Cleaning AR lower receiver methods

[Forrest84]

i know the rifle cleaning methods have been discussed at length here but I havnt really seen any y’all on what some of y’all do for cleaning out your lowers receivers. I’ve been using carb cleaner and just blasting the gunk out and re lubricating what is necessary. But I’ve been rethinking it a bit more lately and wanted to see what some of y’all have been doing.

 

[smokin.338]

air compressor, q-tip, and relube...

 

[jmill05]

I’ll take a fine nylon brush or kid tooth brush to get into any spot I can reach and loosen stuff up. Then compressed air. M-Pro7 works great for me. For my AR’s with drop in triggers, I’ll also pop them out about every 1k rounds just to do a more thorough cleaning.

 

[longshot2000]

non-clorinated brake cleaner, then lube. Or, any of the above.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Hoppe's spray gun medic cleaner. I also us it for the receiver groups on my semi handguns.

It duplicates something we used when was working for IBM in the 1960's, maintaining hundreds of customers' electric typewriters. We would mix our generic cleaning solvent (Trichloroethane) with a very lightweight non-gumming oil, flush it through the tightly packed complexities of machines with hundreds of moving parts, and when the trichloroethane flashed off, we had a perfect light coating of preservative/lubricating oil.

Greg

 

[bigjake83]

i know the rifle cleaning methods have been discussed at length here but I havnt really seen any y’all on what some of y’all do for cleaning out your lowers receivers. I’ve been using carb cleaner and just blasting the gunk out and re lubricating what is necessary. But I’ve been rethinking it a bit more lately and wanted to see what some of y’all have been doing.

OP your method is just fine, I do the same Carb Cleaner, q-tips, and dental pick, and blow out any remaining cleaner with the AIr Compressor. Otis makes a nice spray on Drylube and put a Touch of Grease on the contact areas of your trigger and Sear.

If I spend time in a nasty dusty area I'll pull the trigger, hammer springs, and Sear out. You don't need to remove your grip even if the trigger won't drop out due to the safety because you have enough play to get in and around everything with q-tips.

 

[Forrest84]

Thanks for the input guys, I mainly ask the question for my KAC LPR since I run a geissele national match trigger and it’s pretty much run suppressed 99% of the time and I’ve been running it more consistently now than ever so it gets a lot dirtier than any of my other Gas gun lowers with drop in trigger sets

 

[sandwarrior]

i know the rifle cleaning methods have been discussed at length here but I havnt really seen any y’all on what some of y’all do for cleaning out your lowers receivers. I’ve been using carb cleaner and just blasting the gunk out and re lubricating what is necessary. But I’ve been rethinking it a bit more lately and wanted to see what some of y’all have been doing.

Good process, but I would use something less harsh than carb cleaner it will lift the finish off. Electrical connector cleaner works without killing the finish.

The spray does a good job of blowing the crap out. Do this on your upper too, if you want.

 

[TonyTheTiger]

Cleaning? You guys mean dumping more oil in right?

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Yep, pretty much. Light oil might be a better choice, but..., whatever...

Stoner got it right. High school dropouts for operators and first echelon maintenance. High school grads (maybe) for the next two echelons.

The system is exceeding 50 years of longevity.

Yep, he got it right.

We dunked our M-14's in tubs of 30 weight in 'Nam, and let them drain for 5 minutes. Worked.

Greg

 

[M2CattleCo]

Bill Geissele told me to just keep lubing the upper. Said it would drip down into the lower and lube the trigger group. It'll sling off what it doesn't want, just keep lubing it.

 

[sandwarrior]

Old habits die hard when running AR's. I still clean the living shit out of them.... Like I said it's a habit.

 

[bonifacio]

I wipe it with a rag.

 

[502Chevelle]

I wish y'all would get off the brake cleaner diet. That stuff gets into the pores of the metal, then leaches back out once you put the lube in. Then it dissolves off your new lube. You don't see it happen, because you know you just lubed it up, but if you are running that gun hard, there may be some galling going on. My old 1911 smith, who was an incredible machinist and smith, actually got mad at me and let me have it for putting brake cleaner on a gun that he had built. Once he explained it, it made a lot of sense.

 

[sandwarrior]

I wish y'all would get off the brake cleaner diet. That stuff gets into the pores of the metal, then leaches back out once you put the lube in. Then it dissolves off your new lube. You don't see it happen, because you know you just lubed it up, but if you are running that gun hard, there may be some galling going on. My old 1911 smith, who was an incredible machinist and smith, actually got mad at me and let me have it for putting brake cleaner on a gun that he had built. Once he explained it, it made a lot of sense.

good point, I never thought about it killing the lube layer after you get done cleaning. I suggested no carb (or brake cleaner either) because I've seen patches of silver where parkerization and Duracoat used to be. Contact cleaner flashes off. As smokin.388 said, compressed air. It wont take off what harsh chemicals will

 

[bigjake83]

I wish y'all would get off the brake cleaner diet. That stuff gets into the pores of the metal, then leaches back out once you put the lube in. Then it dissolves off your new lube. You don't see it happen, because you know you just lubed it up, but if you are running that gun hard, there may be some galling going on. My old 1911 smith, who was an incredible machinist and smith, actually got mad at me and let me have it for putting brake cleaner on a gun that he had built. Once he explained it, it made a lot of sense.

No nobody said anything about brake cleaner until you jumped in. Brake cleaner and carburetor cleaner are completely two different animals. I've been using carburetor cleaner for over 15 years to spray out miscellaneous parts or flush out the barrel/chamber JP, Randy at R&D Precision and many others actually recommend it.

BRAKE Cleaner however will fuck up your shit and remove different types of finishes and melt plastic/Rubber.

 

[502Chevelle]

Post #4. Come on man, if you are going to bust me, get it right.

 

[GhostFace]

one of my rifles is an fde ar-10 that I shoot suppressed and it gets really dirty. I used to think that break cleaner did a really good job but that is until I tried Ed's Red. Ed's Red got it looking like brand new. I wished that I would tried it years ago...

 

[BurnOut]

When I use spray solvent, I use electronics parts/contact cleaner. When I want degreaser on a patch/rag, I use white gas/Coleman fuel.

 

[Forrest84]

Shit I forgot about electrical contact cleaner. Might try it along with some of the other suggestions. Running my KAC LPR as a dedicated suppressed rig the lower gets dirty as shit without a lot of use now. I’ll prolly try out the stuff Greg mentioned to. I only spray break cleaner on stuff I’m not worried about that shits harsh.

 

[Shoots 700's]

i wipe it down with a clean rag and call it a day. Very little lube if needed. Uppers get all kinds of lube!