Originally Posted by
dcmdon
A couple of thoughts.
My maintenance schedule with an AR would vary depending on its use.
A plinker would get the least maintenance.
A competitive gun would get more.
A gun I will bet my life on will get the most aggresive maintenance.
One of the things that we seek to avoid is catastrophic failure of a part that renders the gun inoperable.
It seems to me that a gas tube will not fail that way. If it gets clogged (and I've never heard of that) it would fail gradually. A failure to extract here. Then maybe failing to lock back on an empty mag.
The bottom line here is that if a gas tube clogged, it would be gradual. It wouldn't just suddenly stop cycling the action. As such, I don't think there is any need to change it on time.
Here is a question to some of the really experienced guys out there. have you ever seen a clogged gas tube? It would seem to me that the tube would build up some crap, but then reach an equilibrium at which point the 10,000 psi of combustion gas would remove anything as quickly as it accumulated.
Don