IZinterrogator
New member
Who woulda thunk it? 
Well, unbeknownst to the unit armorers, I've been cooking up an experiment that will finally answer whether or not the M4 is reliable. Unfortunately, there is an arms room inspection next week, so I had to end it today, but I made sure to take pictures. Anyways, I haven't cleaned my M4 for over four months. Until today, I hadn't cleaned it since late January, and even that cleaning was not very good, so it still had some love from the Sandbox in it. When I needed to use it, I put two drops of CLP in the holes on the side of the bolt carrier and spread a little on the locking lugs on the bolt. Also smeared a little on the bearing surfaces of the bolt carrier today. March brought on our quarterly qualifications, about 116 rounds downrange, IIRC. April featured an advanced marksmanship course for four days, around 1500 rounds headed downrange. This month, another zero and qualification, but today I just kept going back onto the range instead of doing my usual two qualification rounds and leaving. So, 156 rounds downrange this week. So here's my M4 after somewhere between 1700 and 1800 rounds.
The white dust all over the bottom of the front sight base is from shooting off of the sandbag today.
Here's a good look inside the chamber and locking lugs. Filthy, wouldn't you say?
Here's the outside of the bolt carrier. You can see the gas rings through the holes that I added the lube through. Pretty nasty with the heat and the gas blowing oil all over the place inside that upper receiver.
And here is the bolt carrier as seen from the top. You can see brass shavings from the extractor all over the bolt and bolt carrier.
A few details about my M4 are in order. Obviously, it is a Colt, since they have the sole-source contract for M4s bought for the military. While most M4s in my unit's arms room are in the W253XXX range of serial numbers, mine is W031XXX. It has been in the unit longer than I have, and I've been here for over nine years. I believe the first time I saw it, my LT was carrying it in Bosnia back in 1999. It looked a little on the old side back then. The rails were added in late March of this year. While cleaning it today, I had to remove the hammer, trigger, and automatic sear to clean out a foreign substance from the trigger area. Actually, that foreign substance was a Rockstar energy drink that a gunner spilled all over me when the driver caught him off guard with a tight turn back last year. I never found any cleaner in Iraq that would flush out the sticky gunk it had left behind.
With so little love from the guy who was issued this rifle, it must be a jam-o-matic, right? It is an AR, so it must have choked regularly, right? Wrong. Never jammed except when fed spent cases during malfunction drills at the advanced marksmanship course. Immediate action fixed that. On live ammo, perfect. No FTFs, FTEs, FTRBs, or double feeds. As some of you may know from a previous thread, I am very picky when it comes to properly functioning magazines. Well, I used my magazines during the course, but during quals I was stuck with whatever mags the ammo handlers gave me. Still, no jams. All ammo used since I returned was M855 ammo. In Iraq, I used some Mk262 Mod 0 that I had scrounged up.
Feel free to ask any questions. I can't get any more pictures of particular areas of the rifle since it has now been cleaned, so they wouldn't show how mucked up it was.
Well, unbeknownst to the unit armorers, I've been cooking up an experiment that will finally answer whether or not the M4 is reliable. Unfortunately, there is an arms room inspection next week, so I had to end it today, but I made sure to take pictures. Anyways, I haven't cleaned my M4 for over four months. Until today, I hadn't cleaned it since late January, and even that cleaning was not very good, so it still had some love from the Sandbox in it. When I needed to use it, I put two drops of CLP in the holes on the side of the bolt carrier and spread a little on the locking lugs on the bolt. Also smeared a little on the bearing surfaces of the bolt carrier today. March brought on our quarterly qualifications, about 116 rounds downrange, IIRC. April featured an advanced marksmanship course for four days, around 1500 rounds headed downrange. This month, another zero and qualification, but today I just kept going back onto the range instead of doing my usual two qualification rounds and leaving. So, 156 rounds downrange this week. So here's my M4 after somewhere between 1700 and 1800 rounds.
The white dust all over the bottom of the front sight base is from shooting off of the sandbag today.
Here's a good look inside the chamber and locking lugs. Filthy, wouldn't you say?
Here's the outside of the bolt carrier. You can see the gas rings through the holes that I added the lube through. Pretty nasty with the heat and the gas blowing oil all over the place inside that upper receiver.
And here is the bolt carrier as seen from the top. You can see brass shavings from the extractor all over the bolt and bolt carrier.
A few details about my M4 are in order. Obviously, it is a Colt, since they have the sole-source contract for M4s bought for the military. While most M4s in my unit's arms room are in the W253XXX range of serial numbers, mine is W031XXX. It has been in the unit longer than I have, and I've been here for over nine years. I believe the first time I saw it, my LT was carrying it in Bosnia back in 1999. It looked a little on the old side back then. The rails were added in late March of this year. While cleaning it today, I had to remove the hammer, trigger, and automatic sear to clean out a foreign substance from the trigger area. Actually, that foreign substance was a Rockstar energy drink that a gunner spilled all over me when the driver caught him off guard with a tight turn back last year. I never found any cleaner in Iraq that would flush out the sticky gunk it had left behind.
With so little love from the guy who was issued this rifle, it must be a jam-o-matic, right? It is an AR, so it must have choked regularly, right? Wrong. Never jammed except when fed spent cases during malfunction drills at the advanced marksmanship course. Immediate action fixed that. On live ammo, perfect. No FTFs, FTEs, FTRBs, or double feeds. As some of you may know from a previous thread, I am very picky when it comes to properly functioning magazines. Well, I used my magazines during the course, but during quals I was stuck with whatever mags the ammo handlers gave me. Still, no jams. All ammo used since I returned was M855 ammo. In Iraq, I used some Mk262 Mod 0 that I had scrounged up.
Feel free to ask any questions. I can't get any more pictures of particular areas of the rifle since it has now been cleaned, so they wouldn't show how mucked up it was.