Guys
How do you maintain ar15?
How often do you clean? After each shooting? Periodically, 500, 1000 rounds or so? Never?
How do you clean? Any special care for gas tube?
Any other recommendation?
For me "it depends"... some ammo shoots a lot dirtier than others.. and it really depends on which rifle we're talking about.. for my 556/223 guns I'll usually give them a wipe down, punch the bore a few times, and give them a light cleaning after each range session (anywhere from 30-100 rounds on average?).. I dont know that they really NEED a cleaning after such a low round count so much as old habits die hard.. when toting AR rifles in the army they got cleaned after each use.. and I cant seem to break myself of that habit..
For my "hunting" AR's I really dont treat them any differently than I do my bolt action rifles.. I'll drop a tiny bit of oil into the action after a range day or a hunting day, give them a good external wipe down.. and not touch the bore until the end of the hunting season.. once they are done with hunting for the year they will get a thorough cleaning and then get put away until the next range session that usually happens a couple of months before hunting season starts back up again where I confirm zero, conduct thorough reliability checks, and shoot a couple of magazines of ammo through them to refresh familiarization, etc..
Truthfully in both of the above scenarios that is most likely WAY more cleaning than is necessary..
Back in my police days it was not uncommon to run through 1000-2000+ rounds over a 2-5 day period of time at a training event.. I might oil up the BCG at some point along the way if the gun started getting sticky.. but otherwise I typically would not clean the gun at all until after the training event was complete.. when deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan (contractor) I'd pretty routinely wipe down all surfaces to keep the dirt, dust, sand, debris out of the gun.. but I wouldnt actually clean the internals of the rifle unless it had been fired quite a bit (shooting a mag or less through the gun wouldnt warrant an internal cleaning)..
An AR is surprisingly reliable under a pretty high round count between cleanings these days (unlike the reputation of the old M16A1's from the Vietnam era or even the M16A2's like we had when I first went into the military) as long as youre not shooting crappy corrosive ammo or ammo known to be particularly dirty..
Regarding cleaning the gas tube.. Ive got both direct impingement guns and piston guns.. on the DI guns the tube (where it meets the bolt) gets cleaned when the rest of the gun gets cleaned.. but I honestly never remove the tube from the gun or worry about scrubbing it end to end or anything like that.. for the piston guns even less attention/worry is paid...
I dont use any special lube or oil or cleaning supplies for my ARs... whatever I have on hand works just fine.. Ive been a fan of #9 for most of my life.. I have also used Gunslick Gun-Seal.. ballistol gets used if that happens to be what I pick up.. etc...
I was a little more particular when I was carrying an AR for a living and would only oil with #9, but would also use lithium grease on some key components, etc.. but I dont shoot nearly as much or anticipate nearly as long/heated an encounter these days.. so, a little bit of #9 is really all I worry about.. as long as the gun isnt dry, any quality AR should get through a few hundred rounds with no problem no matter what lubricant youre using..
)....
