Do AR's jam that much?

My Armalite mid length m15 has been awesome. Only failure was early in it's life with me, as I basically took it from gun shop to patrol rifle class, ran over 400 rounds through it with no prior cleaning or maintenance, before it finally had a fte. A drop of lube, and it was flawless for another 400 or so rounds, other then dummy rounds used to create misfires, and I qualified with it.

It's been a great rifle which has seen another 5-600 rounds, all without a failure of any kind. With normal maintenance, I expect it to stay that way.
 
Anything machanical jams under certain circumstances and reliablity depends on the rifle.

Regarding cleaning, the BCM "filthy 14" went 40K rounds with one cleaning. it's still going to my knowledge.
 
I have had no issues with the M4s i have been issued in the army. The M16 I was issued in basic was a POS but fairly reliable (i attribute most of the issues I had to me over oiling it). I have had jams, usually when shooting out of cheap magazines and usually a good slap on the bottom of the magazine would fix it.
 
Depends on the gun. Some parts kit guns are garbage while quality makes are quite reliable.

One major factor with the AR is the magazines. They are one of the weakest links in the design and responsible for a large part of malfunctions.
 
Haven't had any jams in a few thousand rounds through four AR15s, except for a box of Winchester SuperX softpoints that had loose bullets which pushed back into the case and powder leaking.

My brother was along the DMZ in Vietnam in 68-69 and says he never had a jam either. He says he cleaned it whenever they had a break or came back from patrol. This is close to the area of the famous Hill Fights in which M16s jammed on Marines who had been told no need to clean rifles, and the powder was changed. Hot, humid, downpour rains, triple canopy jungle, fording rivers, dusty, clay muck, etc.

He was not a fan of the 55 gr FMJ .224" bullet, but the M16 was fine. Many improvements to extractors, ammo, feed ramps, buffers, etc. since then.
 
Do AR's Jam

I have nothing but the highest respect for Pat Rogers, he and his students probably fire more rounds through AR's than most combat soldiers.

I have his article on Filthy 14 sitting in front of me. The rifle filthy 14 is a Bravo Company rifle a very high quality rifle, and I quote from the article.

"Received carbine in late 2008"

"March 2009, malfunction reduced with immediate action, bolt wiped down 6450 rounds"

"May 2009 several failures to extract, extractor spring replaced at 13,010 rounds, far beyond normal extractor spring life under these conditions"

"June 2009 two bolt lugs broke at 16,400 rounds, replaced BCG. Considering firing schedule, within normal parameters."

"November 2009 several failures to extract at 24,450 rounds shooter gave field cleaning replaced extractor and extractor spring."

"28905 rounds finally cleaned Filthy 14"

"30000 rounds several failures to extract, replaced extractor spring and wiped down BCG"

AR'S are reliable especially our semi auto civilian versions, the first versions had failures in Viet Nam and more recently google up "Operation Anaconda" and the "Battle at Wanat" here the failures were probably due to running magazine after magazine on full auto, and who could blame them, the first Rangers ambushed after their Chinook had been shot down, the second a small group of Paratroopers being overrun by 200 or more insurgents.

I wish someone as professional as Mr. Rogers would run carbine classes with all types of rifles, AR'S, AK'S, FAL, M1A, HK91, etc, etc, it would be interesting to see how they all stack up.
 
My Stag and BCM have been treated like crap.. run dry... and keep on ticking like a swiss watch.

That being said.... its not Jams that you should be worried about.. its having the right training to deal with them when they do happen.;)
 
Put 600 rounds of German surplus 7.62 NATO through a Bushmaster AR-10 (LR-308) today with no malfuctions at all. Using Magpul 20 rnd mags. I have never had a problem with any surplus (S. African, German or Lithuanian) ammo in my Bushmaster. Keep it clean and it will blaze:-)
 
I clean my Sport after every range trip, usually 2-300 rounds worth. Really the only thing I find dirty is the bolt. 1800 of my reloads and two jammed, mainly due to out of spec pickup cases.
 
My Armalite M15 has had about 15k rounds through it with maybe 10 cleanings. Out of those 15k rounds probably 12k have been bottom of the barrel wolf steal cased junk. Not accurate by any means, but ive only ever had one FTE, and that was the day i purchased the rifle and before any cleaning. Ive only ever had just a couple of "jams" and they were magazine caused, not anything to do with the rifle. Run it wet, use pmags, and fish around with different types of ammo. Every rifle will fall in love with one certain type of ammo and shoot it best.

