Care and Cleaning

All gas operated guns have similar cleaning problems which are easily handled.

• Obtain at least 2 cans of 2-cycle engine oil (gas additive).
• Put both cans into a plastic bottle, such as a catsup squeeze bottle, but with a cap.
• Get an eye-dropper, plastic type best.

M1 Garand

• Clean the barrel and chamber as you always do except leave your bore wet.
• With your gun muzzle down, muzzle on old towel or rags, use the eye-dropper to put 8-10 drops on your op rod just at the front sling swivel area. It will migrate down the op rod, into the gas cylinder, onto the inner side of the gas plug and then out the barrel, coating carbon all the way. Leave as is for two days. Flush thoroughly with spray solvent (auto supply stores). Clean and dry your barrel.

M14-M1A

• Remove gas plug and piston.
• Drop them into the 2-cycle oil and leave for 2 days.
• Remove from oil, flush thoroughly and reinstall.
• Clean bore in usual fashion.

AR15

• Break open and remove bolt carrier assembly.
• Drop into oil and leave for 2 days.
• Clean barrel and leave wet with solvent.
• Put several drops into gas tube while looking down barrel. Stop when you see oil leaking into the barrel.
• Store muzzle down for two days, then squirt solvent down gas tube.
• Clean and dry barrel again.
• Flush inside upper receiver and spray with dri-slide or similar lube.
• Remove carrier assembly from the oil and flush inside and out, including a good shot into the gas hole.
• Dry with paper towel and lube as usual.
• Reinstall barrier.

All semi-autos need to be cleaned from the muzzle end (except AR15), which makes them susceptible to muzzle damage from cleaning rods. This is especially true of jointed cleaning rods. You should use a cleaning rod guide to minimize this damage.

For the M14-M1A, a 12-guage shot shell with a 1/4" hold drilled through the primer pocket and the crimp cut off makes an excellent rod guide. Use a plastic shot shell.

For the M1 Garand, I regret to tell you there are no commercially available rod guides that fit the barrel end tightly enough to be effective. The reason for this is that the barrel ends come in diameters from about .500" to .512". Unelss the rod guide fits the barrel end snugly, it is useless. For this reason, I designed a rod guide for the M1, which is about 5-6" long and clamps onto the barrel by collet action.

Because of the varying diameters, I must tailor these to the individual gun. It is machined out of steel in 3 pieces, but it clamps so tightly, you can pick up your gun with it. It costs $65 each, mainly because each must be custom made. Also, you should always use a one-piece steel, not coated rod as short and stiff as possible. Rod coatings are soft and can absorb abrasives such as dust. Steel rods don't.

If you own one of my lugged M1s or M1As, it is not necessary to relieve the trigger group clamping pressure when storing the gun, as the bolts in the lugs do all of the clamping. The trigger clamping pressure only holds the trigger in place.

Also a note on barrels. GI M1 barrels were made on the same machines that Krieger and Obermeyer use today. They bought them as surplus. I can consistently get sub-minute accuracy out of GI barrels so don't automatically assume you need a barrel. Have it checked for wear on both ends. If clean in the throat and muzzle with sharp rifling, it likely has not had much use and will make a shooter. The same applies to after market barrels on Douglas blanks. I've had excellent results with them.