What rifles will function best with no cleaning?

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SteelyDan

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Just curious if anyone has had experience with this. Which rifles will continue to function reliably the longest if you never clean them at all? Should probably be separate categories for semi-auto and bolt actions, but I'm not even positive about that. I'm assuming the strongest candidates are probably milsurp Com-bloc rifles, with maybe a vote or two for a .22, but I really don't know.
 
The AK-47 is pretty good; so is the M1 rifle and the M14 is not bad. The AR-10/15 family fails due to venting the gas through the bolt carrier; the AR-18 never made it to large scale testing, but looks like it would work well without cleaning. In .22 semi autos, the champeen is the old Remington Nylon 66, which goes on and on like that darn rabbit.

Bolt guns are better, since no gas and powder residue gets in the action. I would probably put the Mauser 98 at the top of the list, but am not sure any bolt action military rifle wouldn't do about as well.

Jim
 
SKS comes to mind, but, being gas operated, may suffer failure if the gas port gets clogged. I don't know how long that could take.
 
Among self-shucking .22's...

[looks around guiltily]

I've had 10/22's that went years between cleanings. :eek:
 
I agree with pauli. Any non semi automatic .22LR(bolt action most likely).
People put thousands of rounds through many of them without cleaning.
Some people never clean theirs.:uhoh:
 
Lever actions aren't bad either. I'm sure the ultimate in reliability is a single shot break open design.

ducktapehero, You beat me to that one. Well, I know I'm not alone on that thought. :D OTOH, my old .30-30 gets cleaned after most every range trip just so I know the moving parts are still lubed. The H&R HandiRifle though, that'll keep going a looong time. You just don't want the bore to rust out from fouling building up and trapping condensation.:scrutiny:
 
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