Yes, Grok has a spelling problem . . .
Takedown pin punch.
Retaining pin punch.
Front sight adjustment tool.
Rear sight rotator.
Firing pin retention pin remover.
And, bolt extractor pin starter.
Chapter 6
Intermission
In which Emily gets into Kat Naps.
And ponders the fate of Western Civilization.
Chapter 5
Yep, I understand. But did you see there’s now a German “Maria”? I wonder if you’re also related…
Back to cleaning. Before we get to the BCG, let’s do a little work on the lower. It doesn’t get as dirty as the upper, but still needs attention. Wipe everything down, including the inside of the mag well.
Put a drop of oil (Mobil 1 works fine) on springs and rotating devices like the safety and the mag release, and operate them a few times for smoothness, then wipe away any excess.
The hammer face may be dirty and needs a wipe.
Operate the hammer and trigger, BUT make sure to ease the hammer down with your thumb. You don’t want it flying forward.
That’s the buffer tube. It has a long recoil spring behind it. To remove them you would press down on the little pin in front, and rotate the tube to a flat edge, then pull them out. It doesn’t need a lot of attention, but should occasionally be checked for cleanliness and wiped down lightly with lube.
Give the Lower a wipe down and set it aside.
THE BOLT CARRIER GROUP:
The BCG is the heart of the AR. Practice disassembly and assembly!
That’s the firing pin retention pin.
Remove it and slide the firing pin out.
This is the cam pin. In this position the firing pin goes through a hole in it. It moves in that channel as the bolt cycles forward and back.
It must be rotated 90 degrees to be removed.
And now you can remove the bolt.
Congratulations! Now the cleaning begins.
Clean the bolt face – you may need a toothbrush or wire brush to get all the spots.
Take the clean end of your pipe cleaner (oh, yeah. They make special ones about a foot long for ARs) and wet it with solvent.
And clean out the firing pin channel. Blow it clean with a compressed air can after.
Imagine that – more schmutz!
Clean your small parts with solvent. Note the friction wear on the cam pin. Any place you see shiny metal on the gun is a place that will require lubrication when reassembled.
Clean the inside and outside of the carrier. Oh, look, more shiny surfaces!
Now, the gas key.
Get in all the interior nooks and crannies.
Don’t forget the charging handle. The groove gets filthy.
When completely clean, you are ready to REASSEMBLE!
Now, this is my personal choice to use a film of grease for bolt lube. I don’t use it on firearms that will be sitting around a long time – it will cake up. Those guns get CLP or Rem Oil. But I do like it for a regularly used gun.
When lubing the bolt, take time to rotate the three gas rings so that none of them line up.
Remember the wear marks?
The bolt can go in with either end of the cam pin hole up, BUT the cam pin will only go in one of them! (Yes, I do recall an incident with an AR 10 where that was not the case . . .).
Insert and rotate 90 degrees.
Pull bolt forward to check operation. There should be some resistance if the gas rings are operating properly.
Slide firing pin back and retain it. When assembled, shake the BCG up and down. The firing pin should stay in, but move back and forth slightly.
Now, retrieve the upper and lower that you so carefully set aside and start with the pivot pin.
The end of the charging handle goes in and then up and into its channel partway. The gas key on the bolt then fits into the bottom of the charging handle, and the entire unit goes forward all the way.
You can now swing the lower up into position. Make sure the bolt is all the way forward for clearance.
Slide the takedown pin in to place.
Function test by locking the bolt back, releasing it, check that the safety works, then squeeze the trigger. Wipe all the surfaces down and head to the range, where you can dirty it up again!
Chapter 4
The Four Rules still apply! Remove the magazine and make your weapons safe. No mags or ammo on the work bench!
First, this Mr. Red’s approach to cleaning; YMMV.
Second, ARs are dirty – you’re going to see a lot of black carbon deposits. This is because ARs are “direct impingement” meaning that some of the hot gas that propels the bullet forward is tapped to push back directly on the bolt carrier group (“BCG”). The BCG races backward, ejecting the spent shell casing and cocking the hammer/trigger, then is stopped by compressing the recoil buffer spring, returns forward, stripping a new round off the magazine and delivering it into the chamber, with the bolt lugs rotating to lock the bolt in place in full battery. The hot gas that did this impinges directly on all of those mechanisms, and is full of burnt gunpowder residue. A good cleaning tries to remove all of this gunk. You will use a lot of CLP (or other solvent/cleaner), patches, Q-tips, paper towel, rags and brushes. Rubber gloves are a good idea (although not used in these pix).
Locate the takedown pin and the pivot pin. Push through from left to right in sequence. Don’t worry about losing them; they are captured on the right side.
Remove charging handle and BCG.
Black carbon and residue on the gas tube and in the chamber.
Get your patches out. Soak with CLP and apply to the chamber and inside the length of the barrel. Let it sit a bit before soaking your brass bristle brush and scrubbing, followed by another wet patch, then dry patches till clean. I think this barrel required a dozen patches. At least.
Ok, that looks clean, so I’ll run one more wet patch to leave a coat of protectant (CLP = Cleaner Lubricant Protectant, right?)
Now, to the rest of the upper. Be liberal with the CLP; we’ll be wiping everything down at the end.
*Yes, Grok hallucinated that spelling of culprit and gave me attitude when it was pointed out.
Catheterizing the DISS.
Get out your paper towels or clean rags and clean out every surface in the upper.
You’ll be amazed at how filthy it is. That was a clean paper towel above.
See the schmutz on the Q-tip after cleaning the feed ramps?
Wipe it all down.
And set it aside.
Chapter 3
Here are the deets on adjusting your sights for the 25/300 meter zeroing for M 4 and M 16 style ARs.
