AR Service Life?

I would say minimum 10,000 rounds. Probably quite a bit more. It may need minor maintenance such as gas rings or maybe a new bolt after that, but should be fine. Someone with more experience will probably weigh in and give you better info.

10k is about right. That's about the point for most AR pattern rifles, you're going to start seeing parts wearing out/breaking. Barrel wear will be a different story as it most likely won't be shot out (unless of course a lot of long strings of rapid fire have taken place) you'll have throat erosion, and certainly a moderate amount of gas port erosion. Also I have seen several guns with 5-6k through them when the thin portion of the bolt(where the cam lug sits) cracked and had to be replaced, but that is somewhat rare.

On a quality rifle like the Colt, or others with chrome lined barrel, quality BCG's and properly made forged 7075-T6 uppers? If I were to hazard a guess, well North of 100k rounds with proper maintenance. Change the buffer & spring every so often (maybe every 10k rounds), keep the thing decently lubed to avoid galling of metal and you should never wear it out.

OTOH, I can't speak for more cheaply built guns. From what I've seen, a budget gun like Hess, Vulcan and even DPMS start to show wear sooner than guns from Colt, Armalite, S&W and other better makers. Different anodizing or other coatings on the inside of the receiver, BCG coatings and heat treatment-all this stuff makes a difference in the long run.

Are you talking about the service life of the barrel? The springs? Other internal parts? Or of the lower receiver itself? Hard to put a life-span number on a gun which can be constantly maintained and refreshed as parts wear.

FWIW, a lot of DCM match shooters will replace a barrel once a year or so -- maybe after just 5-6,000 rds? -- because the accuracy they want starts to decline. Of course, that is still far better than 2" at 100 yds...

I use an AR platform match rifle to shoot NRA High Power. I shoot heavy bullets: 75-80gr in a fast twist barrel. The only real maintenance I've had to do other than clean and lube, is replace the barrel after 5k rounds. With the barrel off the rifle, the throat wear and first 6" of rifling erosion is obvious. At 4K rounds it still shot almost 1 MoA; at 5K it was shooting 3 MoA.
I have replaced the firing pin due to a pierced primer, and replaced the ejector spring so my empties are thrown to the side again like they're supposed to instead of in front of me. Bolt wears the original gas rings and the trigger is un-adjusted since it came back from Compass Lake for modification to two stage.
The gun is cleaned after every 88 round match but I know many guys that have shot 3 or more matches in a row without anything more than some oil on the bolt.

i.e. probably cheaper and/or less trouble in the long run to replace the rifle rather than repair it - again and again. Maybe that never happens? (Actually I would have guessed the upper would go first since it has a steel carrier riding inside it. But I know almost nothing of ARs!)

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So probably well over 100,000 rounds, quite possibly many more than that. Basically until the pin holes are so wobbled out that the rifle won't stay together, the trigger starts to bind, etc. That's a LONG time.

Heck, the upper itself is just a replaceable part too...even though it would likely last 100,000 as well.

I don't think you need to worry about it. I change the gas rings every 5000 rounds and the extractor if it is having issues. I keep some spare parts in the grip just in case (firing pin, rings, extractor).

I have no clue how many rounds it would take to wear the pin holes on the receivers to being too sloppy to work. The 100k plus sounds like a good place to start.

As for being "worn out" when other parts go, the beauty of an AR is the modular nature. They're very servicable. Anybody thinking a shot-out barrel is grounds to replace an entire rifle is probably the same person selling a motorcycle that "needs work" because the tires are bald, the chain is stretched and they tore a hole in the seat cover. Barrels, bolts, gas rings and springs are all consumable parts IMO.

And I am one of those match shooters that rebarrels a rifle after X number of rounds. I use stainless Wilson barrel chambered by White Oak and after 3000-3500 rounds I just change them. Why? Because somewhere between 4k and 5k rounds that barrel is going to give up on the 600-yard line. (At least that's where I notice them going, when I get odd 8s that are off call I know it's beyond time.) That barrel is still good for a short-range blaster though; I imagine a chrome-lined barrel fed a diet of light weight bullets will go 15-20k rounds.

If you use Mobil 1, instead of some kind of thin, inferior lube, you're probably talking about at LEAST 100k rounds. Barrel might have to be replaced before then, but barrels are cheap. Come-to-think-of-it, ANY AR part that might ever wear out is cheap and easy to replace.

The average shooter won't fire enough rounds through his rifle to ever actually wear it out.
Service M16 rifles go waaaay over 100,000 rounds with routine maintenance and repair.
The rifles I saw that were destroyed beyond repair weren't actually shot out, they were irrepairably damaged by abuse or misuse.

So probably well over 100,000 rounds, quite possibly many more than that. Basically until the pin holes are so wobbled out that the rifle won't stay together, the trigger starts to bind, etc. That's a LONG time.

