i have this gun. It's a fine M4gery and has most of the features of the higher priced guns.
I love it but i'd buy the gas-piston stag carbine next time - cleaning the carbon off the bolt and bolt carrier is a pain of major proportions!
a couple things you might want to know:
-there is no loaded chamber indicator the only way to tell is by yanking the charging handle a little bit and examining the ejection port for a round. but you can tell when the hammer is cocked and when it isn't i.e. when there might be a round in the chamber. the quick way to do this is you attempt to put the safety on safe position. If it won't go, the hammer is not cocked. If you can put it on safe, then you should definetely check for a round in the chamber.
I guess its possible to have a round in the chamber and the hammer NOT cocked, like a dud round or something. But the check of the safety is the quickest way. If the hammer ain't cocked, the gun is unlikely to fire i think.
-always run this rifle lubed no matter what anyone tells you. Good lubes are breakfree clp, mobil 1 (the engine oil), slip 2000 is the one people swear by but i've yet to try it. It's not so much what you use to lube, just lube it! You can run an AR clean and wet, and even dirty and wet - but you cannot run it dry and dirty or it will jam. Graphite is not a suitable lubricant by the way, it can react to the aluminum and form galvanic corrosion so keep it away from an AR.
After the first range shoot of 200 rounds the bolt had very hard carbon on the bolt tail. Also there was carbon on the firing pin flange, inside the bolt carrier group, and inside the flash hider at the muzzle. This is the downside of the direct impingement AR types, they sh$t where they eat and so the carbon has to be dealt with.
i have read a hundred posts on how to deal with the carbon. My conclusions, avoid the use of dental picks, as some people recommend, or anything else that is as hard then the part you want to clean.
Use bamboo skewers to scrape the crannies inside the bolt carrier group where the carbon is, otherwise only brass, wood or plastic scraping tools. I ordered the botach bolt cleaning tool but haven't gotten it yet, and also the bolt tail cleaner from G and g tools. Only after ordering them i am now convinced that this is the tool i should have gotten in the first place. It is called CRT-15 ar 15 bolt cleaner tool and everybody on the net that sells gun parts has it, it is $40:
Moreover there are also a hundred posts on what chemical to use to help clean the carbon. (You will be scraping no matter what probably but the chemicals will help and probably essential).
i have tried the following products to help dissolve the carbon: brake cleaner spray, break-free clp, acetone, MP7 pro, mineral spirits. So far the best combination seems to be a 50/50 acetone/mineral spirits mix. I soak the parts in a glass jar (i'm pretty sure the chemicals will melt a plastic container if you left this mix in their for a week) then scrape a bit and soak some more. A scotch brite pad, cut into 2 inch wide strips, seems to work very well for cleaning the bolt tail once the really hard carbon is off.
After the very first cleaning session i sent away to stag for the chrome plated bolt. $55. I'm hoping it will be easier to clean then the regular bolt.
You may hear about how wonderful the one-piece bolt rings are, to that i say you should probably avoid them. I bought 1 and installed it on the bolt, this one-piece ring made the bolt carrier group so tight the bolt would not seat in the chamber without slamming the forward assist, and needed way to much force to pull pack the charging handle. To me it seems there is no way that one-piece ring isn't going to cause a malfunction. They claim that the one piece ring will loosen up on first firing, maybe so, but in the meantime i took it off my bolt and reinstalled the old ones and am keeping the one piece as a SHTF spare part, only.
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