First of all I’d like to say thanks for reading this and caring about shooting. In a recent discussion with some dudes after classes they asked how I like doing open enrollment classes. I absolutely love them because every dude or dudette there is a SHOOTER (regardless of profession or background) and wants to be better. I truly enjoy it and get great fulfillment from seeing that quest to get better regardless of current skill set. Thanks Y’all! Now onto this article.
I have long been a fan of the Gas Impingement AR-15/M-4 vs the piston guns. The gas guns get a bad rep because they dump a lot of carbon in the action causing alleged reliability issues, ect. I don’t dig the piston guns, because they are heavier, have a much less smooth recoil impulse, and I honestly feel they are a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. In my experience, which is what I prefer to base opinion on, DI guns will run veeeery dirty.
In a basic carbine class I used to say that the gas guns will run dirty but they won’t run dry for very long; we should pull the bolt and put some oil on all the friction points and a couple other places every couple thousand rounds – still believe that’s a good practice. Last year, I tested out Lucas Extreme Duty Gun Oil. I was very happy with the way is stayed where I put it and how it provided good lubrication to the gun. After some testing I switched over to it for everything.
I got a new upper from BCM last year, and I wanted to see how well/long the Lucas Extreme Duty Gun Oil would work with just a single application. Since around November of last year I have put the rifle through some pretty hard use and put somewhere around 30K rounds through it: 7 classes in deserts, 4 classes in the rain, and a bunch of time in my pelican case that has dust, sand, debris, etc. in it. Well, last week it finally malfunctioned for the first time. I got the gun pretty hot several times and it got to where the carbon in the bolt seized a bit and wouldn’t let the firing pin go forward fast enough.I pulled the BCG out and put some more Lucas oil on everything and went back to shooting. I AM NOT going to clean this gun, I’m gonna keep on shooting it and see what happens should be interesting!
I posted these pics and info on Facebook and some of the comments were pretty funny: E-5s ordering me to do push-ups and such for having such a dirty gun, one fella said it made him want to puke looking at the gun, etc. I can assure those concerned that I have spent many an hour as a private cleaning an M-16 to cleaner than new standards and also plenty of hours after various phases of the Q course cleaning guns to time rather than to standard. After that, I have also put a bunch of rounds – never counted but safe to say over 200k – through an M-4 or AR-15 during some pretty hard use. Simply put, I have a very good personal understanding of what the gun will take and how to take care of it to the point that it will always work when I need it! That’s how I roll with my rifle: reliable but not definitely not basic training private clean.
Thanks Y’all!
-Frank Proctor
Frank Proctor has served over 18 years in the military, the last 11 of those in US Army Special Forces. During his multiple combat tours in Afghanistan & Iraq he had the privilege to serve with and learn from many seasoned veteran Special Forces Operators so their combined years of knowledge and experience has helped him to become a better operator & instructor. While serving as an instructor at the Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat Course he was drawn to competitive shooting. He has since earned the USPSA Grand Master ranking in the Limited Division and Master ranking in the IDPA Stock Service Pistol division. He learned a great deal from shooting in competition and this has helped him to become to become a better tactical shooter. Frank is one of the few individuals able to bring the experiences of U.S. Army Special Forces, Competitive Shooting, and veteran Instructor to every class.
All this experience combines to make Frank Proctor a well-rounded shooter and instructor capable of helping you to achieve your goal of becoming a better shooter.
Gunfighter Moment is a weekly feature brought to you by Alias Training & Security Services. Each week Alias brings us a different Trainer and in turn they offer some words of wisdom.
Tags: Alias Training and Security Services, Frank Proctor, Way of the Gun
My experience is similar and I, too, have great confidence in a properly manufactured DI rifle/carbine. Similarly, the few failures I’ve seen to fire were related to the firing pin’s ability to move freely in it’s channel. Carbon buildup causes this, but also too (as in soaking, dripping wet) much lube, if the viscosity is heavy.
The Army has ruined more rifles through excessive cleaning procedures than actual use. As an infantryman I was taught and encouraged to use really bad methods and tools/products to clean issued weapons to white glove standards. The frequent, excessive, and unnecessary disassembly and cleaning damaged finishes, surface treatments, and part tolerances. It also made the weapon harder to “clean” the next time, accelerating the stupid.
Many people are convinced that if their guns aren’t perfectly clean they will fail, corrode, or just get up and walk out on their own. It ain’t so. Lubed is the key. Yet generations of soldiers learned to dread and avoid range trips in order to not have to “GI” their weapons. Training suffered because they would do their utmost to avoid shooting blanks in the field. We conditioned them to have no confidence in their weapons…who can trust a gun that must be “perfectly” clean to be considered serviceable?
Far too many gun owners spend more time cleaning than actually shooting. Not me. Run them hard and put them away wet. Wipe down the bolt as needed. Annual cleaning is simply to help with an inspection of the components.
