View Full Version : M16/M4 observations from Fort Leonard Wood
I guess some problems are hard to find a permanent solution to:
"We’ve had several weapons explode because a cleaning rod section was accidentally left in the barrel..."
https://www.psmagazine.army.mil/News/Article/2604621/m16s-m4s-advice-from-ft-leonard-wood/
just a scout
05-21-21, 16:45
.mil does NOT teach how to properly clean weapons. They only teach “arms room clean” and that leads to all kinds of ****ery, like this article. The stuff we used to do when I was a PVT makes me cringe now. All to pass the armorers inspection so you go home. Weapons with no finish, smooth barrels, etc but they were clean and lightly oiled. Putting a cleaning rod and brush in a drill chuck, using a parts cleaner in the maintainence bay, or the sand blaster (that was the best for cleaning a dirty M-240).
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.mil does NOT teach how to properly clean weapons. They only teach “arms room clean” and that leads to all kinds of ****ery, like this article. The stuff we used to do when I was a PVT makes me cringe now. All to pass the armorers inspection so you go home. Weapons with no finish, smooth barrels, etc but they were clean and lightly oiled. Putting a cleaning rod and brush in a drill chuck, using a parts cleaner in the maintainence bay, or the sand blaster (that was the best for cleaning a dirty M-240).
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ProUnfortunately this....x 10!
We had one dude take a Dremel to his M4s bolt and grind off a good portion of two bolt lugs. Poor rifle was brand new, it was 1998 and it had been in division for less than a month.... Some other dipstick then says..."Dude! Don't tell nobody, during lunch we can go downtown and totally get a new bolt at the gun store" which was absolutely true... at the time such parts, from DPMS, were pretty available at the LGS (and about all there was back then too)
Dude took his statement of charges like a man. He later ended up buying a set of PVS-7a's too.
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In Panama we used to take our M16A1 lowers up into the latrine and when no one was looking we would run them under the scalding hot water in the utility sinks. Usually had been firing blanks in the field and I'm sure we all know how filthy those things made a weapon....a good deal dirtier than real ammo. Now this is in an open-air latrine (the only areas of the barracks with AC were the soldier's rooms) and in a tropical environment. They'd air dry in a matter of seconds. You could see the steaming water evaporate off of them. Then a new coat of CLP and good as new!
While in Kosovo a guy in my platoon would often shower with his M-249, then lightly coat everything with oil after.
I’ve used really hot water quite a few times and it works to get mud and dirt out of places that are hard to get here. Probably wouldn’t want to do the same with cold water without an air compressor or something.
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ThirdWatcher
05-22-21, 02:47
LTC Mark Westrom (former owner of ArmaLite) had some strong feelings about the “white glove cleaning”of the AR weapons system (from what I’ve read). It really makes sense (to me, anyway) that overcleaning an AR can do more damage to it than undercleaning it.
I don’t remember seeing any of the aforementioned cleaning techniques in use when I served (‘73-‘76) but our rifles spent 99% of the time in the Arms Room. (It was interesting though, to watch our KATUSA Armorer try to assign a rifle to our Medic, who was a Conscientious Objector (and a Godly man.)
While in Kosovo a guy in my platoon would often shower with his M-249, then lightly coat everything with oil after.
In "We Few" by Nick Brokhausen, where he recounts his time in SOG, that is how they cleaned their weapons when arriving back in base from a mission. They would grab a lawn chair and a case of beer and go sit in the shower with their weapons and gear. Afterwards they would dry their weapons off and then spray them down with WD40.
Sounds like incompetancy by the armorer.
In no way limited to US forces, did my Swedish national service back in the 90's and in no way did we shoot our AK5's to bit but they surely were cleaned to pieces! Things like scotchbrite pads were used to polish piston heads and even the official cleaning tool had a sharpened reamer to scrape out any leftover crud out of the gasblock.
And in their infinite wisdom they only provided patches sized for 7.62 bores, had to be ripped in half to fit a 5.56 barrel, not to uncommon to find a grunt with one end of the cleaning rod (ours were rubber wrapped flexible wire ones) tied to a bedframe and violently yanking on the receiver to get a stuck rod with full patch out.
Mechanics had it easy, they would just chuck the whole thing into the parts washer in the shop.
In no way limited to US forces, did my Swedish national service back in the 90's and in no way did we shoot our AK5's to bit but they surely were cleaned to pieces! Things like scotchbrite pads were used to polish piston heads and even the official cleaning tool had a sharpened reamer to scrape out any leftover crud out of the gasblock.
