 Hey guys, Dylan Schumacher with Citadel Defense and today we are going to talk about cleaning your guns. So this will be part one here, we're going to do the rifle first and then we'll do part two for a pistol. So the first thing you want to do when cleaning a gun is make sure that the gun you're cleaning is unloaded. The second thing you're going to want to do is make sure that you have a loaded gun around you. I always try to keep a loaded gun within arms reach, right? So even when I'm cleaning my guns I will have other guns that I am not currently cleaning that stay loaded. People will say, what are you afraid of Dylan? And I will say nothing, my guns are loaded. To clean your AR-15 you're really only going to need a couple things. Again I use a toothbrush, some kind of rag to wipe stuff off, I'll end up using some kind of solvent, this is dirty because I've used it on a couple guns already. I do like to have a chamber brush around in case I need to do that. In general sometimes I won't use a chamber brush but sometimes I will, so that's nice to have. Also a pick of some sort is nice to have for getting out hard to reach grime if you need it. I will choose to use a bore snake, you don't have to. This one is actually for my pistol but I do have a rifle bore snake around here somewhere and I will use that on the barrel if I need to. I really do like a bolt cleaning tool, it's not a necessary thing to have but it does come in handy for scraping off some carbon sometimes so this is a nice thing to have. If you just wanted the stripped down kit really if you've got a rag, some solvent and a toothbrush that really should be about all you need and then of course you'll need whatever your flavor of lube is because you want to lube the gun when you're done. So this gun is unloaded, we're good to go with it. So with an AR if you don't know, first thing you're going to do is push this little pin right here and that's going to pull out on this side and the whole gun will hinge over. Now from there we're going to pull out the charging handle and the bolt carrier group so here's the charging handle, here's the bolt carrier group and then this is the broken down AR here. I'm going to take the top off to make it a little bit upper off rather to make it a little bit more conducive for video. But you don't have to take the upper off, I just choose to disconnect them for this video because it'll be easier to show you. So we'll set those aside. First thing you're going to want to concentrate on and probably the most important thing for an AR is the bolt carrier group. So while you're cleaning you are also inspecting to make sure everything is in good working order. When we're done we'll do it now but when we're done with this bolt too we want to rest it on the bolt just like that to see if it sinks down. As you can see this one is not sinking, it'll tip but it won't sink. If it were to sink that means that the gas rings are broken and need to be replaced and we'll show you that a little bit later. But here's your bolt. So look there are a couple different theories on how to clean this whole thing. I'm going to give you my personal take and that's all it is. Some people will be more thorough with their cleaning, some people will be less thorough with their cleaning, it's really up to you. So for disassembling the bolt which you do not have to do every time but I like to do from time to time and it's been a while so we'll show how to do this. For disassembling the bolt the first thing you're going to do is pull out this pin here. I just keep a pair of needle nose pliers around because it's a lot easier. You're going to have a lot of tiny parts here so I like to just keep them in the charging handle that way I won't lose anything. From there the firing pin is going to come out of the gun. Nice and dirty there. Not a big deal. Drop it in there. This next part is a little bit tricky here. What you have to do is turn this pin just like so and then wedge it out like that. That will come out and then the bolt, this is the actual bolt of the gun, will come out of the bolt carrier group. This is the bolt carrier group, probably used the wrong word earlier. This itself is the bolt. Now the bolt itself can be broken down a little bit further if you so choose. Again this is not an every time need to do thing but it's been a while so I will do it. So there's a little pin right here. I'm going to drive that pin out. Place that pin in the charging handle so I won't lose it. And then this is under a little bit of spring tension here. The top of the bolt will come out and then that's it. That's a broken down bolt. These are the gas rings right here. There should be three of them. These are the ones that I talked about earlier that if the bolt sinks you need to replace those. And then you'll have to do that from time to time. That's just basic maintenance on your AR-15. So from here I just like to give everything a good little scrub and clean. To do that I keep a toothbrush and I also have just some little patches, alright? And what I will do is I will take some solvent, hops is my kind of go-to-solvent moment. I'll pour it in this nice little tin camping cup. Put a little bit on a brush or a patch, again whatever you're going to