montana Wrote:No problem Klem, I always enjoy yours and others perspectives.
The picture of the shiny bolt tail is a perfect example of what I was talking about..Olympic Arms used a straight cut, undersized gas tube, over sized gas ports and a haywire approach to their rifles too..The real dogma is the need to keep the bolt and carrier carbon free, which I think came from the early days of Vietnam when the ball powder of the time had a high content of calcium carbonate, which was suspected to clog up gas tubes and carriers. Then the white glove maintenance appeared...Just like long gas tube pipe cleaners, carbon scraping tools are completely unnecessary and can actually be detrimental..
Like you said, each to their own..

LRRPF52 Wrote:This is quite a derail from the OP’s thread, but...

White glove mandates come from periodic armorer-level inspections. The armorer gauges won’t get any useful readings if the critical dimensions on parts are caked in carbon.

Nobody ever explained that to us, so we just thought they were wasting our time with senseless menial tasks to keep the blotter report down (soldiers with spare time = incidents).

The gas system works better when it’s fouled to an extent, but AR-15s can become sluggish when run with high volume Wolf, suppressed.

The design was engineered around running on tiny stick propellant, which left minimal residue. Ball propellant of course leaves a lot more carbon fouling from the graphite bath that the kernels are given for stability and anti-stick properties.

Original bolts were hard-chromed, which was removed from the TDP after an early joint USAF/US Army fleet study of fatigue cracking mostly around the cam pin holes. They found that hard chroming caused hydrogen embrittlement of the bolt surface with higher incidence of failure nodes, so the phosphated bolt became standard after that.

montana Wrote:I never stated the rifle, bolt, etc, never needs to be cleaned. Carbon on the boat tail and in the carrier is not the critical concern many think it is and excessive scraping in either area is completely unnecessary and can even be detrimental.There are better ways to remove carbon, no matter how OCD satisfying scraping, sand papering, etc, can be.

The M-16 is an interesting case study and one of my favorite discussions, which I'm sure we could get into a respectful lively discussion, but I have as you said, derailed the OP enough..

LRRPF52 Wrote:I’m tracking. I have a personal philosophy that all those years spent white-gloving the weapons counts towards my personal guns by proxy, so I just shoot and lube them!

I Cerakote everything that one might be worried about for corrosion, and lube the engine.

Bore stays fouled until it stops shooting well.

Klem Wrote:I'm with 52 on this - it's not that I am uncaring or ignorant about specs but find myself asking which ones matter. For me, I want the most reliable, accurate gun, in this type of gun. With this in mind some specs are more important than others. And in a machine of consumable parts that wear at different speeds, some parts and their specs are more important than others.