View From The Porch: You have to clean guns now?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

You have to clean guns now?

15,000 rounds of Wolf + 0 cleaning = 1 filthy rifle.

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29 comments:

The Duck said...: Yeah that is a dirty gun, I remember in the early 90's being told an AR had to be cleaned after every firing, that I decided to shoot the same one all season without cleaning, but I don't think my round count was much over 1500, but I didn't oil it ether, didn't jm once, but in rapid fire strings, it was a bit sluggish; 9:35 AM, June 10, 2010
Weetabix said...: An admittedly tangential comment, but I shot one box of Wolf 7.62x54R through a Polish Mosin M-44, and it looked something like that. No Wolf for me, thanks.; 9:36 AM, June 10, 2010
Tam said...: Yeah, my general rule of thumb for Wolf steel-cased stuff is to avoid it if at all possible in any caliber other than 9x18, 5.45, 7.62x39, or 7.62x54R.; 9:40 AM, June 10, 2010
Anonymous said...: Dirty, dangerous gun.

I'm glad no one on the line was injured.

Shootin' Buddy; 9:51 AM, June 10, 2010
Drang said...: I always suspected that the claim that you had to clean your M16 three times after firing was ridiculous, verging on superstition, but this guy took it too far in the other direction.

OTOH, I feel better about laying in some cheap Wolf ammo for emergencies now...; 9:56 AM, June 10, 2010
Jay G said...: Now I don't feel so bad about going ~ 250 rounds of Remington green box between cleanings in the Bushie...; 10:02 AM, June 10, 2010
The Raving Prophet said...: That thing is absolutely filthy (and a M1S bolt... oh come on, a high quality one isn't that much more).

Still, that much round count shows that the design has more tolerance for crud and use than some would contend. There's just no situation where I worry about going through 500 rounds without the ability to do some cleaning or maintenance, let alone 1000, and 10K is not going to happen. If you are worried about firing four figures of ammo without being able to wipe down the bolt, who exactly do you think you'll be fighting?; 10:20 AM, June 10, 2010
Anonymous said...: DW, I'd try some Wolf first to see if your rifle likes it. PMC is running about $350 per K and is pretty accurate..; 10:23 AM, June 10, 2010
Revolver Rob said...: FWIW, these pictures are something like 7 years old and were done solely as an experiment to see how long it took the gun to malfunction, not because someone neglected maintenance.

-Rob; 10:58 AM, June 10, 2010
Aaron said...: I tend to find that the steel 62 gr Wolf 5.56 jams my ARs nicely with the rim getting bent by the extractor with the result that the case is stuck in the chameber requiring a rod down the barrel to drive out, often times requiring an assist from a rubber mallet. Even worse it occiasionally jams with the bolt stuck in the forward position and only a lot of wacking with a rod down the bore frees it.

The Wolf ammo shoots nice and accurately but the dead stop jams, not to mention the fouling every shooting session is putting me off, back to brass cases only for me. Learned my lesson - feed good guns good ammo.

wv: dises - yes, I dises on Wolf steal case 5.56 but its a well-deserved diss.; 11:02 AM, June 10, 2010
Tam said...: Rob,

Didn't know how old they were, but it was obviously an experiment.

I am given to understand that Pat Rogers has an almost equally filthy carbine in his school inventory.; 11:04 AM, June 10, 2010
Tam said...: Aaron,

I don't prefer Wolf 5.56 in my own carbines, either, mostly because it's filthy and can be hard on extractors.

I've heard complaints about sticky extraction before. Out of curiosity, does your carbine have a 5.56 or .223 chamber? Also, what brand is it, if you don't mind me asking?; 11:07 AM, June 10, 2010
Anonymous said...: Seeing a rifle that dirty almost made me cry.

Gerry; 11:17 AM, June 10, 2010
Ed Rasimus said...: I wonder what some of those Mujahadeen AK's look like?; 11:24 AM, June 10, 2010
Tam said...: ...aaaand 14 posts.

(I was counting.); 11:39 AM, June 10, 2010
Anonymous said...: I can't make Wolf .223, both 55 and 62 grain, don't run well at all in my Colt 20" barrels, HBAR or Gov Profile. It short strokes often enough to drive me batty.

It runs fine in my 16" AR's. No complaints except the stink. All 5.56 barrels to the best of my knowledge, I don't have a chamber reamer.

A friends Bushy (ban era HBAR 16") gets stuck cases now and then, rim ripped off, the whole works.; 11:44 AM, June 10, 2010
John Hardin said...: Don't forget Ol' Dirty...

http://www.falfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68486; 1:46 PM, June 10, 2010
Bram said...: Ed Rasimus - Only a direct impingement rifle could spew that much carbon awesomeness all over the moving parts.; 1:55 PM, June 10, 2010
Crucis said...: I once bought two 20rd boxes of Wolf .223. I'd had my AR for a couple of years and never had a problem. I'd clean it about every 3rd-4th range trip.

