Cleaning & Lube Tips for Maintaining an AR15 Style Carbine Rifle

Field strip the AR-15 especially the bolt carrier assembly. Use an effective carbon cleaner and soak if needed, followed up by using a bronze brush to scrub the accumulated powder off the gunmetal surfaces.

NOTE: the bolt cam pin slot is an important part to clean thoroughly. The bolt carrier key. Focus on the bolt lugs.

Also check the bolt gas rings, if applicable.

NEXT: Clean out the chamber with the specifically designed bronze chamber brush, along with the locking lugs. Tetra Gun makes a useful cotton mop version of the chamber brush, aptly called … are you ready? The chamber mop for .223 cal. / 5.56mm but not in 308 like the brush version.

Tetra Gun ProSmith Rifle Chamber Cleaning Brush 308 Cal 8 x 32 Thread

Spray Action Blaster into the upper receiver and charging handle to attack that carbon fouling as well.

In the bore (technically more accurate than down the barrel), run cotton patches to clean out fouling, followed by running lube oil down there. Or, alternatively, CLP. Also, drop a little bit of CLP down the gas ports. Dry gas holes are not a good thing. And you might want to oil the charging handle.

The carbine rifle – AR-15, M4 or any other relative by name – share the need for powder residue removal and lubrication thereafter. This applies to both .308 and .223 / 5.56x45mm sized rounds, or others. It doesn’t matter.

Disassemble your magazines every once in a while, especially when you start to feel the crud buildup. Clean, then lube. Keep them in tip top shape to avoid those annoying feed failures.

As they learned with the M16 during the Vietnam War, this style rifle works best “wet” as universally understood, meaning that it should be well oiled. However, Tetra Gun Obex Prime light grease (technically) is polished in until not visible and delivers a dry life effect. You can get the same effect with the spray version, the Tetra Gun Lube spray. In both cases, you want to polish this special lube into the metal so it penetrates. From that point on, future buildup will be much less prevalent and you can dry wipe gun parts down after a shoot and it will still be lubed despite seeing carbon black come off on your cotton patches or gun wipe cloth.

Obex Prime is not even in the same class as other products so the terminology can be confusing. Oil is not oil, and grease is not grease. Not by a long shot. If you are a high-volume shooter at the range, be honest, does the gun lube you use hold up for 1,000+ rounds? Obex Prime does, and then some. Yes, on one lubrication treatment, assuming you didn’t contaminate with solvent residue which is every firearm’s worst enemy.

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