Things to check on ARs question

[shadow93]

I'm asking this per my father. He is a LEO and just became his departments new armorer after one retired and the other is in the process of being fired. He is currently going through the departments ARs and Glocks to check over everything. The previous armorer was a ammo nut and rarely budgeted for parts. (Department has 12000 rounds locked up plus whats in the cars, and are behind a year on receiving stuff already paid for).
Now that you know the background what are the things he needs to check over to make sure everything is good to go? All magazines have the green followers which isn't a necessity to change but other things should be looked over for sure.

Thank you all for any responses :smile:

[GunnutAF]

Probably ask to get sent to the Armor courses for the weapons used. :D Unless he's got years of gun maintenance behind him then he needs to be trained.

[Dave-HuldraArms]

Maybe he has already, but the first thing he should do is attend some quality armorer training. Speaking as a dept armorer, no one should be doing any repairs, part replacements, inspections etc unless they have some training. Even then I have had to fix several "repairs" from "certified armorers." Once he has the training most of the schools I have been to go over what should be inspected, how to inspect parts for wear, replacement etc. After school his department should have in place policy or directives on the inspection process, frequency and duties of an armorer and he should also be documented what he does, when he does it and how often for every firearm in the inventory. At the classes they will answer a lot of his questions. Also since he is new I would recomend he network with other neighboring agency armorers and see how they do things, he doesn't have to re-invent the wheel. Armorers are often very willing to share knowledge and processes, forms etc. Also its a great thing to network for small parts help here and there.

Dave

[NoveskeFan]

Not trying to be mean or come of as an ass, there is a lot of stuff to check that cant be fully learned reading from the internet. Liability being how it is, your fathers department should have sent him to Armorers School before they let him do the job...or he should demand the training before starting any official work on department firearms.

[shadow93]

He has two armorer schools in the next few weeks that he is going to. He knows the basics though. Right now he isn't really doing anything major on them just a few rough checks on them. The department is way behind. They have NO excess parts for either the glocks or the ARs. He had glock armorer school two weeks ago. I know that not everything I read on the internet is going to be true. Just asking your guy's opinion on what you check over.

[Iraqgunz]

No offense to your dad, but unless he knows what he is doing (and it sounds like he doesn't) he needs to insist that the command send him to those schools. There is a reason why they have them and it isn't just to generate more income.

In addition to getting some training he needs to learn what parts have a tendency to break or wear out more than others. Most of that has been covered here before.

I also encourage him to use Microsoft Excel and set up a spreadsheet of all the department weapons (broke down, by make, model, type and the serial number).

You then make columns and notations for things like last maintenance period, what was performed, parts, replaced, etc...

As for spare parts, he will probably have an uphill battle because without having an extensive knowledge of the weapons it will be hard to convince the department that they need xxx yyy and zzz especially since the other guy apparently didn't have them. I would also recommend that he look for a Department SOP as it pertains to weapons (policies about POW's, ammo purchasing, expenditure, etc....) so that he has his bases covered.

[Joeywhat]

There are plenty of great AR armorers schools out there. I would have him take more then one.

Random info gained from random internet sources will never be as good as information gained in a classroom from a good instructor who knows his shit. The in person instruction and ancillary materials alone are worth the time and money. I still haven't gone through all the documentation I got from the Dean Caputo course over a year ago.

[abanks8245]

Ken Elmore is a very good instructor and knows his stuff in reference to the Ar family of rifles. He is a no bs guy and will tell you and show you what works and what doesn't. I had a chance to take his basic and advanced M4 armorers course last nov, and it truly opened my eyes to how important the benchmark on how a M4/AR15 should be assembled that being the TDP (technical data package). That being paramount on weapons being used in real world environments such as LE/military, where weapon failure are not an option. Continue to use this forum there is a wealth of knowledge and some true subject matter experts who can help as well, I have learned a lot from M4carbine myself and continue learning. Best of luck