Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles How many rounds will a $400 AR-15 last?

There were a lot of problems induced by rate of fire in M4/M4A1 stuff I dealt with, that’ll likely never be a factor for semi-only rigs. There are also so many options in barrel/bolt construction, that longevity varies wildly. Regardless, the point of this and the comments about ammo/volume are spot on: 95% of AR owners have never and will never, own enough ammo to shoot anything out…..much less actually do the shooting it takes. Spare uppers/barrels/bolts are so easy to keep on hand that it doesn’t matter if you do shoot super high volume. Lowers can last forever. The whole ‘gun LEGO’ design is what makes an AR hard to compete with for almost any other choice for the same uses.

I dunno, I see a fair number of YT videos on them, one each recently by Honest Outlaw and Mrgunsngear, who aren’t shills, on the Adams P2, both very positive. Adams has fixed the issues with their original version, mainly carrier tilt. The .300BO pistol Mike tested is perhaps the most accurate .300 he’s ever tested. The Adams and the BRN-180 are affordable, and apparently reliable. The gas has to go somewhere of course, and the handrails can get pretty hot and dirty during extended fire, but better there than in one’s face, especially when suppressed.

It’ll be a while before I get either as the smoke is still clearing from the two side-chargers I bought. My new lower with an SSA-E trigger lands tomorrow.

I wonder tho - 5k rounds is about 2200 bucks in ammo if you're getting PPU 55gr FMJ. Cheap stuff. Would it be hard to spend 2200 over 6 months to squirrel away 5k rounds of 556 for most here? Not talking specifically about the video or the 5% left over.

Add another 900 for 5k rounds of 9mm ball - and you're on 10k rounds of the 2 most common SHTF cartridges for defense of home and hearth.

Glock or M&P for little money, AR for little money - no reason why you can't be the biggest warlord on your block when it goes bad for 5-6k.

I’m too old and creaky to be a “warlord”, have to settle for “gimpy minion”.

Same and there's too many people out there sitting on 5 AR's, 10k ammo but only have 6 total magazines.... Gonna have Grandma Sarah (a Jayhawker, anything from Missouri has a taint about it) sitting by the fire loading for them.

$500/1000 for 5.56 and $265/1000 for 9mm - brass,new.

$425 per 1K for the 556 HERE - PPU
$175 per 1K for 9mm HERE - ball

Both are brass cased.

This.

I tell everyone 1,000 rounds of ammo per pistol and 10 standard mags per pistol.

Rifles? 30 mags and 3,000 rounds.

'Cause you gotta have lotsa loaded mags to be in the fight.

Speaking of grandmas, the KELTEC PMR30 is a great grandma gun with appropriate ammo. Hits hard enough to make an impression, easy enough to rack the slide and to shoot to keep grandma in the game long enough to prevail.

Your mileage may vary.

And a way to carry them. Lots of people cracking about Larpers with their chest rigs but damn, 8 magazines on your chest, 1 in the gun and 2-4 on the waist is a lot better than 1 in the gun and 1 in a pocket of your cargo shorts.

Dang it! if things get that sporty here in rural Ky. I'm movin to St. Louie or Chi town.

I know, the only time you can have too much ammo is if you're swimming or on fire, but.......

It was an interesting video.

Looks like the vast majority of rounds were fired full auto. Add in a suppressor and that schedule was brutal and nothing 99% of shooters would ever be able to do.

Even the rental M-16s at the local indoor range are not abused that hard.

The barrel was fouled out, not shot out. A little gator skin won't hurt much but all that carbon and copper is a real problem.

The Huxwork Flow suppressor is notorious for fouling build up and that could have been causing the accuracy issues.

Interesting. Why? Intuitively I'd think the glass flow would cause havoc on the suppressor rather than feeding that gas carrying the carbon back into the rifle? Comparing suppressed v suppressed.

I suspect a muzzle bore diameter gauge would prove you wrong.

LOL.

Show the class a picture of a "muzzle bore diameter gauge".

I have Deltronic pins in .0001 steps to measure muzzle diameters.

I might have a bit better handle on how barrels die than average.

2 parts.

The Huxworks Flow has small channels for the gas flow and it's recommended to clean the suppressor every 2 thousand rounds.

Suppressors in general drive more fouling back into the barrel causing fouling in both the barrel and action to build up faster.

The HW Flow is better than most suppressors for less build up in the barrel and action but worse than most for fouling build up in the suppressor. It's a complicated design that requires 3D printing to manufacture.

Soaking in CLR seems to do a good job removing fouling so it's not a bad problem but GT was not cleaning anything and that was a pretty hard test of the suppressor.

I would have loved to test the sound level at shooters ear and muzzle before and after his run and see how much weight the can picked up in carbon fouling.

The Flow was a good choice for this test as a high back pressure can would have cause much greater issues. The guy (GT) is no dummy and he choose the Flow for a reason. Huxworks should be happy with the results.

Got it. That makes sense. I'm familiar with the Hux and the flow through ideas when I was shopping but never saw one cut to see the inside.

According to HuxWrx, he killed almost half the life of the can but you can do that when things are sent to you for free.

I bought mine thinking there was no way I'd shoot 20,000 rounds through mine on that SBR but now I'm shooting it on everything, hate to shoot unsuppressed. I need to buy another can.

And ammo or at least brass. Found 100 Lapua cases last night I had forgot I bought for my Montana but my bucket of IMI M193 brass is gonna keep me busy for awhile after checking prices on commercial brass. Bullets, primers and powder I'm good on.

And maybe a chest rig...

I think soaking in CLR every 2K or so will greatly extend the life cycle on the Flow.

Yes. A pin gauge of the proper diameter:

CLR the clacium, lime and rust remover?