Cleaning AR-15's

Ihave been around bolt guns and few semis for decades. I feel I really do a good job cleaning.

But, with the AR and dirty ammo, I feel like am doing a half but job on it. Theres dirt everywhere. I never seem to get out all the fouling. There'sfoulingeven inthe hammer assembly. All over the action. Am I overdoing it? I just can't seem to get in the groove of cleaning it.

I clean out the barrel real good. Lots of powder fouling shooting plinking ammo. I clean out the chamber real good. But the rest seems to be a loss.

I had a few people on AR15.com tell me after I am done to spray some CLP in the gas holes on the bolt. It would look like that would attract more dirt. They tell me they use CLP to clean everythign but the barrel. Talk about a mess.

[Red Lion]

I have spent many a time cleaning M-16's in the Army, National Guard and Army Reserves and they take a while and a lot of elbow grease to clean thoroughly. Clean the barrel and chamber thoroughly, disassemble the bolt when cleaning, as it makes it much easier and make sure to have a good number of q-tips and pipe-cleaners on hand as they work well for getting into the small and tight places. I was used to only using CLP to clean them and know it does work, but just have to scrub quite a bit. I would not worry so much about thoroughly cleaning the trigger mech every time you shoot.
We used to take M-16's in the shower and ran under very hot water to loosen things up and then immediately clean adn lube to prevent rust.

[statjunk]

Another reason I'm not fond of the AR-15 platform. I've spent a lot of time cleaning and never really comes clean. I would likely say that you aren't overdoing it because you should have a clean rifle. The most important part though is the pipe cleaner.

Tom

Well, I feel better. I thought it was only me. Just spent 50 dollars in cleaning supplies on this thing. Got a bore guide, (probably a waste of money) felt lug recess cleaners, chamber brush with recess brush, and a dewey chamber cleaning fixed rod.

I figure if I am going to shoot crap wolf ammo, I better keep that chamber cleaned out.

[mauser06]

are you completely stripping it?? just curious...i do like Red Lion...strip it and use Q tips and CLP..

i feel like im cleaning my flintlock sometimes when shooting junk ammo...but thats the price you pay lol...but if you strip it down and give it a good scrubbin, youll get it clean...

[statjunk]

Nope the bore guide is good to have. You'll end up splattering your dirty patches inside the action otherwise. One thing you likely want to do is get an old copper brush and bend the tip. Use that on the end of a short piece of a colapsable cleaning rod to clean behind the locking lugs.

Tom

[bigbulls]

Synthetic safe gun scrubber. This stuff works wonders at getting out powder residue out from places like trigger and hammer assemblies, blasting it out of the inside of the bolt assembly, or all of those other little tight places. Also works great blasting out residue from all of the locking lugs on the bolt and barrel.

[Briman]

After shooting some wolf ammo through my 1911, I can only imagine the mess it makes out of a AR-15

I use a q-tip and a brass pick to clean around the biolt recesses, take the bolt carrier apart and give it a good scrub with CLP.