The Myth of The Unreliable AR?
We’re all heard it. The AR is an unreliable hunk of aluminum that will jam every. single. time. its even remotely dirty, right? If its not squeaky clean, no specks of carbon, and HAS to have a gallon of lube to run, right?
Yep, we’ve all heard it.
So in my last carbine course I decided to take that myth to task. Run a well-built AR pistol through all of the drills I put the students through, with just a minimal coating of CLP, then at the end of the day bury the weapon in some thick Carolina river bottom mud.
We’ve had a fair amount of rain, making the trip back off the range interesting, but that’s another topic for another day. Point is, we’ve got some grimy, nasty, sticky river bottom mud that can permeate everything. So I dug some up:
And then I laid my PSA pistol down in the hole and buried the action.
Let it sit for a bit, pick it up, then empty the magazine:
All rounds fired, bolt locks to the rear, functioned flawlessly:
After that I ran the little carbine the rest of the weekend, no cleaning, no lube…..and no failures. Just to prove the point. The weapon works.
So what are the takeaways?
- Have a clean, well-made carbine from the get-go that’s not over-lubricated.
- Keep the ejection port cover (aka dust cover) closed after firing.
- And have good mags. Mine are plain-jane GI spec with brown anti-tilt followers and I’ve got some D&H mags as well. The old green followers caused problems, but you can upgrade those.
Need training? I can help with that.
Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
6 Comments
Comments are closed.
While I don’t bury my AR in the muck, my BCM has been 100% even in the blowing dust of Wyoming…running dry lube.
What is your view of the forward assist? It strikes me as a vestigial remnant of the early days when the platform did have some problems. I’ve never found cause to use it myself. When practicing with a random mix of dummy rounds, “Tap, rack, bang” is my automatic response…not forward assist.
BCM is great. My SPR is a Recce 16.
The forward assist is good if the bolt doesn’t completely seat for some reason. “Tap rack bang” actually induces more failures. If you’re having a malfunction in the AR, about 90% of that is magazine related, so treat it like a magazine change. Drop the mag, rack the charging handle, insert new mag.
Yeah, we’ve all heard that cry of inferior AR vs. AK, blah, blah, blah. The only thing worse than a know-it-all, is a know-it-all who doesn’t know-it-all. I carried an AR/M4 of some form or another for 24 years (except of course, when I was humpin’ an M-60…lol) in every enviroment from the Arctic of Alaska to the Tropics of Thailand to the A-hole of Afghanistan. It has never failed me. I now own more than one…
Thanks for the quick article.
Fight the good fight!
I was thinking an 11.5″ barrel. Any major differences? Thanks.
That’s what I was using.
5