Firstly, DO NOT ATTEMPT ANYTHING YOU SEE HERE. Dirt, rocks, and blockages in a gun barrel are DANGEROUS for any firearm and this could result in injury or death. Do not do this at home, you've been warned. Second, I have to say that this video is not a scientific test. There was not a huge round count involved, and the sample size was not large enough to draw long-lasting, reliable data. This is an unscientific test, conducted in the field as a hasty but basic reliability test. The intent of the video was to do a "quick and dirty" reliability test of the AR15. I wanted to expose it to some pretty rough conditions and see how it worked. I poured dirt all over it with and without the bolt open and to the rear throughout the video. The only issue I had was after the open bolt/open mag well/open dust cover situation -the rifle would not fully chamber. The forward assist could not fix the situation, so I had to extract the live round and chamber another, and then it worked fine. After Action Report: Surely the test could have been taken farther -much farther. I could have done the sand test, mud, water, and everything else. That was not inline with the basic field test -it was meant to demonstrate the AR15's ability to handle severe dirt and grime. Initial thoughts are that the gun performed extremely well. Exposing any gun to this much dirt, dust, and grime is quite a test but I feel that the AR15 did pretty well. It did have one issue when fully chambering after dirt was poured and dumped into the open action, but withstanding this, the gun did excellent. The test put the AR through more abuse and dirt than the average user would ever put their rifle through, even in rough situations. Last Thoughts: The AR15 is a sealed system -with round in chamber, dust cover closed, and magazine inserted, the internals are shielded from most of the debris and dirt that could foul it. Because of this design, most of the dirt and grime posses no threat to the operation of the gun. Even in trying times or dirty operating environments, the parts are generally not exposed to filth that would create stoppages. Even when I locked the bolt to the rear with no magazine inserted and the dust cover open and poured in a load of dirt, the gun was still able to fully function -with a minor hiccup that was solved with basic remedial action. I did this video to show the world that the AR15 is generally an extremely reliable system, even under somewhat unrealistic situation, such as what was presented here. With a well-made rifle, with good mags and good ammo, even under bad conditions the rifle will still work, and in the rare event it doesn't, it only takes basic remedial action to clear it. The AR15 in the video: I built this AR15 from different parts. -The lower is a Stag-15 -The lower parts were Smith and Wesson parts -The upper was a complete Spike's Tactical upper with Spike's bolt carrier group, barrel, everything. -That's a 512 EO Tech on top, which also functioned just fine. Most of the reliability can and should be attributed to Spike's Tactical -their quality is excellent and right on par with Colt, Noveske, Daniels, LMT, and the other "hard-usage" AR makers.

• published: 26 Aug 2013
• views: 400