a few quick questions....is it worth using a bore snake and if so, which one is best. also, who uses grease on to lube their AR's if anyone does? If so, what grease is best to use? as always, thanks for our input

I love my bore snakes, don't use anything else anymore. Any lube should be fine, I have even used mobil one 10w-30 before on my bolt. Just clean it, and give it a light lubrication and it should be fine. The brand does not matter.

i've never used one before. how do you use them? do you have to put any cleaner on them or any oil?

DO NOT USE GREASE. Oil or CLP will do fine.

ok, so oil is best to lube the AR. what about grease on a 1911? ive read of people using it that way. I wont use it on my AR..thanks for the help...

I put a good bore cleaner in front of the brushes and oil behind the brushes.

NO grease. Just give it a good washdown w/ CLP...

CLP. Worked for me in the Marines...

We use motor oil to lube our guns. Saw it at a machine gun shoot years ago and have done it ever since. Use the tin man type oil can from autozone as well.

THIS everybody laughs until they try it, I like the Mobil one synthetic blend 5 dollars will last most users a lifetime.

Yesir! And all I use to clean my AR's with is brake cleaner. Nothing cleans them faster, take bolt out and hose it down and your clean in a couple minutes. The crude literraly falls off in seconds, and dries crazy fast. Lube and done.

Yep all the best cleaning supplies come from Oriley's Auto Parts lol

I use brake cleaner for just about anything that needs a good cleaning. been hosing out bolts, muzzle breaks, semi-auto actions, etc, for years. Spray, blow dry, lube, and go.

Another good parts cleaner is the gallon buckets of Chem-Dip for carburetors. Soaked long enough, that stuff will clean just about anything off of a piece of steel.

Ny team and I use a bore snake. We dont use anything else. It works great. If we have put alot of rounds through our weapons, we will run a patch with CLP or Hoppes 9 through it first to help break up and gunk before we run the snake through it.

Doc
thanks for the info but more importantly, thanks for your service to our country.

Use a light oil inside and out on your rifle--I use hopps elite and a half dozen other bottles of synthetic oils I picked up for free from matches and so forth. I use grease on the rails of my pistols (XDM, LCP, M9), on the rails and high wear areas of my AK platforms, and under the bolt on my ar-15 where the most wear it. Tetra grease dramatically decreased wear and increases reliability in my M9 at least.

It's not that you 100% CANNOT use grease on your ar-15, it's that you have to be EXTREMELY careful to only grease under the bolt carrier where it slides over your hammer to reset it--that's a very high wear area. If you get grease inside the bolt head, it will gum it up and you'll have to completely strip apart your bolt, clean every little piece, and reassemble it. If you have a DPMS and are asking these questions, I have a feeling that you want to avoid this like the plague.

x2 on motor oil. I have been using royal purple, amazing how fast it cleans up afterward.

i usually completely dissemble the bolt whenever i clean it so it should be in top shape. I was wondering more about the use of the bore snake as it seems the are real popular and what lube to use. right now, i am using Gunzilla to clean everything, bolt included, then Hoppes oil to lube it up. She hasnt let me down yet so i guess i'm doing something right. just wanted to see if there was a better way to clean/lube it.

Oh man brake cleaner followed by synthetic blend motor oil?

can I safely use this combo on my handgun barrel too? how about a bolt action barrel like an R700 .308?

Oh in that case,I apologize for assuming you weren't experienced with full ar-15 disassembly.

As long as you clean it well and don't overdo it, you'll be fine using grease on the bottom of the bolt carrier. That's the only place I would recommend it on an ar-15, but it's not necessary. Just high contact surface areas could benefit from it. Just use enough to coat it and it should serve you for a range trip. Just don't use too much of since it will come off on the rounds as they are cycled and when they're extracted, they could throw globs of it in places you don't want it if you use too much. It will stay on much longer than any oil and will reduce friction and wear on the bottom of your bolt carrier and the hammer contact surface. Use a light oil everywhere else in and on your rifle. I've been swabbing the inside of the barrel and the bolt with oil, putting a drop or so of oil on the springs and FCG and wiping down the outside with oil and then a silicon cloth.

dont apologize. i didnt take it in any negative way at all. i appreciate the info/advice everyone has given. I have always broken down the bolt after a trip to the range as always thought you should. I try not to over do the lube on the AR but cant say i havent over done it a little on my RIA 1911 or M&P9c.

I lube with 20W-50 synthetic motor oil. It stays put very well. I like the fact that it doesn't run down into the buffer tube when the gun is stored upright. I also clean with the brake cleaner from Wal-Mart.

I have really gotten lazy about cleaning my AR here lately. They really don't require much cleaning. A little lube goes a long way. Last year fired 1000 rounds of Barnaul through my BCM upper with only lube. To be honest it really wasn't that dirty and it never malfunctioned.