Are You Cleaning Your Carbine The Army Way?

In this video, from the Army Marksmanship Unit, SSG Michael Howard, shows you how to perform maintenance the Army way.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 20:00 and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

14 Responses to “Are You Cleaning Your Carbine The Army Way?”

CWG says:

July 24, 2016 at 20:48

The army is unable to purge bad institutional knowledge. The AMU/AWG training is great, and I was blessed to get trained by them during several MTTs – but that didn’t stop old ass Os and noncoms from demanding that we scrub the life out of every millimeter of weapon with the wrong supplies.

Teach the command team first. And they won’t learn unless someone makes them.

Teach joe second.

Or it won’t matter.
SamHill says:

July 24, 2016 at 22:01

He lost me at “your safety, make sure it moves properly to all 3 positions”. I think my AR is missing something.
Paul McCain says:

July 24, 2016 at 22:30

Because it had to be done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8-gyaN2Ydc
jkifer says:

July 25, 2016 at 02:49

my go to ar is at about 2,000 rounds downrange with no cleaning…the white glovers would love it… and before anyone jumps on me, I don’t care… running some tests of my own design
Bill says:

July 25, 2016 at 03:15

If you aren’t cleaning from after morning chow to just before lunch you’re doing it wrong.
tacticalyellowmessengerbag says:

July 25, 2016 at 03:26

Mind those gas rings!
Mick says:

July 25, 2016 at 15:14

“There’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way…”

I’m not an expert at all, and this seems like a pretty good intro to the Army way of cleaning an M4… but I’d love to hear other readers’ (links too!) to some “field expedient” shortcuts…

Now, I know this is wading into controversial territory, and I’m not trying to start a flamewar or anything, but I’m always keeping an eye out for things that help make the process easier.

The best I’ve found so far is baby wipes help quite a bit getting carbon out…

Mick.
- Rich says:
  
  July 25, 2016 at 15:39
  
  Field expedient? Pull out bolt carrier group, wipe down with a sock, oil it up. Done.
  
  Oil>Cleaning.
  - Mick says:
    
    July 25, 2016 at 16:28
    
    Poor word choice on my part… what’s the magic shortcut that gets it clean enough to turn back into the armory? Or is there one (aside form hours with qtips…)
    - Ben says:
      
      July 26, 2016 at 01:54
      
      Over the course of my 9 years in the army my cleaning technique has evolved. These days I hose it out with non-chlorinated brake cleaner. Be sure to throughly lubricate every surface with a thin coat of whatever lube (it seriously doesn’t matter) as the brake cleaner will remove ALL the oil from the surfaces and can contribute to corrosion. There is no better way to clean the lugs and the chamber. Bar none.
      - jkifer says:
        
        July 26, 2016 at 02:22
        
        ya, I second this
Tim says:

July 25, 2016 at 21:37

Anyone notice that it doesn’t have a full auto FCG on it and a Giessele trigger in it also.
- Christopher California says:
  
  July 31, 2016 at 05:30
  
  Tim, you beat me to it! Also, some of the nomenclature he used is a little funny…
Seamus says:

July 27, 2016 at 00:25

I clean my gun with Liberal’s Tears.