How often you clean your AR?

J

Jay Cummings

New member
Did a thorough barrel clean on my AR and then went out today to try a new powder with the 65gr sierra. 223 of course. Tried some Varget at 25.0gr, 25.3 and 25.5. First load on clean barrel was around 1". The 25.3 load was right around .700 and the 25.5 load was around 1". Went back to 25.3 and the load just would not repeat itself. Tried 25.4 also and the groups just got really bad, 1 1/2"-1 3/4" for both loads. The brass on these loads came out really dirty. So, I only ran 25rds down the barrel but the groups seemed to get worse after the 2nd group. Maybe it just don't like the Varget. Curious how often you clean the bore on your AR. Didn't know if it was the same as bolt guns which I'm more familiar with.
 
I clean every 100 rounds or so. Sometimes 200. I'd say you might bump the charge a tad as you are below max for the 69's per Hodgdon and they are a tad conservative.

Greg
 
If it's one that you shoot fairly frequently, shoot until your accuracy starts to fall off, once you find the load that it likes...While there is nothing wrong with Varget, I personally prefer a powder with a little faster burn rate....My 'go to' is W-748, but I've found that Ramshot's X-Terminator and TAC burn a lot cleaner and meter like water....For the weight of bullet you are using, TAC, if available, would work the best of the three...
 
If your brass is real dirty, could be that your load is not generating enough pressure to expand the brass in the chamber & it's allowing gas to blow back by the case. I had this problem in a bolt gun while using N133. Maybe try some TAC, IMR 8208, or H4895.
Jim D
 
I clean and lube the BCG and barrel extension often. My barrels will go 300rds without accuracy issues but every barrel is different.

What barrel are we talking about here?
 
It depends on what im using the rifle for. But after breaking one in ill see how many rounds it shoots before accuracy falls off. Clean the barrel and go again.
The BCG and internals i clean either after alot of hunting to get all the grit and junk out or when the bolt has that sluggish feeling.
 
i give a quick pull or three with the boresnake and eitther some remoil or hornady one shot cleaner after a range trip or hunting outing.

bcg gets a quick wipe down and lube as well.

big cleans are done every 300-500 rounds (proper solvent down the bore, BCG into the ultrasonic, etc) but thats normally determined by an accuracy issue showing up, or the bolt looking extra cruddy.
 
You're suppose to clean them?
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When I first got into AR's I was guilty of cleaning mine way too often. I'll pull BCG's and wipe them down/oil them fairly often (mostly when the weather is too lousy to go out and shoot), but I don't bother cleaning the bore until I have at least 500 rounds through it. Even still, that depends on how dirty it looks. I have a rifle that serves as a general purpose range loaner/sewer tube. It runs the cheapest garbage for ammo, and I don't bother cleaning it until it starts having trouble cycling. Usually that's well over 1k rounds of steel-case russian stuff, and I've yet to see any kind of accuracy drop-off before it starts having a lot of FTE's. I don't advocate treating an AR that way - I just like to use it as an example to show people that AR's don't have to be squeaky clean to run. Its surprising to me to hear how many people still believe that old wives' tale that AR's won't run when they're dirty.
 
This is definitely a debatable topic and is often a matter of opinion. Their are some experts who will chime in though, i'm not the expert thats for sure.

One of my Larue's i've cleaned after every outing with hoppe's solvent and a brush one or two times though, patch till it comes out clean. The barrel has around 3,000-4,000 rounds through it and it's still shooting sub-moa.

Some people don't clean them at all.

Moral of my story, religiously cleaning the barrel didn't cause any detrimental harm.

One of my buddies stripped the copper on his Larue and it took AWHILE before it started shooting good again. Don't think i'll ever strip the copper fully unless my barrel suddenly took a nose dive. I think just removing the carbon fouling with hoppes is the way to go.
 
Thanks guys. I have a decent load for the 65gr already but was itching to try some Varget. Also have a 53gr load with n133 that shoots great . I may reshoot these loads and make sure all is good. I do have some 748 to try with the 65gr. I guess I'll start with 69gr data.

By clean, I meant the bore. Rest of rifle is clean. Gun is a Stag 6 Varminter and shoots the 53gr vmax very well.
 
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I have to clean more often running suppressed as the chamber, bore and everything else gets NASTY filthy. And I can tell a big difference in accuracy just by running a little hoppes and a brush a few strokes every 30 or 40 rounds.
 
Well I guess it depends on what grade of barrel & what you bought/made it for. My plinking all purpose AR's with chrome lined barrel, I might run wet/dry patches ever 400-500 rounds. My stainless .204 & .223 match barrels that I bench shoot for accuracy, I treat just like my bolt action bench guns, semi clean every 50-70 rounds and a complete cleaning at around 250-300 rounds.
For me everything depends on the quality of my barrel & whether it's chrome lined or not.
Jim D
 
I clean my Ambush Firearms AR15 5.56 after each and every range trip. I brush the barrel with MPro7 and then patch it until the patches come out clean and then brush it again. I then run patches though the barrel again. I clean the bore with a bore brush as well before I clean the barrel. I use a rod guide when I clean the barrel. Lastly I run some patches with a few drops of light weight gun oil on them to keep the inside of the barrel lightly oiled for storage.

I don't reload myself and shoot only factory ammo right now. So I'm not into the different types of gun powder or burn rates etc. I shoot the M855 rounds that I got at the store. These are FMJ 62 gr bullets. They shoot well out of my 18" long Cold Forged Barrel with a 1:7 twist rate.

I shoot to 200 yards when I go shooting. Wind speed and direction is my biggest challenge.

I paid a lot of money for this gun and I'm going to take care of it. I think that keeping the gun clean is important.

I run the BCG though my sonic cleaner then oil it with CLP to protect and clean it. And I take the BCG apart before running in though my ultra sonic cleaner several times.
 
That sort of cleaning is likely to do far more harm than good. There is no reason for a brush of any kind to ever enter the bore, and especially a bronze brush. I would assume the bore of the Ambush is chrome lined, and if so, will limit the amount of damage you are doing...but also make what you are doing a waste of calories.
 
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