fix broken weapons. As a private citizen it is my responsibility alone to pay for parts and repairs. I treat my weapons accordingly. I try to prolong their lives and only treat them roughly when I have to.

Along the same lines, doing this on a 1911 with a match type trigger job can ruin that trigger job very quickly.

Letting an AR bolt slam forward on an empty chamber certainly isn’t an issue with the standard trigger.  

However, I’m wondering if it might be an issue with a light, single stage, match type trigger?

OK think about this,  how many times do you think you'll be releasing the bolt and letting it slam into the chamber? if you're going to be doing this say..... 1000-1200 times everyday, 7 days a week 365 days a year,  then I believe you just might develop a problem down the line....but doing it on occasion isn't going to hurt it....I understand your a bit worried about it, seeing you just bought the rifle,  but your worried over nothing in this matter.

Wisely said.

Turby

Slamming the bolt on an open chamber without a loaded magazine......Is a VERY BAD PRACTICE to get into! Fine weapons can be hurt by this action (as stated earlier), plus the fact that it makes you look like a complete idiot (which you would be if you happened to forget and do this to someones tuned M1911 or match rifle during inspection)!  

If we were talking about a custom 1911 with a match trigger then I agree but for an AR15 closing the bolt on an empty chamber will not damage or hurt the AR in any way.