Brass dents revisited

[montana]

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.

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..