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What makes an AR reliable or not?

4K views 55 replies 29 participants last post by  ChrisMD 
#1 ·
New to the AR world and have been doing quite a bit of reading. AR's vary in price wildly and I read a lot of opinions that this or that rifle is reliable or unreliable and "I wouldn't trust my life" to such and such gun/maker. But along with these remarks there isn't any follow up as to what the weak points of the said rifle are.

This has nothing to do with accuracy, triggers, optics ready or no, carbine/mid/rifle length, barrels, etc... I assume people are concerned about catastrophic failure of certain parts or function issues. I have read very few reports about rifles that have FTF, FTE, FTF, BCG failure(staked), etc... on guns that were well maintained of just about any price range?

If reasonable care is taken to select a gun that has parts from a know manugacturer made to the accepted minimum spec (mil spec) the guns seem to function fine?

What parts are you concerned with that make the gun reliable and dependable or not? Is it the springs (trigger, bolt, etc)? Bolt material (carp. 158 vs 9130)? Fitment of parts (upper/lower, bolt, etc....)? I'm looking for something other than that gun is a " POS and completely unreliable". Doesn't really tell a fellow much.

Happy Thanksgiving
 
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#44 ·
Even with less than mil-spec parts (which to me are mid-level baseline, or par) you can have a perfectly reliable AR...if the tune is correct and you use decent ammo. But, very few have a good tune from the factory and so those sub-par parts are going to get hammered and fail sooner. And people want to feed them crap ammo (and some from crap mags) It is a catch-22 for the manufacturers. Set-up a good tune and get complaints from the folks running crap ammo, or set-up a reliable tune for the crap ammo and sacrifice some longevity and accuracy. They follow the money (lowest common denominator) as most savvy AR owners are building their own with the parts they want after the first one or two factory rifles.

For the most part, catastrophic failures are going to be the bolt. Insufficient lube can accelerate wear and cause issues. For any factory rifle, I would surmise that a clean and lube every 1K rounds should keep it running like a clock (with good ammo and mags) for at least 10K rounds. Then you might need to rebuild a bolt and or replace the springs, but probably not.
 
#46 ·
Not to sound like a smart ass, but the owner of the rifle. Be it, bad ammo, parts, magazines, or cleaning. Improper lubrication sometimes. Not knowing your weapon or how to disassemble it or put it back together properly. I am still shaking down my AR9 build, so parts are being tweaked, ammo and magazines are being tested. But I built it myself from the ground up. so I expect issues. BUT, I know how to test and improve because I built it.
 
#47 ·
Not to sound like a smart ***, but the owner of the rifle. Be it, bad ammo, parts, magazines, or cleaning. Improper lubrication sometimes. Not knowing your weapon or how to disassemble it or put it back together properly. I am still shaking down my AR9 build, so parts are being tweaked, ammo and magazines are being tested. But I built it myself from the ground up. so I expect issues. BUT, I know how to test and improve because I built it.
BRAVO. ..you got that right :waving:
 
#49 ·
A dejected young man brought a "New In The Box", low end AR-15 rifle into our local gun shop. He wasn't able to get his first round off and the place where he bought it said he needed to return it to the manufacturer. They pretty well dusted him off.

He was plenty fed up by then and asked us to fix it as it wasn't the gun that he really wanted anyway. He left later, with huge smiles and his tricked out 300 Blackout rifle! Sure, he put more money into the rifle, but he ended up with a custom built rifle that was exactly what he wanted to begin with. Before he left, the rifle was test fired and ready to roll!

I took his 5.56 barrel home and checked it carefully. The forward end of his chamber had lots of corrosion/rust which prevented 5.56 rounds from chambering fully. This rifle was brand new, first sale from a high volume dealer!

SO....just because a rifle is new, in the box, chamber corrosion is still possible and that will kill reliability! The young man dealt with a high volume dealer who simply wanted to get the boxes out the door. After the sale...............it's your baby. Lot's of good lessons to be learned, here!

Flash
 
#51 ·
A dejected young man brought a "New In The Box", low end AR-15 rifle into our local gun shop. He wasn't able to get his first round off and the place where he bought it said he needed to return it to the manufacturer. They pretty well dusted him off.

He was plenty fed up by then and asked us to fix it as it wasn't the gun that he really wanted anyway. He left later, with huge smiles and his tricked out 300 Blackout rifle! Sure, he put more money into the rifle, but he ended up with a custom built rifle that was exactly what he wanted to begin with. Before he left, the rifle was test fired and ready to roll!

I took his 5.56 barrel home and checked it carefully. The forward end of his chamber had lots of corrosion/rust which prevented 5.56 rounds from chambering fully. This rifle was brand new, first sale from a high volume dealer!

SO....just because a rifle is new, in the box, chamber corrosion is still possible and that will kill reliability! The young man dealt with a high volume dealer who simply wanted to get the boxes out the door. After the sale...............it's your baby. Lot's of good lessons to be learned, here!

Flash
And the attitude towards the young man was bad on the part of the original seller and is what hurts the gun community. No way that gun should have been sold.
 
#52 ·
I have a Colt upper on a Bushmaster lower that is 20 years old. I have Colt magazines and Magpuls. Like most any semi-auto, pistols and rifles, magazines are very important. Never buy a ProMag. I guess somebody likes them because they are still in business. But not trustworthy in my experience.

One son has a Ruger that is unstoppable. Some Ruger mags and MagPuls. He also has an S&W lower to build another.
Other son has a Bushmaster lower I bought years ago that we put together with Del Ton parts and upper. Works great.
 
#53 ·
I took a chance on KCI gen 2 magazines for my AR9. They work pretty darn good. But I also have Glock OEM as well as Magpul mags. I have seen weapons malfunction with the best brand name mags that can be bought. In others, the supposed garbage mags work like OEM. I have a few Promag magazines for my Ruger P97, and they work great, same for my AK. But, I have tried them in an AR platform and they were terrible.

Always test, test some more then test again. Especially with magazines. Then test as many types of ammo as you can get your paws on. I never would have thought a polymer 80 lower would be the way I wanted to go. But others have beat the snot out of them so I am giving them a go and so far I am happy. They are tight as all hell, the upper does not budge when mated to the poly80. The pins takedown pins are hard to pull and push into place.
 
#54 ·
Most of the things that go wrong on an AR15 are on the bolt IMO. The extractor, ejector(and their springs)and the gas rings. Having a spare bolt with you can fix common problems in two minutes. A good bolt should last for many thousands of rounds before needing a rebuild. A really dirty magazine can cause a failure to feed. Damaged magazine lips can cause two rounds to feed at the same time.
 
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