The 1st 1000 rounds through the M4 today.

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M4A3

New member
Yep, I finaly did it, 1000 rounds.:) And never had any kind of malfunction of any kind. Any way, I thought I would pull the RAS off clean and inspect the whole rifle. That and I wanted to get it ready for the hunting season. It's a good thing I did because there was alot of crap in areas that I normaly don't clean. I had a hell of a time geting the two pins out that hold the front sight tower in place. I even broke my punch. Does any body know of a way to make this a bit easyer?

I was suprised, the gas tube wasn't realy all that dirty. I have some long pipe cleaner looking things to clean the gas tube. A few passes with that and it was like new.

Also a coment on the RAS. The RAS is brobibly one of the best front grips money can buy for the AR-15. The thing is, I dont know how thay charge 400.00 for one. There is nothing to them. When you disassemble it you realise this. Maby this is a good thing for a weight and simplicity factor, but wow...

Also I was wondering if any of you guys completly disassemble you're AR after so many rounds? I think I am going to start doing a complete tear down after every 1000 rounds.
M4_DIS.jpg
 
A

Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
Dunno why not clean one after a thousand rounds or so. They're simple enough to take all apart. Heck, I built one of the silly things out of a bucketful of parts, maybe 25 years back. It even ran nicely with a drop-in auto-sear. Ran good with M-16 bits and pieces, as well. All that stuff went away somewhere, dunno perzackly. Wasn't of much interest...

Clean Is Good. Grungy Is Bad. Works for cars, guns and tableware. Sheets, towels and undies, too.

:), Art
 
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Jeff White

New member
Why did you take the front sight tower off for routine maintenance? There is no need to clean the inside of the gas tube. In fact, you can get lint and stuff up there and cause malfunctions.

Art is right, they need some maintenance, but I think you're being a little too picky here. More weapons are destroyed by over cleaning then under cleaning. Did you take the trigger group out of the lower receiver too? I'd be careful about doing that too much. Hardened steel pins going in and out of an aluminum receiver too many times isn't good on the receiver.

You've got a nice weapon there..don't destroy it with too much love :D

Jeff

143=T
 
B

boing

New member
What's the operating pressure at the gas port, something like 50,000 psi? That cleans the gas tube quite nicely every time you fire a shot.

A detail(!) strip is a fine way to learn your weapon, as long as you're careful about it. But once you see how things work inside, there isn't much use in doing it as a regular routine, and it can even be harmful (loosen things up, etc).
 
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Navy joe

New member
There is reason that when you buy a barrel for these things it comes w/ a front site tower installed. Mainly cause its an absolute PITA to get it back on so it shoots straight. 1000 rounds is more like time to let the gun cool ;) (sustained fire ya know) , spray some CLP into the bolt assembly, cycle it a few times and go back to shooting. When I do want to clean my gas tube & barrel really good I plug the breech( a plastic wrapped dummy round works well), plug the gas tube w/ a Q-tip, and fill the bore w/ the solvent of choice. When soaked for a day or three go back to scrubbing on bore and spray gas tube clean w/ brake cleaner. I find every reason not to pull my handguards, in fact they have come off twice in 8 years and 8,000+ rounds. Once to see if I could by myself and another time to install a bipod lug.

Gun still looks and functions new. The place to be picky in cleaning is the bolt, bolt carrier, chamber & chamber locking lugs. Std rifle barrel cleaning as owner sees fit. If you don't have some, get some of the milspec chamber brushes and a value pack of Q-tips. Trigger group has never been out, I pop the buffer spring about once a year, stock has been off once.

Don't make it hard on yourself, the AR can take much worse w/ much less intensive care.
 
M

M4A3

New member
Jeff White
No, the trigger I left alone. The reason I took the front sight off was because I wanted to see how dirty every part got after 1000 rounds of just routine maintenance. The out side of the gas tube was quite dirty. Not the whole thing just the section that goes through the small hole in the upper. Also the area between the front sight tower and barrel was covered in buirned powder and old gun cleaner.
 
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Bartholomew Roberts

Moderator
I've never disassembled my AR to the extent you did in your picture. Disassembling it completely every 1,000 rounds is excessive and I'd bet my own money that it will cause you more problems than it prevents over time - especially disassembling the front sight tower.

At the very minimum, you will need to reindex your front sight tower and rezero your rifle after that. Personally, I've never found a need or a reason to remove the front sight tower for routine maintenance in 10 years of owning ARs; but its your rifle to do with as you will.

My personal minimal cleaning routine for MY rifles is as follows:

Push out push pins to separate upper and lower. Remove charging handle and bolt carrier group. Swab chamber with q-tip and boresnake bore after every session (not necessary; but I do it). Soak bore in CLP or good bore cleaner and let it sit (normally only use CLP except for more detailed cleaning)

Wipe out inside of upper and top of charging handle with cloth to remove any loose carbon and give both surfaces a shot of dry lube.

Remove firing pin retaining pin, firing pin, cam pin and bolt. Wipe everything down to remove excess carbon, clean chrome lining inside bolt carrier. Remove and clean extractor pin and extractor from bolt if gunked up, otherwise leave it alone. one wiped clean, generously lube cam pin, bolt and reassemble.

Boresnake bore again (dry boresnake) if just cleaning after regular shooting session.

If its been 1,000 rounds or more, I like to run another patch of solvent through. Bore brush the bore, another wet patch and then run dry patches through until they come out mostly clean (if you wait until they come out completely white, you'll wait forever - especially if you use CLP - although I'll normally use Shooter's Choice for this bore cleaning). Run two more patches through bore to remove any traces of solvent, one wet patch with CLP (to preserve bore) and a dry patch or two to remove excess CLP.

