AR cleaning

[Bartkowski]

I seem to have a hard time cleaning the inside of the bolt carrier on my AR. I have a small brush that I use to clean the inside of the carrier, but it still takes some effort to get the fouling off the face inside. So how do you clean your bolt carrier?

 

[taliv]

squirt it with gun scrubber/brake cleaner for a few seconds, sling it dry, run a paper towel around it moderately vigorously, reapply lube generously

 

[nbkky71]

I clean mine with a 9mm bore brush. It's a perfect fit for the front and rear of the BCG.

Wrap a patch around the bore brush, wet the patch with your solvent of choice, insert into the carrier and then give it a few twirls. Repeat using a dry patch.

 

[Bartkowski]

I was going to use brake cleaner, but didn't know if it hurt chrome so haven't yet. Anyone use brake cleaner on chromed parts?

 

[Nhsport]

Brake cleaner is good to go on hard chrome. Keep it away from some plastic (all plastic to be safe) and anything painted.

The short answer to your question is that the rear part of the bolt carrier doesn't really need to be squeeky clean

 

[mljdeckard]

I'm going to err on the side of safety and say that brake cleaner and gunscrubber aren't entirely identical. I would use brake cleaner on my SKS, but I wouldn't want my PLT Sgt to catch me using it on my issue-A2. Even if it's just because he trusts something that says "Gun" on the side, but won't trust the identical substance in a can marked "Brakes". I would try to keep either off of the plastic parts, rather than leave a bleached mark which the armorer will call 'dirty'.