Cleaning Until You're Tired, Not Clean

J

Jeff Thomas

New member
Took a new Bushmaster Shorty out to sight in and break in over several hours. Bushmaster recommends against extensive cleaning for the first 200 rounds, so I just plinked away. Using PMC ammunition.

Sent around 200 rounds downrange, and ran out of time that day, so set the rifle aside for 1 week. Phoenix has such low humidity, that I don't worry about cleaning right after an outing to the range (but, I'm open to suggestions ...).

Cleaned the rifle last night ... and cleaned the rifle ... and cleaned the rifle ... and cleaned the rifle.

Using Hoppes, I'd send a wet patch through the bore a number of times, using a chamber guide, breech to muzzle. I'd let it set 5 minutes. Then a bronze brush around ten times,same drill. Then a wet patch again ... dirty every time. It was getting less dirty little by little, but this went on for a couple of hours while watching TV. Finally decided to call it a night, ran an oil patch down the bore, and closed things up.

How on earth do you guys get these things to come clean? Soaking overnight with chamber plugs in them? If so, do you plug the gas system too? I like shooting, but cleaning hour after hour seems nuts.

Thanks ... I appreciate any help you can offer. Regards from AZ
 
It seems like a brush will sorta cause a dark patch. Brush it, run three patches of solvent, then run a couple of dry patches. The dry patches should come out clean.

If you got a lot of copper fouling, you may consider Butch's Bore Shine - I prefer it to Hoppes...
 
I use BBS exclusively. Send a wet patch down, wait five minutes, send anothr wet patch, then send dry patches...you're done.
 
An AR type rifle is a bugger to clean. Hoppes #9 is a great solvent... it picks up and breaks up all kinds of gunk in there.

You need to develop you own cleaning "ritual". Your not needing perfection in a general use AR... but you do need attention to detail so you dont miss anything. A check list will help.

Generally I start inside out.
Strip the rifle down and have all the parts laid out in an order you will remember.
Run a solvent patch down the bore and let the bore soak it up, chamber too, while you move on.
Start cleaning those little parts first. The pins and bolt then bolt carrier. Once this is all cleaned and lubed, put the bolt and bolt carrier assembly together. Set that to the side.
Now to the trigger group. Get one of those tooth brushes and get to work scrubbing that all out. A little compressed air helps here. I don't have a compressor, but being a computer geek, I do have a few cans of compressed air. It works pretty good.
Now I go back to the bore. Chamber first. There is no easy way to clean the chamber... Dental picks, q tips, tooth brushes, chamber brushes, all that. After the chamber is cleaned out then start on the bore. 10X10X10X1X2. 10 strokes with a solvent soaked patch. 10 with a bore brush. 10 with a dry patch. 1 with oil. Then 2 more with a dry patch. Done with the bore.
Now wipe of everything with a lightly oiled rag as you reassemble the rifle. Should not take you more than an hour.
 
I wish my FAL took 3 minutes. The bore may take that long, but the gas piston and chamber take 4 times that.
 
I religiously clean the bolt, carrier, and chamber of my AR.

The bore gets my standard wet patch, sit, 5 passes with the brush, wet patch, sit, 5 more passes with the brush, and finally wet/dry patches for another 10 passes total.

The rest gets spot cleaning and I usually don't mess with the lower at all.
 
I have noticed the same thing (patches looking black after brushing, even after a decent cleaning). Is part of the discoloration from the brush itself (ie little bits of the brush breaking off and being removed by the solvent, thus causing the discolored patch) or I am I not getting the barrel as clean as I think I am?
 
You could always spray the brush with some brake cleaner between bore punching groups to be sure. Brake cleaner shouldn't bother the brush one bit.
 
People!! you are going about it all wrong!!! Get yourself an AK variant. Shoot the heck out of it, swab the barrel every so often just to make sure nothing is caught in there, and you are set!
(I am just kidding you know....)

Zane
 
Filthy, Dirty, Nasty, M16s we hates em we does...

The M16 is with out a doubt the filthiest, gunkiest, dirtiest shooting rifle it has ever been my privilege to clean. If i didn't love the smell of powder solvent so much I might almost hate cleaning my AR. The chrome lined bore is the least of your concerns. A few wets, some dries then forget about it.

The bolt, bolt carrier, and gas system is where to spend your time.
A cushed mouth on a 38 spl case works well for scraping off the cancerous carbon eschar that builds up on the rear of the bolt after a very few rounds. Get lots of q-tips and pipe cleaners. After your fingers are all gnarled and cramped up from cleaning all the little pins and springs, then throw the whole gun in the safe and go get a real battle rifle.

Mike
 
over on the P7BB we're VERY fond of www.mp7.com if it can get the filthy P7 clean it'll do well on anything. The only thing you need to worry about is making sure you oil it up after. MPro7 will remove all trace of oil.

-Morgan
 
I don't know what you guys are doing that takes so long, and i'am not going to say any thing bad about what you do, but it only take me about 20mins to clean my Colt Match Target HBAR.

1. I strip the rifle down.
2. I clean the bolt, and bolt carrier, and then put it back together.
3. I clean the bore with about 6-patchs, 2-wet, and then 4-dry.
4. Then i put it back together.

Now any time i shot it i put from 50 to 100 rounds in it.
The only time it was then 20mins to clean the hole rifle was after Y2K, i had some friends over, and we shot off just all the .223 ammo i had got for Y2K, that was about 20, 30-round boxs of old Military ammo i had got.
 
CLP is the best bore solvent I've found. Much shorter time to clean than a lot of you have experienced.
 
Destructo6,

Break cleaner, what a great idea!
I've always used rubbing alcohol and an air compressor to clean my brushes.
 
From what i have read, carbon on the bolt carrier is self limited by the scraping of the rings

FWIIW, several people have done mutiple 1000 round weekends with no cleaning on ARs. A month later, no problems

i split apart the upper
take out the carrier
slide out the bolt
pop the split rind and drop the firing pin

then the whole group gets a spritz of clp
10 minutes later i scrub with a cotton rag

so far it functions AOK
 
If you're cleaning until a patch comes through spotless, then you are cleaning way too much.

Far more barrels are worn out by excessive cleaning than are by too much shooting.

(Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there can betoo much shooting, which I doubt.)
 
Lots of good advice ... thank you.

Yes, I am trying to clean until the patch comes out spotless. People keep telling me to clean a bore until the last dry patch comes out "clean" ... I took that literally.

For most of you, does that mean your last patch comes out ... pretty clean? ;)

Regards from AZ
 
Oh yeah, pretty clean. Breakfree CLP pretty much dissolves all the crud and brings it out with a minimum of patches. Two or three dry ones and the last one is just about new looking.
 
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