Quick, Dumb AR cleaning time question

[Slamfire]

Wow, @Slamfire I didn't even know that over lubrication was an actual concern for some folks. At worst it seemed to be a minor inconvenience that excess lube ends up on your eye-pro.

I have written extensively about the Army coverup of their low number M1903's, a coverup that goes back prior to WW1. The Army built 1,000,000 rifles without temperature gages, so any time a part was heated, it was likely to be over heated. It is likely that the forge shop and heat treat ovens caused the most burnt receivers and bolts, but, lots of other parts probably got over heated too. Whenever a rifle blew up, the Army blamed greased bullets. Cupronickel bullets of the period fouled the barrel something awful. The Canadians had a practice of firing several 280 Ross cupronickel bullets and then firing steel jacketed bullets to remove the jacket fouling. Ross bullets were also greased, because putting grease on a bullet absolutely, positively, stopped the fouling. Many nations issued service rifle ammunition that was greased, the Austrians did it to because their armor piercing ammunition had steel jackets. the grease on the bullet spared the barrel. I know the Swiss greased their bullets, I think back to the days when they issued paper patched bullets. It must have done something else, like improved accuracy, or easy cleanup, because they greased their service rifle ammunition well after cupronickel jackets were replaced with better materials.





Target shooters who fired US issue cupronickel jacketed bullets had to grease their own ammunition or experience massive jacket fouling that changed the point of impact during a match. Cupronickel fouling was also a mess to remove, took nasty chemicals. This is an ad from the WW1 era, the mobile lubricant can was carried to the firing line and you dipped and twisted your bullet tips in the grease. I believe "never nickel" was a British bullet lubricant. These were all very common on the firing line.



An example of dip and twisting:




The Army being the open and honest institution it is, whenever a low number rifle blew up on the firing line, with issue ammunition, the Army blamed the shooter. The Army never acknowledged there was a problem with the ammunition or the rifles, nope the Army blamed the shooter for greasing their ammunition. Blamed the grease, saying that "grease pinched the bullet", and "increased bolt thrust", and because of the great authority of the Army Ordnance Bureau, shooters have accepted these reasons for over one hundred years. This is of course a coverup.

But, it is a century old coverup. It is so old that it has become part one of the core beliefs of the shooting society. A sort of "always been and always will be" faith. In a century, the theory has been built on, amplified, extended, stretched, evils never dreamed of by the original creators placed on grease and oil on cartridges. Maybe the election of a Democrat in Alabama is due to greased bullets, who knows the extent of evils caused! Over time, the inbred, ignorant, US Army, became lubrophobic (Lubrophobe - pathological fear of lubricants). This institutional fear created an irrational desire to keep weapons free of oils and greases.

You can see this in this WW2 manual:

TM 9-1904 Ammunition Inspection Guide 2 Mar 1944

http://archive.org/details/TM9-1904

The use of oil on cartridge cases is prohibited. Greasing or oiling cartridges used in machine guns and automatic arms cause the collection of dust and other abrasives which are injurious. Grease or oil on cartridge cases or on the walls of the chamber in nonautomatic rifles creates excessive and hazardous pressure on the rifle bolt. When there is oil on the cartridge case, there is no adhesion of the case to the chamber. When the case expands upon firing, the case slips back, and the bolt receives a greater rearward thrust. An apparent exception exists in the case of lead bullets. However, only the bullet is waxed or greased as issued.

Did you notice the non automatic warning? Few know the history of firearms, but the Oerlikon 20mm machine cannon used grease ammunition. No one seems to have picked up on the incoherent physics expressed by the Army. Grease or oil is OK in automatic weapons but not nonautomatic weapons. See, F=MA is different for bolt guns and automatic weapons. Right? I am certain those with a technical background will realize that F=MA is the same for non automatic weapons and automatic weapons, but the Army does not realize that, and those who believe everything the Army says, well, they will act as they are told.

