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.
KatNap Fever! 