Reassemble bolt carrier group and lube just the rails on the bolt carrier with a drop of CLP. Wipe off any excess CLP.

Reassemble rifle.

My cleaning routine for when I cleaned government owned rifles:

Complete degrease rifle using brake cleaner, hot water and Tide to remove any possible protective film left by CLP. Absolutely do NOT use any CLP as it will pull gunk out from God only knows where and insure you fail the ridiculous white glove inspection prior to returning rifle to armory. Use bore and chamber brush liberally.

Upon drawing rifle from the armory - check arsenal/serial number to make sure you didn't draw a known dog. Completely break rifle down and check for obstruction of gas tube on the receiver end, gas key or bore obstruction (lodged bore brush?). Relube rifle, bolt carrier, bolt and top of charging handle with CLP so it will work. Function check rifle.
 
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MilesTeg

New member
You are definitely going to cause more problems and accelerate wear and tear by breaking your rifle down so frequently. I have a Bushy Shorty with many thousands of rounds through it and I have only gone as far as cleaning the bolt and barrel. Once, for a scientific test (read laziness), I went 3500 rounds without any cleaning and the rifle continued to function fine and still wasn't "that" dirty.

Bartholomew Roberts and Navy joe gave you some great advice on cleaning the rifle. I would be concerned about the front sight and get ready for some frustration.

You have a nice rifle and it looks like you have put a lot money into it. Keep it that way and save yourself some grief. If you feel the need to detail stip something - try a toaster ;) .
 
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Navy joe

New member
Further anecdote. The Internet screamed about how crappy Wolf ammo was in an AR, I suspected they were right, but I had to know. over about 5 range sessions and a month I got through about 1600 rounds without cleaning of any kind before the gun jammed. Jammed good, I might add. But, now I know how much that gun can take. It is now very clean, laquer case free, and yes, Wolf ammo in an AR is junk, don't do it. There, 'net rumor verified,
 
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MitchSchaft

New member
I take stuff apart to see how it works. Then once I'm satisfied I never take it apart again. That's why I tend to buy cheap stuff at first incase I break it.
 
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Storm Shadow

New member
Too much love is right

There is a way to remove and inspect your gas tube but pulling off the front sight base is *not* it. You'd be better off stripping down your bolt assembly and cleaning that like B. Roberts suggests anyway.
 
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uglygun

New member
As soon as that front sight is back on and staked in place, better fire another 1k rounds to verify that it still is reliable and malfunction free.



Those things get pinned/staked in place for a reason, they aren't supposed to be removed for normal every day purposes. If they were meant to be routinely removed then the sight tower would likely be secured by some kind of set screw arrangement, and you wouldn't see so many permanently attached muzzle brakes either.



Hope it runs fine and gets aligned correctly when the rifle goes back together, from what I have heard Knights can be hell to deal with when it comes to sending a rifle back for repair, probably even for something so minor as realigning the front sight tower.




Note to everyone out there new to AR15s, a little carbon fouling around the gas tube at the base of the front sight casting is normal, as others have noted the gas pressure is very high at that portion of the barrel. Maybe 1 centimeter to 1/2 inch of carbon fouling away from the front sight base along the gas tube is pretty normal, that's something I have seen on dozens of AR15s of various manufacture and doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. One LEO friend of mine has 15k+ rounds through his Colt SP1 carbine without having replaced a single thing, that includes gas rings for the bolt as well as the gas tube and includes never having removed the front sight.
 
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Kharn

New member
Dont forget to unbarrel your upper and check for carbon fouling in the barrel extension threads. Also check the pistol grip screw for debris and the telestock for excessive grime. Good job, you probably just voided your warranty. :rolleyes:

Kharn
 
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yankytrash

New member
Ah hell guys, we've all something similar I'm sure. To tell the truth, SR was doing fine job until the front sight pins started getting knocked out. Nothing wrong with taking off the handguards to give the unseen a little touch of cleaner and oil, I do it myself.

SR - You'll probably have to re-sight it in a little now, and I sure hope the front sight doesn't loosen up over time now. Keep an eye on it over the next few thousand rounds. As you can tell from these posts, that's pretty much where you stepped over edge. You can get to the gas port from inside the upper housing, but don't do it unless you'r having problems of some extreme sort. Unless you're getting that pipe cleaner all the way into the barrel, you're only pushing the carbon up into a pile at the entry point of the gas from the barrel. Not a good thing. For reference, my first SP1 never had it's gas port cleaned in close to 40,000 rounds, maybe more. Never had a need to.

Your enthusiasm for the black rifle is, well, refreshing. Have you swung over to AR15.com yet? If not, you might wanna stop by.

Also, another good sight that'll give you tons of information aboout AR maintenance, upgrade, sighting, and few more tons of info you never wanted to know can be had over at http://communities.msn.com/TheMarylandAR15ShootersSite
 
M

M4A3

New member
Yeah you guys are right

After giving it a night to think about it and after reading you're posts, I guess I wont take the sight tower off any more. It's just too much of a pain to get the two pins out of the barrel and I dont want to have to resight the thing in every 1000 rounds. Also there is just no reason to do so. I can shoot some NITRO down the gas tube to clean that, and the barrel, bolt assembly will just get normal mantainance.

Thanks for youre imput fellas. You helped me not make a big mistake on such an expensive rifle. It was cool to see how the thing is put together though.
 
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