Ammo reliability criteria for home defense AR

[BehindBlueI's]

This idea is odd to me. My defensive weapons are always dirty. I get more nervous about something that's been stripped, cleaned, and put back together (perhaps incorrectly) than I do a hundred rounds worth of ammo "dirt."

Ok. Well, we differ here. I have a lot of experience with my handguns that suggests starting off clean is no detriment to proper function. I have also run them to fairly high round counts without cleaning to verify they work dirty. Understanding firearms aren’t cars, the idea that they’d not function when clean and properly reassembled is foreign to me and thus far not borne out in my experience, any more than it has been in race cars. I understand others draw different conclusions.

See the difference I highlighted there? Differences in assumption, that you can make a mistake vs you can't.

That said, most (all?) firearms allow a function check. I'm welcome to correction, but if a firearm passes a function check it's equally vetted as firing a live round.

Because of that, I don't think this argument amounts to a hair in a bear's ass. Clean it and function check it or leave it "slightly used", either way. I'm not in the Army any more, I don't have to clean everything every time it's fired. Anything magazine fed, I clean every 500 rounds or at the end of the day, whichever comes last. If I clean it, I function check it. No real reason for 500 other than it feels about right to me.

[Medusa]

Are you asking me if I see the difference ? Obviously I do. I put my shit back together correctly and function test it to be sure, as you note. Same way I work on a car, check my work, and if need be trust my life to it immediately. Maybe we are already in agreement; I just feel it’s silly to think a firearm is only proven reliable after it’s been fired. Mechanical systems are not magical and I’d say it’s as least as likely that round x plus one is the failure point as that round x and a cleaning and verified reassembly or whatever is. This is why we replace things preventively. And there are potentially legal reasons to have a defense weapon clean and unfired.

everyone may do as she sees fit, of course. I typically clean my match gun about every 500 rounds or once a week.

[MistWolf]

...I put my shit back together correctly and function test it to be sure...

Exactly. An AR field stripped for cleaning isn't difficult to reassemble correctly.

[spence]

The same point that drive defensive pistol rounds. Ball/FMJ sucks, including M193 compared to better options on the market. What makes it seem like it'll do the job to you?

Inherently I had missed the links below floating through the ammo forum, probably because I've spent so much more time focused on handgun shooting and performance over rifle. The majority of my prior experiences with a rifle revolve around military, so you don't get much choice in ammo. I may be thinking wrong because I've overloaded on info over the months, but I thought I had seen significant evidence that M193 or other fairly generic 55 gr ball was reasonably sufficient, at least in lieu of having nothing more than a pointy stick.

Apparently that theory needs some reanalysis. Ya learn something new every day.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....mance-Thoughts

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....-mm-Duty-Loads

[BigT]

This idea is odd to me. My defensive weapons are always dirty. I get more nervous about something that's been stripped, cleaned, and put back together (perhaps incorrectly) than I do a hundred rounds worth of ammo "dirt."

I won't carry or shoot a match with a clean gun.

It's never actually been a problem , but I still want to know it worked.

[rob_s]

Exactly. An AR field stripped for cleaning isn't difficult to reassemble correctly.

difficult isn't the question. This isn't some kind of dumbass internut AR IQ test for christ's sake.

Shit happens. A pin goes in wrong, or not at all, whatever.

Since the analogy was made to racing, I bet this motherfucker thought his nuts were tight too.

[ASH556]

From experience with a customer's gun:

An AR15 with an obstructed gas key still passes a "function check." I put "function check" in quotations because you cannot truly check the function of a semi-automatic firearm without firing it.

Now, you shouldn't stick q-tips down your gas key in an attempt to clean it, so yeah, he messed up. But like Rob says, things happen.

[Medusa]

Sure, things happen. But I’ve gone out and raced on stuff done in the pits. Including brake replacements and wheel changes. I have seen people have problems after work done, sure. I’ve also seen shit just break.

Humans make mistakes. Parts fail. Nothing is perfect. But the notion that maybe my properly cleaning and reassembling the weapon will cause it to stop functioning or might break it strikes me as something like magical thinking. The “but maybe I didn’t assemble it correctly” notion, on a field strip, strikes me as kind of whimsical, let’s say.

[WobblyPossum]

I follow the BBI school of thought and am satisfied with a function check after routine cleaning. While I understand the other point of view, the written policy of my agency is that weapons are to be cleaned as soon as practical after use. I also recall one of our forum members, possibly one of the LSPs, posting that he was present at a questionable shooting during which he did not fire his weapon but other officers from another agency did. The other agency tried to jam him up, claiming he had fired as well, but an inspection of his clean weapon supported his statements that he never fired.

[MistWolf]

difficult isn't the question. This isn't some kind of dumbass internut AR IQ test for christ's sake.

Shit happens. A pin goes in wrong, or not at all, whatever.

They trained jarheads to reliably field strip, reassemble and function check M1 Garands blindfolded and we can't reassemble a field stripped AR in the comfort of our home?!? If we can train to put rounds on target, swap mags efficiently, clear malfunctions while on the clock, we can train to properly reassemble a field stripped AR.

Maybe it should be an AR IQ test for dumbasses on the internut.