choose. And then I just give it a good little brush down. Now one thing you can invest in if you so desire is a bolt cleaning tool, okay? I believe this one is from, I want to say Avis. I will put a link in the description below. I apologize, I don't remember the name of it. But this is a handy dandy little tool to help clean all the crud off my bolt. So I like this because each one of these little ridges here cleans a specific part of the bolt. I don't know all of them so don't ask. But I will use it in general to clean the different parts of the bolt that I need to have cleaned. And again, you don't have to be so meticulous. This one is actually a lot cleaner than I expected it to be so that's good news. But just to try to scrape any carbon buildup or extra carbon that shouldn't be there off your bolt. It will not be perfectly clean, okay? And that's okay. It doesn't need to be perfectly clean to run. In general, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, lubrication, particularly on AR-15s and most modern guns is way more important than cleaning. If it's lubed like lubed well and AR-15s like to run filthy wet, if it's lubed well it's pretty much going to run, okay? It doesn't mean you don't need to clean it ever. But in general, if I had to choose between the two, I'd just keep it super lubed, okay? Again, I'm just inspecting making sure nothing looks out of order and nothing looks extremely worn, whatever, okay? Again, if you want, don't have to, but you can take a pipe cleaner here and you can kind of run it through down the bolt to make sure that's all clean in there. That is super meticulous and really not needed, but again, from time to time, I'll do it, okay? Clean off this part of the bolt. Now I will reassemble the bolt. Now again, remember, it's under a little bit of spring tension here, okay? So you're going to have to physically press it down while you put that pin back through them. Put it down here, get the pin a little wiped down. Now my bolt is reassembled, okay? So I'll just set that to the side, keep my other pieces in my charging handle so I don't lose them. Next thing is the firing pin, okay? Really there's not much to do with this, just wipe it off, okay? Kind of get some of the carbon build off, up off there. If you want to use some solvent to clean it, that's fine. You're not going to lube this, this firing pin stays dry, okay? So I'll just give that a wipe. It's about all that it needs, okay? This pin here, I'm just going to wipe it off, again, not super needed, okay? Now when it comes back to the bolt carrier group before, or in general, like I said, I will just kind of get a brush here. We're just going to scrape this down, get any carbon build up off of it. That's pretty much it. That's probably even a little, little thorough. I'll just use some patches, do all that stuff. As you can see, right, patches are picking up the carbon off the bolt carrier group. Again, I don't need it to be perfectly clean. I'm not in the military. I don't need to pass a white glove inspection or anything like that. Really, I just need it to be generally clean so it's going to run, and there's no major carbon build up that's going to impede the function of the weapon, okay? So after that, we're just going to reassemble the bolt, okay? The bolt carrier group, excuse me, going to put our bolt back in the gun here. Going to put the firing pin back in, or the cam pin back in. So a good way to test to make sure you're ready to put the firing pin down there is you need to look down the bolt this way, okay? And if you can see clear through there, you know the firing pin will go in. If not, you know the firing pin will not, and you don't rotate that bolt, okay? I can see clear down there now. Firing pin will go in. Put the retention pin back in for the firing pin. Just going to play with it, okay? Function check, so you can push it in, whip it out. Yep, that works. Again, stand it up. It's not sliding, so that's good to go, okay? That's about it. I might wipe it down with a cloth or whatever, but at that point, I'm calling the bolt good, okay? And again, that's thorough. Most of the time, I'll just pull it out. I'll just kind of wipe it off, and that's about it. It takes like 15 seconds, okay? In your lower here, there's really not that much to clean. Sometimes I'll use a patch just to wipe off the buffer tube, or excuse me, the buffer in the buffer tube, and just kind of wipe some things down, but really, there's not a lot to do down here. I'm not going to put a lot of solvent down there. I'm not going to brush a lot of it out. Like I said, I might just wipe any big chunks out of the way or some black tar just for my own personal satisfaction, but other than that, there's really not a lot to do down here. When it comes to lubing, what you can do is, every once in a while, you can put a just a dab, just a tiny, tiny dab, like a quarter of a drop, okay? On to the safety to make sure that just stays in good working order. And then on to the firing pin sprints, okay? Again, don't do it every time, just every once in a while. If you notice something, if your safety starts to get a little sticky, it's probably time for a good cleaner lub, but every once in a while, I'll just put some lube in