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i actually know someone who did this to two Colts used in testing. 160k of basically all full-auto before the pin holes egged out. We didn't get to discuss wear & tear as much as I would have liked; but he had a 5 gallon bucket filled with burst M4 barrels.

5.56 barrels usually aren't good over 20k rounds, with some going out before half that. The small bore and high velocity kills the throat.

ARs are also known for breaking bolts, either at the extractor locking lugs or the cam pin hole. They all break sooner or later. I'd be surprised if a AR bolt broke before 10k rounds and kinda surprised if it lasted 30k rounds.

Gas tubes should be replaced with the barrel, other springs, gas rings, and other parts should be replaced according to serviceability according with the TM.

BSW

The really high round count guns I've seen tend to eventually break their bolts. That is the first major component I would expect to go. More minor things likes springs, extractors, firing pins may also go. Anything north of 10K rounds and I start to suspect those parts. They may well last longer, or crap out sooner though.

Of course if one can afford to shoot 10K rounds replacing all those parts and even the bolt is financial nothing in comparison.

The next major component is likely to be the barrel. The gun will likely still function but eventual accuracy will degrade. Again as others have noted if accuracy degrade to the point it is unacceptable, the gun is easily re barreled.

There are a lot of variables in how long parts will last but I'd wager if one shot 20K rounds through an AR they would likely need to replace some part during that time.

I've seen the following preventative maintence schedule suggested:

Every 10 thousand rounds, replace:

[ ] Disconnector
[ ] Extractor
[ ] Extractor spring and insert
[ ] FCG springs
[ ] Firing Pin

Every 15 thousand rounds, replace:

[ ] Bolt
[ ] Action Spring

Every 20 thousand rounds replace:

[ ] Barrel
[ ] Gas tube

briansmithwins said:

5.56 barrels usually aren't good over 20k rounds, with some going out before half that. The small bore and high velocity kills the throat.

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The .223/5.56 is actually quite gentle on barrels. It isn't a very high pressure round and isn't burning a lot of powder. 10k is very long barrel life. You can load them hot and burn a stainless barrel out a lot quicker than that but compared to long range competition cartridges, even the hot loaded .223 loads are easy on barrels.

My departments SWAT team replaced their Colt Commandos a couple years ago. They had multiple rifles with over 70k rounds through them and they still used those rifles at work.

Side note: the SWAT team switched to POF rifles. Our departments bureaucracy says that replacing parts above a certain level requires the rifle to go back to the manufacturer. The reason they went with POF is that they are local and the owner will fix anything for them the same day. He has been known to come in on his day off/after hours to fix their rifles. Great CS from them so far.

I have 12 M4s that we use for qualifying/training with somewhere bove 30k rounds through them, half of which were on full auto.

We've recently had broken parts (bolt lugs, extractors, etc), but no appreciable loss in accuracy.

Cleaning is hit and miss, both in quality and frequency.

I would expect that a quality personally-owned M4 would last much longer.

Over the last 15 years, my ARs have shot hundreds of round and are still going strong

1987 Ft. Sill Oklahoma OSUT (Basic Training) Issue weapon, M16 A1.

I remember firing that thing until the gas tube turned cherry red during night fire. Then of course basic markmanship training and qualification. Cleaning- 55 gallon barrel cut in half and filled with solvent and the dreaded cleaning rod. Back then they didn't care whether you cleaned from the breech or the muzzle end. Just get the thing clean enough to pass inspection. And still accurate enough to qualify with.

God only knows how many cycles before me trained and abused the same rifle!

Barrel life is greatly improved on the AR's thanks to the chrome lining. As a plinking rifle I'd venture a guess that you'd easily be north of 10-20k rounds before needing to do any major overhaul of the rifle (probably just rebarreling, replacing extractors, etc).

If you're a dedicated competitive shooter you'll likely replace your barrel much sooner, since you'll be trying to eek out every little bit of accuracy that you can. That is no different than any other type of rifle: a recreational shooter will often get twice (or more) barrel life out of any given rifle than a competitive shooter will.

Jeff White hit the nail on the head. Heat is the biggest killer of firearm components, primarily the barrel. As long as you respect your gun and don't overheat it, it will last you a very long time. This is something I have to be careful of myself; I want to use one of my AK's for hunting, but this also means I can't do mag dumps with it. If I want to do something like that, I'd buy a cheap WASR.

There is an old adage that goes something like "One never owns a gun, one just takes care of it for the next generation" This applies to this discussion.

I'll bet that the AVERAGE AR owner will put less than 10k rounds through the gun before it is passed on. If this is true, the AVERAGE AR own will most likely NEVER wear out an AR.

That being said, I think that a better question (esp for the NON-AVERAGE, high volume shooters that read this) would be "Has anyone ever worn out an AR? If so, how? How many rounds? Pix?"

Just some thoughts, and IMHO.