Shamelessly ripped from the internet.
To achieve a 25/300 meter zero for your AR-15, follow these detailed instructions.
Hang the target so that the center cross is at the shooter’s eye level. For best results, shoot from a benchrest.
Set the rear sight to the appropriate position for your rifle model. For M4-style sights, turn the rear sight to the “8/3” position. For M16A2 and M16A3 sights,
turn up one click past “8/3”. For M16A4 sights, turn up two clicks past the “6/3” setting to the “Z” mark.
Hang the target at 25 meters. Fire precise, three-shot groups at the center dot and adjust your sights according to the targets above. This gives you a battle-zeroed rifle out to 300 meters
And this hack will amaze you! Simply aim at the belt buckle of any ‘target’ out to 300 meters. The round will impact there at 25 and 300. In between it will rise up the torso. At 400, aim at the head and gravity will get you a center of mass hit.
TWEEEET! Flag on the play!
Safety violation, 10 pushups and loss of a round.
Much better, Mr. Red! Is there anything you’d like to add?
Clip.
Magazine.
Clip.
Magazine.
That is all. For now.
Chapter 2
When last we visited Emily, she had shown us how to load and make safe her AR 15. Now, she is ready to shoot.
But how do you aim? How do you hit what you are aiming at?
Great questions! First, you aim using sights, that sounds simple. But nooo. There are as many sights as there are AR variants. So, let’s start with the basics – “iron sights”. That really means “not optical” sights. They are mechanical and are made of steel, aluminum or plastic. They can look like this, front and rear:
And you look through them like this:
Simple, right?
Here, you can see Emily aiming off to the right of the target with the early “carrying handle” and fixed front sight of the original M16 and AR 15.
Precisely because they are simple. No batteries, no fragile optics, and they are hard to damage. They are good out to several hundred yards (depending on your eyes). If you are looking at an AR 15 for general self defense, you can sight in iron sights so that they are zeroed at 25 and 300 meters, and the bullet will only rise a few inches in between. That means you can aim at the center of mass of any target within that range and you will ballistically be guaranteed of a hit.
That is why you will see most AR platforms with BUS – Back Up Sights – in addition to optics, red dots, thermals, etc. When all else fails, you can fall back to the simple solution.
These are the targets that the US military sets out at 25 meters (just over 27 yards). By shooting at these close up targets, you can make the required adjustments to the front and rear sights to zero the rifle to the center of the target.
Uncle Sam has made it extremely easy for Pvt. Snuffy to follow these directions. Once zeroed, it will hit the center of the target at both 25 and 300 meters. That’s because the bullet trajectory looks like this:
You can see that the first vertical line is at 25 meters where the bullet climbs through the line of sight, continues climbing and then descends through the line of sight at 300 meters.
After Action Report
Chapter 1
No one may touch a firearm until they know the Four Rules by heart, and can recite them back to you.
Next, what is a AR? It is Not an “Assault Rifle”! The AR comes from Armalite, the first maker of Eugene Stoner’s iconic design. It is a semiautomatic rifle, NOT a select fire (machine gun). It requires one trigger pull for each round fired. Select fire (such as on the military M 16 or M 4) will continue to fire so long as the trigger is held back and ammunition remains.
There are so many designs of the original that they are now known as “AR pattern” rifles. They function similarly and are quite modular and can be tricked out in many ways. There are somewhere between 20 and 30 million AR 15s in the USA; hence, it is sometimes known as America’s Modern Sporting Rifle.
It fires a quite small bullet, but very fast. There are many variations of rounds, but the original military round was 5.56 millimeters in diameter, weighing 55 grains and had a muzzle velocity around 3,000 feet per second. The civilian version is the .223 Remington – there are some differences we will get to later.
It is a magazine-fed rifle with a standard capacity of 30 rounds.
Today, we are going to cover loading by looking at the Charging Handle, the Bolt Release and the Magazine Release Button. Below, locate the Charging Handle at the rear of the receiver, the Bolt Release on the left side near the magazine well, and the Magazine Release Button on the right side magazine well.
Found them? Now (observing the Four Rules!), pick up your AR, right hand on the pistol grip, finger outside the trigger guard and left hand on the barrel handguards. Pull the stock butt against your hip. Does the rifle have a magazine in it? Remove it by taking your trigger finger and pressing the Magazine Release Button. Catch the magazine with your left hand and set aside. Left hand back into position.
Now, with the first two fingers of your right hand, pull all the way back on the Charging Handle. If there was a round in the chamber, it will have ejected off to the right.
Keeping the Charging Handle all the way to the rear, depress the bottom of the Bolt Release and slowly let the Charging Handle forward until the bolt is caught, then push the handle all the way forward. Rotate the rifle 90 degrees to the left and look in the chamber. It should be empty. You can now turn the safety lever to Safe from Fire.
Take a loaded magazine and energetically push it into the mag well; you should hear and feel a click. If not, rap the bottom of the mag with your left hand. Check that mag is secure by trying to pull down on it.
To load a round into the chamber, smack the Bolt Release with the heel of your left hand. The bolt should go energetically forward, stripping a round off the top of the magazine and ramming it into the chamber. You are now ready to start the shooting process.
And What the Actual Heck is Going on Around Here?
Awhile ago, some of us were responding to some “Ette” requests to learn more about shooting rifles. I’ve been pondering the best way to do this. Then, just this morning, I came across the “Pathway Amelia” meme phenomenon in Great Britain (just Gurgle it, you’ll see), and I thought, “That’s it!. Instruction and pushback at the same time!”
So here is my first attempt.
Before you think this is too creepy, Mr. Red is a 73 year-old man married more than 50 years! And Mrs. Red knows how to shoot!
And he knows things. And has things.
KatNap Fever! 