View Full Version : Abuse limits for an AR
So Ive been thinking about how hard you can really run an AR15. I don't mean dirty, I mean abuse. Like drops, dings, dents, wear, maybe even cracks.
Ive seen the DD torture test and Ive been thinking about it a lot since then. Ive seen some seriously poor condition, poorly treated issued rifles that some seemed to work just fine and some didn't.
What kind of damage would you consider not only fatal to the system but something that would convince you not to shoot it again until a thorough inspection?
That DD rifle was dropped multiple times, run over, shot(weak bird shot) and blown up. And still worked. If I recall correctly there was a slight bend in the barrel that caused it to be inaccurate right?
I remember being In Infantry school and face-planting reaaaally hard jumping a ditch during a movement drill. My rifle went FSB deep into some hard rocky clay. After quick cleaning my zero was pretty off. I assume it was due to the impact on my barrel.
Im wondering if anyone else has seen something similar. Maybe not accuracy but violent damage effecting the function or integrity? Im aware of parts that need incremental replacement and that's not really what im asking.
What kind of system would be your more durable set up? I was thinking an MRP and an A2 stock maybe? Which leads me to...
How strong is an MRP set up compared to your standard set up?
I know the rail wont easily be misaligned but what if the barrel takes a nice hit? I'm considering an LMT specifically. What if I were to Bang that barrel real hard on something. Would it be more at risk to being affected as opposed to your basic free float or out of the box 6920?
Also where are the weakest points on the rifle? Ive seen a few stock and grips break as well and free floated rails take some damage to the lockup system. I'm sure someones done worse.
If anyone's got any pics that would be pretty cool.
Thanks
deadlyfire
02-27-12, 10:02
Our Colt M4s ran through all the rough stuff just fine during my tenure in the infantry.
The only time I've seen M4s go down outside the wire was from hostile fire.
Our Colt M4s ran through all the rough stuff just fine during my tenure in the infantry.
The only time I've seen M4s go down outside the wire was from hostile fire.
What kind of damage?
BTW Just emailed you back like 5 min ago :p
Jsop,
I have seen several Colt M4s get the snot blown out of them in IED explosions while I was in Iraq. I thought for sure they weren't going to be put back in service. A few weeks later they came back. Both upper and lower receivers were fine on a couple of them. Barrels had to be replaced along with anything that was plastic. There were rifles were completely worthless and had to be replaced all together. Acogs held up to an extent as well as the Aimpoints. I saw my fare share of them destroyed too.
deadlyfire
02-27-12, 10:23
My experience differs greatly from Huldra.
The blast and fragmentation damage, most were destroyed.
Some were hit by direct fire weapons, I can't recall whether they were able to rebuild them.
In 2005-06 I repaired a number or weapons in Anbar province that had been damaged in IED attacks against vehicles.
Some had bent barrels, some had burned furniture, bent gas tubes, and damaged uppers.
In most cases the lower was fine and we simply rebuilt everything after it was stripped and cleaned.
In my experience the only m4s I have seen dammed beyond repair we're either smashed in an mrap door and burnt in from 800ft in airborne operations. I've even seen one of those take the drop and be rebuilt. The ones that did break seemed to fracture at the rear and front takedown lugs fwiw. The one in the door held up pretty good but was pinched so they had to scrap the receivers.
On another note 240s &249s pretty much completely unravel themselves when dropped from the sky by some floating paratroopers.
I should have mentioned the majority of the ones Ive seen were in vehicle when they hit an IED.
Ghost 1. I know what you mean about stuff burning in. When I was out there I saw humvees, deuce and halves and arty pieces burn in. The duece was about 5 feet high when it was finally recovered.
The only thing that would convince me to stop shooting would be if there was action/chamber or barrel damage. Other than that I don't see much that could cause any harm to ones self.
Here's (http://militarytimes.com/blogs/gearscout/2012/02/01/buttstock-bashfest-gearscout-finds-out-just-how-far-tough-talk-goes/)some torture testing that Military Times did on assorted buttstocks, it's a good read.
I should have mentioned the majority of the ones Ive seen were in vehicle when they hit an IED.
Ghost 1. I know what you mean about stuff burning in. When I was out there I saw humvees, deuce and halves and arty pieces burn in. The duece was about 5 feet high when it was finally recovered.