Not everyone used an Oerlikon, no civilian I know ever owned a 20mm machine cannon, and so, even though the Oerlikon served through Vietnam, few were aware of the thing, and of course, people believe a lot of contradictory ideas, especially when taught by authority. (Many have been conditioned since birth to unconditionally accept everything that authority tells them) The Army, as an institution, still believes this, teaches its Soldiers, that oil and grease are bad, and that weapons are to be kept free of oil and grease. At least that is what my Vietnam veterans buddies were taught, and I believe this was also what the Army was teaching Soldiers as they deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Lubrophobia is not only nonsense, it will get you killed. It turns out the AR15/M16 is more reliable wet. Run it dry and it will stop functioning sooner. But, you won't do that if Authority tells you that oil and grease on the weapon create a dangerous condition. You will accept what they tell you, reject anything that contradicts what you have been taught, and you won't step over that line. The negative consequence is that you may die because of what you were taught.

The good guys in the video are trying to correct this nonsense, save lives, even though they don't know where it started.

 

[Orcon]

Maybe by the time I was in the Army this concept had largely faded because I recall being taught that you can't over lubricate the M-16. We sprayed the BCG thoroughly, gave it a flick to kick out the bolt head and in the process carry off the excess and dropped it back into the rifle, and that was that. Maybe it's just because it's the only service rifle I've ever used in any serious capacity but it seems like the AR platform has so many issues that everybody knows but just aint so. It's a poodle shooter, it's an unreliable platform, they're dirty.

Did the M1 or M14 carry these stigmas as well?

 

[Slamfire]

Maybe by the time I was in the Army this concept had largely faded because I recall being taught that you can't over lubricate the M-16. We sprayed the BCG thoroughly, gave it a flick to kick out the bolt head and in the process carry off the excess and dropped it back into the rifle, and that was that. Maybe it's just because it's the only service rifle I've ever used in any serious capacity but it seems like the AR platform has so many issues that everybody knows but just aint so. It's a poodle shooter, it's an unreliable platform, they're dirty.

Did the M1 or M14 carry these stigmas as well?

The M1 was barely around as a target rifle when I got into target shooting. M1 rifles were extremely hard to find for civilians, the Gun Club President said you could buy a NM at Camp Perry, but I think those were only around for a short time. He was a Camp Perry Competitor in the 1960's. He got his M1 some years after he got his Devine M1a!

I worked with a Korean War veteran who just up and said "no matter what I did to that rifle it worked". He was talking about the M1. The M1 was extremely reliable and well liked by every veteran I talked to who carried the thing. That includes WW2 veterans, they expected the thing to work, and it did. I believe veterans cared more about their C rations and where to find hooch than what brand of rifle they carried. A bud of mine was going to drop on Cuba with one, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His unit, the 82nd, had not received M14's yet! Only comment one way or another about M14's and M1's that bud made, was that the M14 killed guys because the parachute shrouds got fouled around the barrel if rifle was carried upright. If you carried it muzzle down everything was OK. He also said the M14 rifle stock would break practicing butt strokes. I don't know if he had a rifle with or without the magazine liner.

I did talk to Marines who were in the transition from M14 to M16. The early M16's were a POS and unreliable. The M14 was extremely reliable, not fussy about maintenance, and they were not happy when they had to turn in their M14's.One Marine, it was early in the transition, and they had the choice of M14 or M16. He said he took a factory new M16 out of the crate, loaded it, pulled the trigger, and it jammed. He gave it back and took his M14, "which never jammed". I pulled targets with one Vietnam Vet Marine and asked him what rifle he would prefer to carry, and he preferred his M14. He used a worn out M1 at Lejune. He said "the Navy Department was so cheap that the Marine Corp was given worn out Army equipment"! As I recall, he liked being to see what was going on, the open top design of the M1-M14 allows you to see what is happening, and though I never had a jam in my M1a, if I had, it would have been easy to clear. My AR15's, I carry a needle nosed multi tool to get in the port. Plus, and bud thought this was an advantage, you can pull the trigger mechanism out and have access to virtually anything, and blow mud or crud out easily. I never blew a primer in a M1a, but I have had primers get lodged deep down in the lower of an AR15, and that took knocking out the trigger pins, taking out all the internals, to reach the thing.