It was clean when I took the Wolfe ammo. I got a stuck case on the 10th round and ruined a Tipton cleaning rod hammering the case out of the chamber. I lubed it again and two rounds later got a round that wouldn't fully seat. I had to hammer the assist a bit to get the bolt closed and when I fired got another fail to extract.

I gave the Wolf ammo to another know-it-all shooter for his mini-14. He had similar problems too as I remember.

I've never bought any Russian ammo since. I've a couple-three cases on Winchester Q3131a (the Israeli version) on hand now for "just in case."; 2:20 PM, June 10, 2010
Drang said...: ...aaaand 14 posts.

(I was counting.)
Well, really, if you though of it you shouldn't count your own comments...

Just remembered Drill Sergeant Gregory "There are 10 snipers in the US Army and the other 9 are lousy shots" Daily saying that he never cleaned any of his competition guns, but you will be cleaning your M16 every day!; 3:15 PM, June 10, 2010
Anonymous said...: Back when I had an AR (2005-2009), I would run mine as much as 500rounds without any cleaning or lubing at all. I also ran Wolf most of the time. At around 500rounds, I would get a case stuck and have to pound it out, but once I did that and cleaned the chamber, it was good for another few hundred rounds. At that point, I would give the rifle a good cleaning and start the process again. It didn't do that with brass cased ammo and would even run brass cased stuff flawlessly immediately after jamming with Wolf. No damage was ever done.

Mine was a nothing special 16" carbine I built myself right after the AWB ended. It used a Bushmaster Superlight barrel with 5.56 chamber, 9mm buffer (more weight, supposed to help reliability), and FF tube. I purposely didn't baby it because I wanted to see how finicky it was. Except with its issues with Wolf, it never hiccupped. I'll admit it was never more than a range toy, but it worked fine for me.

Chris; 5:02 PM, June 10, 2010
Aaron said...: Don't know why my reply post didn't stick.

Tam:

Both barrels are 5.56.

First AR is a 16" CMMG M4gery that is an otherwise rock-solid reliable joy to shoot.

The other is a 7.5 AR pistol with a Chester Arms upper on a CMMG pistol lower - again very reliable except when running the Wolf ammo. In regards to the 7.5 pistol ask not why except that its fun to shoot and the only way to have a loaded AR15 and AR mags in your car in Michigan (with a CPL of course).

I'll have to see if I saved one of the jammed cases and I'll post a pic on my blog if so (once I rebuild/reinstall the #!@# laptop).; 5:13 PM, June 10, 2010
Anonymous said...: Pat Rogers rifle is over 32k at last count. No cleaning, just lots of Slip 2000. :)

Al T.; 5:27 PM, June 10, 2010
Darrell said...: Hell, I won't shoot Wolf even in my commie guns. That's not to say all Russky ammo is bad, just Wolf.; 8:02 PM, June 10, 2010
Revolver Rob said...: Some of the experiments on how long a gun can run without being cleaned are interesting. The experiments smack of someone with too much money trying to self destruct something for what?

Frankly, I just prefer that my guns RUN, I will clean them to make sure they do.

-Rob; 8:52 PM, June 10, 2010
Tam said...: RevolverRob,

"The experiments smack of someone with too much money..."

Everything was making sense until your last three words, then you got all garbled. Say again, over?; 9:09 PM, June 10, 2010
global village idiot said...: Not only many of these posts, but LOTS on the linked blog post, strike me of Puritan self-righteousness, and misguided at that!

There was a post on the other blog to the effect of "how can that cruel, thoughtless man ruin a good gun when there are thousands of people who can't afford one..." I looked at the sig line to see if it was my grandma, who was fond of reminding me to "think of the poor starving kids in Poland" when she wanted me to finish my beets.

Great Caesars ghost! Why the sanctimony? Someone wants to run his own rifle to failure (failure of one part, mind you), it's his business. For my part, I found it instructive to see just what you can put the rifle through.

The military says that the average service life of an M16 barrel is 30,000rds. Knowing that it can go through more than half its barrel's service life, firing ammunition whose propellant is made of matchheads and old lampwicks, without cleaning, is far from damning - I'd say it vindicates the design beyond further argument.

By way of comparison, how many here would trust a Garand or M1A to run 16,000 rounds of even the cleanest-shooting ammo without cleaning and NOT experience a part failure?

This was a valuable experiment, and those with their thongs in a bunch over the sacrilege need to take a Midol, change their pads and learn to deal.

gvi; 10:26 PM, June 10, 2010
shawya said...: gvi...

Amen. All I think when I see something like that is "holy crap", and feel a thousand times better when I get lazy and go a few hundred rounds without scrubbing everything down. At some point ya gotta turn off your mall ninja and just go "wow!".; 11:46 PM, June 10, 2010
Sigivald said...: The comments there are... amusing?

People getting upset that a $40 or so bolt needed to be replaced after 15,000 rounds?

Hell, I'm never going to run 15,000 rounds through either of my ARs.; 3:35 PM, June 11, 2010