Here of late, I’ve gotten pretty nerdy on AR maintenance. Seems that there is not an industry standard on when to replace an ejector and/or ejector spring.

Some say when ejection becomes erratic. Some say ever 5000 rounds. Some say replace them as a set.

And that’s just one example.

Do you have a favorite guide for parts replacement?

Since I’m horrible at keeping track of round counts, I go by “feel” on some parts (ejector, hammer spring) and measurement on others (buffer spring). I use a gauge for the gas tube (Mark Brown Custom I think) and for the fp. Fp retaining pin when it starts getting bent. Always keep an eye out for cracks (bolt, cam pin) and anything out of the ordinary like erratic ejection or a sluggish action.

I am the total opposite of ocd when it comes to firearm maintenance and cleaning.

Run it until it breaks if that is a year or a decade I really don’t care. So far, my track record for breaking stuff is exceedingly low. I think I have broken and needed 2 parts in the last 20 years running stuff like I stole it. In the last 20 years my conservative estimate is I have shot across various platforms well over a half Million rounds.
When it comes to cleaning and maintaining, I have never in my 40+ years of shooting ever detail stripped a gun. Field strip from time to time. Most of my guns get locked back, wipe out whatever gunk I can get to lube and keep going.

Honestly from my experience the people that tinker and lavish extra care on firearms appear to have more problems than I do by far.

I wish we could tattoo on the inside of a large segment of the populations eyelids:
If it runs don’t mess with it

quote:

Originally posted by captain127:



Honestly from my experience the people that tinker and lavish extra care on firearms appear to have more problems than I do by far.

Preventive maintenance is not tinkering or lavishing extra care. Parts wear out and I’m here to tell you that when they do, the firearm quits working properly.

The only thing I’ll say about the issue, is doing a periodic ‘deep cleaning’ of the AR. This would be based on time, round count, and condition of use or storage.

Also, I’m in the category of casual shooter, some hunting, then prairie dogging. For the most part, if I had a ‘stoppage’ it really wouldn’t be a big deal, truthfully.

While doing a deep cleaning, things get expected. I may add a perceived ‘improvement’, but don’t routinely change out parts.

Also, my round count isn’t all that high. I get more benefit out of that periodic deep cleaning.

In the CG we only kept books on the machine guns and the M14 service rifles we had in the armory at each unit. The book kept up with number of rounds thru it, so the parts could be replaced prior to failure.

With regular weapons, M9, M16, & shotguns, we just replaced things (well we sent them to a servicing armory for replacement or they were forwarded to SARF-small arms repair facility).

At one unit we used the same 10 M16s for all rifle training regardless of the unit(we supplied the training and the guns). And we basically torture tested them to see how long they would go. 20k +/- was where things fell apart.

Based on that I just shoot my personal rifle until something breaks.

Army tends to due annual gauging in lieu of parts replacement schedule. We don't keep round counts on our rifles. DoD has been talking about electronic round counters to deal with this.