They make incredible noise too. I've only witnessed two humvees and a howitzer burn in but it was pretty wild.
So the weak points just seem to be the plastic obviously and the barrels. Gas tunes are a given although personally ive never seen one damaged underneath rails just under broken hand guards.
I wont be worrying to much about getting blown up carrying a civilian rifle, Has anyone seen any kind of damage caused from hard use?
I'm particularly interested in how secure the barrel is on a LMT MRP if anyone has any firsthand experiences with any failures or links to some info on something along those lines.
deadlyfire
02-27-12, 14:54
So the weak points just seem to be the plastic obviously and the barrels. Gas tunes are a given although personally ive never seen one damaged underneath rails just under broken hand guards.
I wont be worrying to much about getting blown up carrying a civilian rifle, Has anyone seen any kind of damage caused from hard use?
I'm particularly interested in how secure the barrel is on a LMT MRP if anyone has any firsthand experiences with any failures or links to some info on something along those lines.
Email sent in regards to this topic.
sinlessorrow
02-27-12, 16:54
So the weak points just seem to be the plastic obviously and the barrels. Gas tunes are a given although personally ive never seen one damaged underneath rails just under broken hand guards.
I wont be worrying to much about getting blown up carrying a civilian rifle, Has anyone seen any kind of damage caused from hard use?
I'm particularly interested in how secure the barrel is on a LMT MRP if anyone has any firsthand experiences with any failures or links to some info on something along those lines.
i wonder if the barrel used in a M4A1 with the SOPMOD Block II would be safer since the rail system almost covers the barrel
steelonsteel
02-27-12, 17:37
there are lots of videos of guys driving over rifle with heavy vehicles and such, as well as tossing them out moving vehicles. One was a member here I think.
M4's are FAR more reliable and sturdy than they are often given credit for.
Just to test a theory - I'm thinking I might just build a junk AR and beat the snot out of it, shoot the crap out of it, and never clean it - just to see how long it takes for something to go wrong. I think the results might be surprising. And from there - an actual quality unit would only mean that the results should be better!
I know SEVERAL BCM users who have carbines over 3K without a single cleaning yet.
It is plenty sturdy enbough of a system.
bsmith_shoot
02-27-12, 18:20
there are lots of videos of guys driving over rifle with heavy vehicles and such, as well as tossing them out moving vehicles. One was a member here I think.
M4's are FAR more reliable and sturdy than they are often given credit for.
Just to test a theory - I'm thinking I might just build a junk AR and beat the snot out of it, shoot the crap out of it, and never clean it - just to see how long it takes for something to go wrong. I think the results might be surprising. And from there - an actual quality unit would only mean that the results should be better!
I know SEVERAL BCM users who have carbines over 3K without a single cleaning yet.
It is plenty sturdy enbough of a system.
I most always go more than 2k rounds before cleaning, and I never clean before 1k. Ive never went 10k rounds, but im sure ive went 5k. The system is tried and true, with almost 50 years of service, so it will take the abuse without issue.
Brandon
Cleaning is Not what im inquiring about.
There are a lot of opinions on that and does not speak for the structural strengths and weaknesses only for the engineering of its tolerances.
What kind of abuse are you asking about? Running it hard, maybe banging it on the ground in a carbine class or shooting around? Or trying to break it?
The only abuse I would really be concerned with my personal weapons is extremely hot ammo, which you can't know about until you shoot it. If I had a kaboom, regardless of how it looked I would not shoot it at least until I could gauge it completely.
It's possible you jacked up the muzzle threads of your M4 on the rocks, and that's what threw off your zero.
Im talking about accidental abuse and excessive wear. Similar to the DD torture test, things like that happen. Im wondering if certain parts parts are substantially more resistant to failure and wear. And specifically what would one look for as subtle signs that there is some damage?
For example: your rifle falls out of the back of a truck and get struck by another. I "looks" fine but it may not be... what would be a place to look that would be effected the most, Obviously the plastics might be fked but what about your receiver extension or something like that.
I know a rail can get bent out of shape, changing the zero on your rail mounted sights.
Seems maybe not to many people have really broken their rifles except for an IED.