And in their infinite wisdom they only provided patches sized for 7.62 bores, had to be ripped in half to fit a 5.56 barrel, not to uncommon to find a grunt with one end of the cleaning rod (ours were rubber wrapped flexible wire ones) tied to a bedframe and violently yanking on the receiver to get a stuck rod with full patch out.
Mechanics had it easy, they would just chuck the whole thing into the parts washer in the shop.
During my 18 years in service, I never knew an armorer that did not properly check a firearm after it was cleaned. It is incompetence of the armorer.
During my 18 years in service, I never knew an armorer that did not properly check a firearm after it was cleaned. It is incompetence of the armorer.
In our case it was the responsibility of the platoon leader to do post cleaning inspections, and it was the white-glove affair! Any crud left in there and it was an instant redo. And part of rangeday inspections were performed by the range master, part of that was a bore inspection to make sure it was clear.
As for armorer, only time my issued rifle saw an armorer was prior to it being issued to me and after I handed it back. Storing it on a day to day basis was my responsibility, locked in my locker along with the rest of the kit next to the bed with the bolt locked away in a safe out in the barracks hallway.
Any squad based weaponry was stored in squad based lockers down in the basement of the building, locked away after having passed inspections.
We had to do the weapons clean before leaving the field and it was the BS white glove affair. After a few field exercises I started taking a small can of carb cleaner, and along with my left over baby wipes, qtips, and my own brush, it got easier.
We also knew the battalion was leaving the field to catch the bus back to Port Hueneme(5 hours) at a certain time, so I'd clean it, and take a nap till the damned armorers were thinking they would be late getting home, then they always accepted it.
I remember those young USMC guys in Fallujah. We'd come in after 24 hours and have 3 hours to sleep and they always cleaned thier weapons before a cat nap. Many of them were also bare aluminum.
ThirdWatcher
05-24-21, 12:56
... We also knew the battalion was leaving the field to catch the bus back to Port Hueneme(5 hours) at a certain time, so I'd clean it, and take a nap till the damned armorers were thinking they would be late getting home, then they always accepted it...
+1. That’s what I did as a PV1 at the end of BCT in ‘73 (ironically at FLW). A year later I joined the “Spec-4 Mafia”.
ViniVidivici
05-27-21, 02:26
Ah, the hotwash.....it does work. I still do that, with stripped Glock frames, when the pistols have been in a sandy river.
Yeah, I don't miss the idiocy of over-cleaning.
tanksoldier
05-27-21, 05:38
During my 18 years in service, I never knew an armorer that did not properly check a firearm after it was cleaned. It is incompetence of the armorer.
Then every armorer in the US Army is incompetent.
They need to reissue the famous M16 comic book. Sgt. Halfmast and Connie make clear that white gloves are out when it comes to inspecting M16s.
just a scout
05-27-21, 08:07
They need to reissue the famous M16 comic book. Sgt. Halfmast and Connie make clear that white gloves are out when it comes to inspecting M16s.
Yep. White glove weapon inspections are one of the worst things the Army has ever inflicted on itself. I think it can be traced back to the way cadets are trained, who then become officers who push those standards used for drill weapons to real weapons.
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We had to do the weapons clean before leaving the field and it was the BS white glove affair. After a few field exercises I started taking a small can of carb cleaner, and along with my left over baby wipes, qtips, and my own brush, it got easier.
We also knew the battalion was leaving the field to catch the bus back to Port Hueneme(5 hours) at a certain time, so I'd clean it, and take a nap till the damned armorers were thinking they would be late getting home, then they always accepted it.
I remember those young USMC guys in Fallujah. We'd come in after 24 hours and have 3 hours to sleep and they always cleaned thier weapons before a cat nap. Many of them were also bare aluminum.
We ALWAYS cleaned weps before anything else; before chow, before sleep, before dropping the post-op deuce, before anything....
ViniVidivici
05-27-21, 13:52
Indeed, and I'd still say nothing wrong with weapons maintenance as a high priority, just not the way they had us doing it.....
ThirdWatcher
05-27-21, 17:32
We ALWAYS cleaned weps before anything else; before chow, before sleep, before dropping the post-op deuce, before anything....
+1. Same here, carried over into my LE career and now in retirement. As long as you stay away from the white gloves, it really doesn’t take that long anyway. Besides, I always follow up with another cleaning or two in the following days.
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