there, okay? Once in a great while. Other than that, I just leave that as is, and I don't bother with it, okay? When it comes to the upper, okay, I am going to clean out the top of the upper here, okay? So really, I'm just going to take my brush, brush stuff out of there. If I want, I will use some Q-tips, all right? I had put some grease in this gun at one point, so now it is particularly yucky. We don't use grease in the north in general because it freezes. So if you're above that Mason-Dixon line, I suggest not using grease, okay? Now, not needed every time, okay? But you should clean out the chamber from time to time. So you can use a chamber brush, okay? Now all I'm going to do is I'm going to put that just into the chamber there, see if you can see that? And really, I'm just cleaning that chamber, okay? I'm going to call that good. I'm going to take a cloth, just kind of wipe this down in here. Again, I'm not trying to pass any white glove inspection. I'm just trying to knock out general carbon bits to make sure it's going to function, okay? Now from here, there are two different theories. You can run a bore snake down the barrel, which I'm going to do just to show you how to do it. Or some people decide to never clean their actual barrel and just let it cure. Two different theories. You do what makes you happy. Today, I'm just going to run a bore snake down through it. So this is my bore snake. This is just a long piece of cleaning rope, basically attached to a piece of string. So I'm just going to run the string down the barrel. Try to get that in camera for you, okay? Once the string's down the barrel, I'm just going to pull it through, okay? And that's about it. That's all you need to do to clean the barrel. If you want to get really crazy and do it twice, you can. But I'm looking through it once and it is perfectly clean, okay? So that's all I'm going to do on my upper. Okay, so we cleaned the upper. So I'm just going to wipe my charging handle off, okay? Again, not trying to pass any white glove inspection. Just trying to get the general gunk off here. All right, so from there, we're just going to lube and reassemble. Again, the most important part about AR-15s is to lube them and they love to run wet. There are different theories about how to lube your bolt, okay? One theory is to just lube the four rails where the bolt rides inside the gun, okay? That's these two in the bottom here and then right up here, these two shoulders on top, okay? I just soak the daylights out of it, okay? I'll just lube this whole damn thing. I'll run a bead of lube on the top of the charging handle and then I will reassemble. Because you got to remember, this is going to sit inside the gun like this, right? So the metal on metal contact here is going to be on the charging handle on the top and the sides. I'll just put a bead of lube on top and then the bolt itself as it rides in the gun. So I just lube the ever-loving daylights out of this bolt and just run with it. Some people say that's too much and it's going to dirty up my gun and whatever, whatever. Again, that's my theory. I'm just going to lube the daylights out of it and never have a problem when I do that. So for right now, I'm using, what is this, battle-borne breakthrough. This is quite current flavor of the month here. So I'll just lube it. Again, my theory here is I can't use too much lube on the actual bolt. Okay? Put some on the charging handle. Put some on the charging handle if we can do that here. Okay? Then I'm going to reassemble the upper. So I'm going to fit that in right there. I'll pull this out just a bit, set my bolt carrier in there, close the whole thing up, reassemble. Took a little work. Reassemble the bolt there. Put in the back one. Give it a function check. Sounds about right. Make sure the safety is on. Try to pull the trigger. Nope, won't go. Safety off. Gun will go. Reset. Put the safety on. Make sure that works. Yep. So at that point, that gun is cleaned and lubed. I'm good to go with that. So again, I'll wipe off anything that I need to and I will call it good. That is how I clean and lube an AR-15. In general, it can take me anywhere from about five to seven minutes, just kind of depending on how thorough I am going to be. Again, the most important part is that you keep it lubed. Now, one thing I will note is that when you soak a bolt like that, if I were to lay this gun down on its side, sometimes I will get some lube will seep out between where the lower and the upper meet. I'm okay with that. I just take it as par for the course. If you're not into that, you can fire it a couple of times after you lube it up. That would be really good. You can use that option because we end up lubing at home. Or you can get a lube that doesn't bleed as much. I found that this stuff doesn't bleed as much, so hence why I'm currently using it. I used to use some hops lube. Good stuff to me. Pretty much all lube is the same, but I will say that bled a lot more between the uppers and the lowers. So again, pick whatever your flavor is. I don't really think there's too big of a difference between them. That's cleaning and lubing an AR-15. Keep your weapon clean. More importantly, keep it lubed and it'll function for you. Do brave deeds and endure.