AR: Carbon Induced Stoppage

[CouchOperator]

As a few of you know, i dont clean my AR except for a yearly teardown to check for odd wear or whatnot, and even then i just wipe the bolt down with a paper towel and thats about it. Usually i just pull the bolt back, take a peak, squirt some oil, and rock on. In my experience, a properly built, lubed, and gassed rifle only needs lube to keep running. Every thread and video i have ever seen about a malfunction is caused by

1. Magazine failure
2. Poor ammo selection
3. Catastrophic parts failure
4. Incorrectly assembled

Yet, everyone and their mother obsessively insist on the internet for everyone to whiteglove clean their rifle.

Have you, preferrably with evidence to back it up (no "a brother of a friend of mine who dated his coworkers sister told me...) ever witnessed or experienced a stoppage on an AR that was caused specifically by excessive carbon fouling while the gun was still properly lubricated?

Feedback is welcome. Lets keep this on topic with your personal experiences. Disagreements are absolutely welcome, but the goal of this thread is to combine collective experiences in a clean and concise manner.

NOT WELCOME: Ridiculous mud tests or exterior debris that gets in the action which has nothing to do with carbon fouling buildup.

[Kwikvette]

Couch, I am glad you brought this up. The abundance of threads asking "how should I clean..." or "what's the best lube/cleaner" never cease to amaze me; new threads are posted almost daily.

With that being said I'll start off by saying in my personal military experience, there has not been a single stoppage that was caused by carbon fouling and/or lack of routine maintenance.

As stated, a properly built and lubed rifle will run for as long as it needs to and then some.

In the marine corps, all you're given are a few brass brushes, a nylon brush, and a small bottle of CLP. At most, you'll cut up an old skivvy shirt and use it to wipe down larger surfaces. Our rifles were taken to the sand box 3 different times; my MOS didn't allow me to have the pleasure of staying at a FOB or enjoying the comfort of a daily shower and/or internet and phone usage. We slept under the stars or in our Humvees and wouldn't take a shower for as long as a month at a time.

With as many mounted and dismounted patrols as we did, not to mention providing our own security 24/7 in houses in which we'd occupy for a few days at a time, there was little down time to eat/sleep and do your own thing. I hate to say it but, rifle maintenance was almost neglected completely. During OIF 2, we got hit with a lot of rain and the most we can do is toss on a plastic cover (barrel condom we called it) and hope that water wouldn't run down your barrel. Rust did develop on the flash hider though but there was never a stoppage whenever we had to deploy our rifles.

Some of us (myself included), deployed 3 different times with the same rifles we were issued since we joined our unit (DARKHORSE!).

Let's not forget that those same rifles were used in training. For some reason, our unit thought it'd be good for select squad/team leaders to go to Bridgeport for cold weather training. Well, our rifles held up well in the cold, moist temperatures where we trained. Those training sessions focus more on specific instruction IE cold weather survival, knots, rappel, etc which again forces you to neglect rifle maintenance.

At this point I'm rambling so to make a long story short; buy a mil-spec cleaning kit and once in a blue moon take your rifle apart and wipe the thing down. Lube rotation/sliding parts and you're good to go. Get away from gimmicks/etc. and keep it stupid simple.

[CouchOperator]

Thank you for the feedback, kwik

[ChuckDizzle]

My input is much the same as kwik's, if anything in the military we over cleaned our weapons. Any issues I saw were environmental related, or due to simply wear and round count on some of the Army's oldest M4 rifles. We had plastic caps that fit over our flash hiders that kept out dirt and dust from the inside if the rifle. It could be weeks or even a month before a rifle was used, and the rifles never cared how dirty they were on the outside. When they were used the standard load out was rarely exhausted and that was only 210 rounds. If you were in any kind of TIC a weapons cleaning was standard following.

I go far longer these days without cleaning, with far less malfunctions.

[damon1272]

No I haven't but I do clean my rifles when I use them. Getting into a target rich dog town. You can use up to 5-800 ends a day. I would clean the bolt after about three days of this but the barrel would get cleaned at night and I would carry a bore snake and pull it through after about 100 rounds just to help keep accuracy up. The bore snake helped quite a bit. Bolt carrier would just get a shot of oil. Also run high quality oil that does not cook off at moderate temps.

[ExpendableYouth]

I was an infantrymen and rifle and pistol coach in the Marines. I saw exactly one gas tube that was fouled to the point of stoppage so it possible, but I would say that it is very unlikely.

[3000+]

This is a great thread so far! I've only shot about 2,000 rounds so far, two stoppages that required mortaring were likely brass-related, nothing due to carbon.

[ChuckDizzle]

I was an infantrymen and rifle and pistol coach in the Marines. I saw exactly one gas tube that was fouled to the point of stoppage so it possible, but I would say that it is very unlikely.

That is surprising, how did it ever make it back into the arms room dirty enough, and enough times, to ever get such build up?

[CouchOperator]

I was an infantrymen and rifle and pistol coach in the Marines. I saw exactly one gas tube that was fouled to the point of stoppage so it possible, but I would say that it is very unlikely.

Good feedback, do you to the best of your knowledge know if the tube gummed up during storage and the stoppage occured immediately in the beginning of the day, or was it midway through a range day? Do you have an estimated guess of how many rounds were through the rifle since it was taken out of the armory before the stoppage occured?

[ExpendableYouth]

Not sure. We always over cleaned our rifles, imo, so I would assume that he got clp in it and over time it just continued to foul. Or maybe he jammed a q-tip in and got it stuck. Like I said I only saw it once and they replaced the gas tube I believe.

[CouchOperator]

Gotcha. Thank you

[GM4spd]

Haven't shot AR types in over 40 years on FULL auto. I didn't shoot FA in
the military,either, but did burn a lot of FA rds just shooting. I didn't put
10000 rds thru any one rifle but maybe came close. Never had any
issue with carbon fouling. These were all Colt. Never any parts breakage,only
failures came from mags or ammo. Ammo was cheap. Rifles were cleaned
regularly,I was never,and am not now a fan of a LOT of lube! This lube
thing on CG is way over hyped.Too much lube doesn't solve anything.If
your AR type( especially a home job) doesn't run right from the start
something is wrong and needs correction. I have never used steel
case ammo in any AR type I've owned. AKs yes---and even they can have
failures with this type ammo.

[ExpendableYouth]

I hated how much they made us scrub our rifles. You shouldn't scrub a rifle until then bluing starts to come off. Guys would take there chamber brushes and go to town trying to clean them enough.

[ChuckDizzle]

I hated how much they made us scrub our rifles. You shouldn't scrub a rifle until then bluing starts to come off. Guys would take there chamber brushes and go to town trying to clean them enough.

After 10 years I've finally broken myself from compulsive over cleaning of my rifles. And surprise, they are more reliable than any if my service rifles were.

[AreWeFree]

I agree with your argument, but I like to clean mine to look over the parts.
The more I observe them, the better chance I have of spotting something wrong before it becomes a problem. It just helps me be more familiar with everything.

Good thread though, very interested in responses here.