Nope. Blast it with non-chlorinated brake cleaner every 2k-3k rds and forget about the white glove BS.
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Fair enough. When I was a grunt Sgt, my SSgt Force Recon roomate would poke fun at us grunts and our pipe cleaners. I spray my gun out thoroughly with brakecleaner at least every 4K rds or so. I do punch the bore every 500-1K rds or so to prevent copper buildup and reaction to the humid VA climate.
Here are my thoughts.
As I stated before if you are doing a firing pin protrusion check I can see where excess build up in the bolt carrier and on the bolt tail could prevent you from getting a correct reading.
The same would also be true of a barrel straightness test (which can be thrown off by a dirty bore). IMHO in order to conduct a proper inspection and gaging the weapon must be clean, to a point.
Now as for "damaged" weapons from overcleaning. The only way I see this is if you are a complete moron. If you don't follow simple guidelines of course you can damage it just like anything else. If you use a wire brush on the gas rings, you could potentially damaged them or pull one loose.
If you clean your extractor spring and insert with Powermaster 5000 and it eats away the rubber insert then guess what?
What I find somewhat amusing is the comment by Pat Rogers about "over-cleaning" is that many a military person has had to detail clean their weapons before and most of the issues that I have seen were caused by deviating from normal practices or trying to take apart shit they had no business touching.
I had a situation here earlier this year with a TCN who was issued a BM carbine. I was checking his weapon out for something minor. My standard practice is to check over the whole weapon because odds are I may find something else going on. Sure enough when I popped the extractor assy off I saw a truck load of lint and fiber inside the area and the firing pin channel. It seems that he had been sticking pipe cleaners in there, but never disassembled the bolt because no one told him to. :confused:
Many people would be served by getting a basic operators manual and following the procedures in there. Then as they get to know their weapon better and become more knowledgeable they can figure out what really works and is needed and what doesn't.
Yes, I do stick a pipe cleaner into the bolt carrier key just to check for obstructions. Especially after finding a primer inside the key. ;)
That really ought to be qualified by saying that you are meant to make sure you aren't leaving that lint and other junk all in your bolt. If you clean your weapon improperly, or don't make sure to clean up after cleaning on occasion, you are going to have those kinds of problems.
It's the same way with Q-Tips. There are plenty of people who let them spread cotton string, puffs and other nonsense all inside the action. That's not what you are supposed to do with them.
Likewise, you aren't supposed to carelessly rake cleaning rods all over your bore.
If you do all these things, it isn't the cleaning that messed up the weapon, it was improper cleaning.