Odd.
I would have thought that the weak point would be the grip getting pulled out/broken off of the lower. One smallish screw in aluminum with a lot of leverage. Second would be the receiver extension getting tweaked or broken at the threads.
Thinking along the lines of the OP with falling and diving at the ground for cover, and the occasional use of the butstock as a bat.
CumbiaDude
02-28-12, 16:33
The pistol grip is actually pretty protected. Most folding-stock AKs have a reinforcement plate under the pistol grip, but the fixed-stock versions don't. The reason is because if you drop a rifle, it'll hit the magazine or the buttstock without touching the pistol grip.
I don't have an AR to try it on, but I imagine it's pretty similar :) Have to get a wonky angle to get a hard hit directly on the pistol grip.
Generalpie
02-28-12, 20:26
In conus le work you would never kill a rifle with the possible exeption of a serious vehicle accident. Mine gets banged around loose on the passenger seat for years and except for knocking the glass out of a few doors/windows it hasn't taken much in abuse.
Short answer, unless I am in full .mil combat it will take way more than I can give it.
There isn't really much legitimate or objective data out there about that. Only speculation it seems. Such information is probably classified.
There isn't really much legitimate or objective data out there about that. Only speculation it seems. Such information is probably classified.
I dont know about classified. I cant see why it would be. There may just not be scientific data accumulated on it.
Jsop,
I should have mentioned that 2 other guys and I have put over 4300 rounds through a 5.45 piston operated gun over the course of about 2 months. The gun was wiped down on the internals and never lubed. Ammo was the russian surplus stuff that comes in the spam cans. I think it hiccuped somewhere just after the 4300 mark. It was never cleaned and it sat as is between each trip to the range. We have a video of it on youtube. If you type in Huldra Arms you'll find it. Off the top of my head I haven't seen anyone do that without lubing the gun first. Not saying no one else has done it just haven't seen it. Somebody commented on another thread that it was stupid not to lube the gun. We were just doing it as an endurance test. Woud we do that to our personal guns? No not at all.
I guess you can say it was somewhat of a torture test as far as internals go. The gun is still shooting pretty good. Its not real accurate for an AR but I atribute that to the type of ammo as I have shot 5.56 WPA and my groups ranged from 3 inches(5 shots) and another group was 5 inches. Both were shot from 100 yds.
One of my NCOs hit an IED and it bent his barrel and bolt, the bolt! He was fine BTW.
I found some pictures of an M4 that was destroyed in an IED attack on my company while deployed just outside of Fallujah. This was one of my buddies rifle. His vehicle hit an IED. No one was killed thankfully.
I believe this one was completely destroyed. In one of the pics you can see that the rear takedown pin was busted. Barrel is bent all to hell. I don't remember if the Aimpoint still worked or not. I want to say that it still had power.
This will give you an idea of what happens to them. Others that were blown up actually came back and put into service again.
I was our unit armorer. I had a M2 .50 cal that was completely blown off a humvee and thrown about 30 yds and it was still functional. That is one helluva gun!
Hope these pics answer some questions.
Here is one more of the lower. I could only upload 5 at a time.
sinlessorrow
03-03-12, 10:44
Here is one more of the lower. I could only upload 5 at a time.
lower still looks functional to me:D
deadlyfire
03-03-12, 10:47
This is why I rolled my eyes when Daniel defense "blew up" their DDM4
Beat Trash
03-03-12, 13:58
One of my NCOs hit an IED and it bent his barrel and bolt, the bolt! He was fine BTW.
I'd have to keep that bolt as a souvenir.
Wow...that plastic muzzle cap came through completely unscathed!
CumbiaDude
03-03-12, 14:41
lower still looks functional to me:DJust what I was thinking. Covered in dirt/corrosion/meltedness? but I don't see anything immediately jumping out saying "this will never work again". Is there anything like that I missed?
Im just going off memory but I think the guns that came back most of the lower receivers were salvageable. It was the uppers and everything else that was bad. I think out of the dozen or more rifles that were busted up I think we completely replaced around 3 or 4. If you look at the lower you will see the portion of the upper receiver, where the rear take down pin fits, is still "pinned" in even though it broke completely off the upper. I'll go through some more pics and see what I have.
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