Pressure is a basic problem with M16 and AR15. All that little round has is velocity, and they got that with high pressure. I believe Stoner designed the weapon for a 50,000 psia cartridge (CUP) and that was pretty hot for a service round. Improvements in powder had gotten the 30-06 service round down to low 40 Kpsi to upper 30's Kpsia. Even in hot weather, the round would not be overpressure and cause malfunctions. The earliest Army documents, the pressure for the 5.56 had been bumped up to 52,000, probably to get more velocity at range. All throughout the Vietnam period, the Army kept on bumping pressure up, sometimes for no other reason than to use different powder supplies. Army Ordnance bureau employees got the monkey off their back, and left the malfunctions to the guys in the field. And the Army keeps on bumping up the pressure till now, I think it is close to proof pressures of 70,000 psia. The current number has been with held from the public. Pressure is not anyone's friend, if you can do the same job at lower pressures, function will be more reliable. If anyone notices, the Chinese service round is a 40 Kpsia round. The Chinese understand that blowing primers, cracking bolt lugs, sticking cases, are all undesirable. So they designed their round to do all they want, at a lower pressure. And if you read reviews of their service cartridge, it appears to have better lethality, trajectory, and range, than the 5.56.




The 223 round was not so much “designed” as it was a wildcat. The guys who came up with the round wanted a certain velocity at a certain range. I read the 1971 Guns & Ammo article “The 223 is here to stay” by Robert Hutton. Robert Hutton was technical editor of Guns and Ammo magazine and must have been very wealthy as he owned a big piece of real estate in Topanga Canyon California. It was called Hutton’s Shooting Ranch. What the adoption of the 223 round as a service round shows is how well connected wealthy elites run the country. Hutton’s article documents how he developed the 223 round. If you have any sort of technical background, it is apparent he is an amateur and his cartridge represents what an amateur would do. He took an existing cartridge, necked it up and down, blew the shoulder out, changed shoulder angles, he had a chronograph, got the velocity he wanted at distance. The crowning achievement in the article was punching holes in the wobble pot helmet at 500 yards. That is about all the lethality testing Hutton did, punching holes in a helmet. He used the Powell Computer, a paper slide rule, to estimate pressures. He did not pressure test his cartridge. This cartridge was then adopted as the US service round.

I have no idea of his background, maybe he was the typical liberal arts major you find in the print industry, obviously he was a firearm enthusiast, and being the Technical Editor of a Gun magazine made him well connected. What an ego trip it must have been to have his cartridge adopted as the US service round. Imagine all the bragging you get to do at the dinner parties, “I developed the service round for the Army”. Unfortunately, amateurs don’t have the time, equipment, or understanding to really sweat out the tiny details. These guys did not have the analytical capability nor probably, had the comprehension to thoroughly study cartridge case design. William Davis, the Government Technical Expert at the Icord hearings, said on the History Channel that the technical data provided the Government on the 223 round did not come with a pressure curve. These guys developed a cartridge and never thought of documenting what the pressure curve looked like. Pressure curve is absolutely critical to the timing of an automatic weapon. How long energy is available, the maximum pressure and how fast it drops off is fundamental to the design of a automatic gas mechanism.




This is from Chinn's Machine Gun series.



Hutton did not look at case hardness, taper, expansion or contraction. A professional would have looked at the expansion and contraction of the case in the chamber and adjusted case taper, thickness, and established case hardness in the sidewalls and case head. You would have to work with manufacturing to determine realistic hardness parameters throughout the case, as it affects the Young’s Modulus. As it turns out, the brass case 223 drags on extraction, there is not enough clearance between the case and chamber. Steel case is even worse. I have seen many failures to extract steel case ammunition on the firing line with AR15’s.