The TLDR version? Amen!
The extra 12 ounces and less smooth recoil characteristics are a small trade off. If you think you can shoot a DI gun a long time before cleaning , try a piston driven gun. I shot 6-8k last summer and the BCG and components were able to be cleaned with a paper towel wipe down. For me it’s a small trade off.
Did you even read the article? Thirty thousand rounds this thing went without a cleaning with one malfunction. Your extra weight gains you nothing.
Frank, if you haven’t yet give the Primary Weapons Systems rifles a try. Their piston is a long-stroke piston and doesn’t suffer from the slap-heavy recoil impulse and much of the wear-and-tear associated with pistons because the BCG and the op-rod are connected and move as one piece. I still love DI guns, but PWS changed my mind about pistons in a way I didn’t thing was possible!
I had to prove this point to my guys a few months back. I put a little fire clean on the bolt when we got to the range and at the end of a long rainy day and nearly 1K rounds put through the gun with no malfunctions the had a new respect for their carbines.
Fireclean is the jam and pretty much takes care of DI fouling! Anything that’s there isn’t baked on, even if it gets really really hot, and most of it can be wiped off with a dry paper towel!
I had a former roommate who was a small arms readiness group instructor whom hypothesised that a moderately “dirty” m-16/ar-15 would/should shoot more accurate than a spotlessly clean one. While he admitted he had no hard evidence per se, his logic was that the carbon would form up and reduce any micro-movements between the parts when you fired the weapon thus reducing the variations in such movements between shots…
While I can’t honestly support or disagree with such, as I am an evidence based person, I will say that it would be interesting to have a study compare and contrast the groupings on ultra clean and slightly dirty weapon systems.
This was more well known with 1911s. A dirty, rack grade 1911 shot more accurately than a squeaky clean one simply because the built up carbon-lube mix filled in the gaps of the receiver and slide rail and the locking lugs on the barrel and slide.
Love this kid of stuff! I had always heard the same thing about the DI guns fouling quickly but this last year I’ve been seen articles and experiments like this that blow that stuff out of the water. I’ve always been curious to see just how far the system can be pushed.
Should we start a pool? see how long it goes? haha
Cleaning to time rather than to standard at the SWC weapons pool, I don’t believe it
I’ve had similar effect with the Lucas Extreme product. They know heat and friction pretty well. Great stuff.
Mike Pannone did something similiar a ways back at Defense Review.
http://www.defensereview.com/the-big-m4-myth-fouling-caused-by-the-direct-impingement-gas-system-makes-the-m4-unreliable/
Pat Rogers routinely does this with his BCM guns, I think one of them went 41k rounds before they had a malfunction. In fact in 2009, I attended a class and used one of his rifles that had 14k with no cleanings and put another 1k through it. All I did was lube it every morning (with slip 2000) before class started. Ran like a champ.
S/F
Nik
I guess maybe I just like my rifles a little too much to put them through this. I wonder if people who do this to their rifles treat their cars the same way???
It’s Frank Proctor he probably has dozens of rifles running. Par Rogers did similar with filthy 14.
Agreed.
A Rifle is a Tool. Ask that sad married man at Wal Mart, shuffling along the aisles with his wife how an unused tool feels.
If you own a car. drive it.
If you own rifles. Run them.
Dont disrespect them. But Use them, know them, Treat them with what a Tool wants. Use. Good Hard Honest Use.
Im a Canadian Army E5. And theres nothing that takes more of my time than fighting retarded institutional dogma like “scour the carbon off the crown of the barrel troops” or “Dont align the Gas rings!” No. Stop.
Its good to see that Im not alone in my thinking.
Not gonna lie, that nasty bolt squicks me out. Must be my inner E-5.
Not getting involved in the DI/PO fight, but putting away a gun dirty is akin to punching my mother. Neither one’s -ever- gonna happen.
https://www.full30.com/video/9eef6b3a4eb6c8846a4c8dc4b8968bc4
https://www.full30.com/video/6618755f336970e55e6c50c1fe894ff8
Hope nobody here’s a big fan of the M1A.
Interesting tests.
I used to be a clean freak, not anymore. I make sure my AR runs wet, bring lube for the ones at work since they usually use some water that they call CLP (dries out pretty quick). Handguns get a wipe down after the range and a full cleaning every few hundred rounds. Glock and AR have never had a malfunction. Going on 2k rounds in the G19, 6k rounds through one I no longer have, and about 10k rounds through 2 ARs over the past couple years with no failures that weren’t due to out of spec ammo/magazines. A dirty and wet AR will run, a clean and dry one won’t. A clean and wet one will run as well obviously, why put more wear and tear on the gun from excessive cleaning? The eye opener was shooting a buddy’s Remington 1100, jammed every shot since it hadn’t been out of the safe for years. Put a few drops of dirty motor oil off the dipstick from the chevy and it ran like a top the rest of the day.