Now my M17-s bushmaster bullpup will NOT cycle wolf ammo PERIOD! fires PMC or any cheap brass cased ammo with no problems (sometimes on full auto by accident :D). It is my 400yard AR, though im not sure if you would even consider it in the AR class because it is a bullpup design and the BCG is not even close to what an M16 or AR15 is like.
 
You guys shoot that crappy Wolf stuff? I don't go below yellow box Norinco for cheap factory and this before I began reloading for my AR. Norinco is surprisingly pretty good stuff. Better than WWB.

Anyway, if you hit every point the book says to lube with a drop of oil on an AR, you will need shooting glasses.:D
 
You guys shoot that crappy Wolf stuff? I don't go below yellow box Norinco for cheap factory and this before I began reloading for my AR. Norinco is surprisingly pretty good stuff. Better than WWB.

Anyway, if you hit every point the book says to lube with a drop of oil on an AR, you will need shooting glasses.:D

My Bushmaster xm15e2s (20" A3) has never malf'd on my that I recall. I don't run it hard, and keep it clean though.

Someone tell me what is the deal with Bushmasters? I am no AR expert, but when it was time to get an AR, I did some homework and everyone was seemingly talking like they were right behind Colts in desirability...and now after I buy it, it seems like a different tune is being sung about Bushmasters. I do not understand why. I know it is an entry level rifle and not expecting custom quality, but is it good solid equipment or not? No one ever seems to get specific about any possible shortcomings with BM Rifles but they are certainly not recommended like they used to be and I want to know why. The bolt carrier is staked good, I checked that. I'm not sure if a little bit of brand snobbery is going around or if this rifle has shortcomings for real or what to expect from it if I were to run it harder?
 
I've haven't experienced a jam in either of my rifles. I won't shoot steel cased ammo in any of my rifles with the exception of my CZ VZ58. It was designed to eat the stuff and does so without so much as a burp. I generally am shooting military surplus, or decent quality retail ammo. I haven't had to drown either gun in oil to keep them running, but I do clean them between range sessions.
 
Sorry, kids, but 40+ years back the M16 and the ammo supplied was not reliable. If you could clean it regularly, as the PM mags (what was that gunk they told us to pour into it?) and a previous entry said, it'd work okay.

But a little bit of dirt, sand, mud and etcetera and the gun shut down. Who has time to clean in a firefight? OTOH, my 1911 ALWAYS fired. It also rattled like a baby toy when it was dry and in the armorer's hands. I'm certain it included parts back to WW2. But it shot anything thru the mag and it was, well, moderately accurate.

On the 40th anniversary of my time in RVN, I finally bought me an AK47. Shoots anything in caliber in most any condition. Beats the M16 I had in my hands back then all to hell. Get some dirt in the mech? Rinse it in the rice paddy and go on. YES! It really does work. Oil it later. A little off-target, though, as they always have been.

Of course, new models and engineering make the newer versions of the 16 better, more reliable weapons. But back then I couldn't wait for the engineering to come through.
 
jam?

obviously people say they jam and can't shoot more than a magazine without catastrophic failure.
Click to expand...
People say that? Do they now?

I have had a Colt Match Target for about fifteen years now. I load my own ammo from a case of primed Winchester brass. The gun doesn't jam.
That seems to be the case with most of the responses so far in this thread. Keep the gun clean and it'll keep shooting.
I always wonder who those "people" are who have experiences like catastrophic failure after one magazine.
Pete
 
As a minor test

I put 500 rounds of Wolf and Uly through my brand new AR/Bushmaster 7.62x39 upper over 2.5 months w/out cleaning it. Just wanted to see the results. I had no issues and when I broke it down. Very clean still. I could have kept going, but my instinct to "clean after clang" just couldn't be fought any more.

I don't worry about a failure anymore.
 
I've been shooting AR's for about 10 years now, currently own 3, had a 4th that I recently sold. Never had the 1st malfunction with any of them.
 
My one and Only AR, is probably the best candidate for jamming, and yet it never has. Its a colt M16a1 parts kit built on a CMMG lower, with a no name barrel. I love it, but its a mutt. The only thing it will not fire is TULA or wolf, short strokes every single shot.
 
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