It turns out the 223 is fairly straight tapered. This was a fad, highly promoted by P.O Ackley, and widely copied. I am not a fan of very straight tapered cartridges. The one and only advantage of a very straight taper is maximizing the amount of powder you can get in the case. The wildcat era of the late 1940’s through the 1960’s was all about high velocity, and only high velocity. It was very one dimensional thinking, ignoring other aspects of cartridge design that are very important. One of the things you trade off for a straight case is that the cartridge does not “steer” well during feeding. Anyone can test this, which shape feeds better into the end of the tube, a taper, or a straight cylinder? Alignment to bore is important for feeding with all cartridges, but the really straight ones are going to jam up more often when alignment gets slightly out of whack. Straight cartridges will drag on extraction because the case walls are relaxing off the chamber walls in a straight line, not a diagonal. It turns out portions of the 223 case are still sticking to the chamber walls during extraction and a major reason for extractor lift. Understanding Extractor Lift in the M16 Family of Weapons www.dtic.mil/ndia/2003/smallarms/din.ppt This is very undesirable as jams will get you killed in combat. Lots of good American Boys died in Vietnam with jammed M16’s in their hands. Ideally, the case will be fully relaxed off the chamber walls during unlock and there will not be any resistance between case and chamber during the residual blowback period. If you look at good case design, the Russian 7.62 X 39 and the recent Chinese service cartridge, both have more case taper than the 5.56 Nato and both were designed with steel as a case material. Both have nice thick rims, which is also important for machine gun rounds.

Hutton did not spend time and money examining issues such as pressure curve, contraction or relaxation. Rifles and cartridges that did not go through an appropriate development will have issues with case materials. The AR15 and the 5.56 are an excellent example of what happens because of a shoe string development budget. You can read all the issues they created here:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/index.html

Report of the M16 Review Panel Appendix 4 Appendix 4 Ammunition Development Program.
Report of the M16 Rifle Review Panel Volume 7 Appendix 6 review and analysis of M16 System Reliability.
Report of the M16 Review Panel Appendix 5 Procurement
Report of the M16 Review Panel Appendix 7 Vietnam Surveys
Report of the M16 Panel appendix 10 the small arms program
Report of the M16 Review Panel Summary Report.

So what you read, in lots of posts on forums, is shooters having issues with steel cases in their AR15’s. That is all due to the cartridge being a wildcat and the developers did not examine steel as a case material, nor did they analyze case parameters for reliable function.


The Chinese 5.8mm’s generates a 41,500 psi (284 MPa) chamber pressure. Which is much lower than the 5.56mm M855/SS109’s 55,000 psi (380 MPa). I will bet they sweated the details. The Russians took into account the material characteristics of steel as a case material, examining the expansion and contraction, along with the production technology, aiding the excellent function design of SKS's and AK47's. The 7.62 X39 is well known for outstanding reliability in feed and extraction. The 5.56 was created without spending any time or effort on alternatives, alternate materials, anything. As such, given the fact the case shape is not optimum for brass, it most certainly is not optimal for steel.

 

[someguy2800]

It turns out the 223 is fairly straight tapered.

This is not true. I was curious so I looked at the dimensions of the 223, as well as the 30-06 and 308 and figured out the approximate body angle. The 223 has the most body taper of the three. A 30-06 has less taper than a 223 and the 308 is straightest of all of them.

I do share your sentiments of what could be better about an ar15. Thankfully someone seams to have figured out how to make them work reliably. All the guys on here with recent military experience never seem to have anything bad to say about them.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

I thought we were talking about cleaning ARs?

 

[entropy]

We were, but Slamfire's tangents are well worth the side trip.

 

[Walkalong]

You do have more lube on you than some of the students that come to class have on their weapons.

Loved that line from the video.

 

[444]

I thought we were talking about cleaning ARs?

Yeah, it isn't like you didn't see it coming. It like drawing moths to a flame.

As I said earlier:

"The M16 platform rifle has been in service with the US and foreign militaries all over the world, in every corner of the globe, in combat, under the harshest of conditons for close to 50 years. It has more than proven itself. Never the less, a lot of bandwidth is consumed every day from people on gun forums discussing it's shortcomings."