Should I test fire a few rounds after a complete breakdown/cleaning?

AR/M4 AR Technical Discussion
1

Didn’t come up with anything in search.

Over the weekend I put 600 rounds through my BCM, then came home and fully dissembled and cleaned the entire thing. I also put new gas rings on the bolt as the rifle is at 3000 rounds and they seemed weak. Now I did function check the rifle, but was thinking… Should I fire a 5 shot group through it just to ensure everything is good? Its my primary HD gun, and just want to be safe.

Does anyone test fire a few round through their duty rifle/ HD rifle after a through cleaning?

Thanks.

2

When you say fully disassembled do you mean piece by piece (removing pins and unscrewing things) or took the BCG out, took that apart, solvent scrub reassembled lube your parts?

3

Took the BCG out and took it apart, extractor and all. No I didn’t take anything apart that would not normally come out for a full cleaning though. Just curious if anyone ever test fires a few rounds or is happy with the function check without firing.

4

then no

5

Generally speaking after a field strip it wont pass a function check if somthing is wrong.

If it were me manually push firing pin forward to verify protrusion and maybe use a spent case to verify extractor and ejection.

Beyond that nope.

And the stuff is said before is overkill to me but ymmv.

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6

I don’t, but I do run the bolt, making sure my trigger pulls and resets ok. I also make sure my safety is working and that when I release it, the trigger doesn’t do anything wonkie.

7

I have the same feeling as you do/did after a complete cleaning but have never actually blasted a few rounds to confirm function. The urge goes away after a short while.

8

I generally test fire one or two thousand rounds between cleanings, yes

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9

If the rifle has proven to be reliable, and passes a function check after a breakdown and cleaning, odds are it’ll keep on running. If you’re replacing parts, then it might warrant at least throwing a couple rounds downrange. In your case, replacing gas rings pretty much falls in the breakdown and cleaning category. Could they be defective and cause a failure? Anything is possible. Is it likely they’d be defective and cause an issue? Not at all.

Personally, I’d rather be safe than sorry. So, I’ll generally test as much as the situation allows. If you can easily walk outside and fire a few rounds, what are you waiting for? If testing it won’t be that simple, what level of inconvenience would it require to be able to fire those test rounds? If the hassle isn’t worth the minuscule risk of a failure, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it in your given set of circumstances.

10

you’re fine.

11

sounds good

12

A clean rifle is inherently more reliable than a dirty rifle.

If you test fire after every cleaning, you now have a dirty rifle, necessitating a cleaning. You could get stuck in an endless spiral…

13

If I’m replacing parts, I’ll want to be sure they work (and that I put them in properly).

14

Do a desk pop to make sure.

15

747s come out of heavy maintenance and go right back to flying, and they’re a hair more complicated than your rifle.

Don’t overthink this.

16

You need two rifles. One for cleaning and one for HD. Rotate as needed.

17

Do they fly them for a couple thousand hours to see if they are reliable before they let passengers on?

I agree, a lot of folks overthink things, and wear out guns vetting them for carry or HD.

18

A. People probably overclean their weapons or overthink the cleaning in general.

B. A good wipe down and relube in most cases is more than enough.

C. Any time I replace a component that can affect the operation of the gun, I test fire it first before I rely on it.

D. Having a 2nd rifle is always smart.

19

Life is too short to ignore an excuse to shoot your rifle

20

When in doubt, shoot it out.