I don't shoot that much. I bought an off the shelf armalite 556 about 20 years ago and it has run flawlessly. This last go round with the bad ejector spring in my 6.8 build project was a wake up to me.

With lots of rough use what is breaking?
I have an older friend who had a bolt break apart in the middle of a fire fight in Vietnam.
What have you guys seen actually break?

Run hard enough and long enough, just about every part in an AR can break.

Good quality bolts typically break somewhere in the range of 60-100K rounds.
Upper receivers wear out around 300k-500k rounds.
Ejector spring are cheap. I think Blue replaces his once a year.

Personally had a magazine catch break on my Bushmaster around the 20 year mark. Of course, I had an extra on hand, so it was a 5 minute fix to be up and running again.

Seems to me pivot pins would die.

I did replace mine once a year until I switched to Sprinco. They're rated for something like 30K cycles. Every new gun gets that right off the bat and then I don't mess with it ever again (although I do spot check when I irregularly clean them). Same with buffer springs.

***I'm talking about extractor springs, not ejector springs. I've only had to replace ejector springs on a PCC***

From the front of the gun going backwards and I'll include stuff that didn't actually break but wore out or caused malfunctions due to improper assembly. If it's listed it caused a problem significant enough to diagnose and fix.

Gas blocks improperly aligned because of a lack of dimple.

Glas blocks not torqued or dimpled that have come loose.

Gas tubes worn and leaking.

I suppose you could consider the MANY barrels that are improperly gassed

Barrel nuts improperly torqued and coming loose.

Barrels with burrs in the chamber that you could snag cleaning patches on.

Barrels with poor chrome plating that would rust.

Upper receivers worn that won't keep a charging handle closed.

Broken charging handles.

Bend charging handles.

Broken springs on ejection port covers.

Trigger springs improperly installed.

Trigger pin holes oversized that wouldn't hold pins.

Bent safety selector springs that wouldn't actuate the safety.

Safety selector detents that were too rounded at the tip that wouldn't keep the safety actuated.

Prematurely weak extractor springs.

Broken extractors.

Bolts with broken lugs.

Bolts broken completely in half.

Loose carrier keys.

Improperly staked carrier keys.

Carrier keys that were out of spec so they rubbed against the gas tube.

Improperly staked castle nuts.

Castle nuts that have come loose and allowed the stock to wobble.

Bent buffer tubes (6061 aluminum).

Prematurely weak buffer springs.

Blue,
Was all that you, or you have seen all that?

Not much I have actually seen
Even though I run lots of steel through mine
Many would make me believe my guns are doomed

Nice thing about an AR what ever breaks is an easy fix

Hank

Not all me, just stuff I’ve seen.

Ok.

If you need, you can borrow my wheelbarrow.


Had you broken all that,
Not a dam chance!

Fantastic list!
Thanks.
Things to keep an eye on

Off the top of my head,

Castle nut come loose.

One lug broken off on a bolt.

Loose gas key, was factory staked and it was a Colt too...

Gas key loose and leaking.

Ejector broken.

dpms bolt catch broken.

A receiver extension broken at the threads, commercial tube (same gun had a loose barrel nut)

I broke the rear taken down pin lug off the upper

As mentioned before, everything goes eventually. For a "range day emergency kit", keep a spare BCG (the PSA premiums are cheap enough it's easier to just do this than keeping all the spare small parts to swap out), gas tube/roll pin, and FCG springs/pins.

Anything that is more serious than that won't be fixed at the range, so no point in keeping that stuff around unless you have lots of rifles.....in which case, who cares about one you've got more rifles to shoot. (grin)


(seriously, the difficult thing about 'spares' is they eventually turn into 'spare rifles')

I've seen some hammers break.
Obviously the barrel is a consumable. That's what you'll probably replace the most beyond the dime parts.

That's a great configuration for your spare parts. AR for everyone in the house, plus one.

bent aluminum magazine lips not feeding, extractor failure, over gassed barrels, barrels with straight gouge cut across the twist (colt). Not broke a bolt yet, I guess I don't have 10,000 rounds on any "one" gun, maybe 5-6k on three of them

"one"? (grin)

(i'm around plus 10 or so after outfitting both of us.....if you count the ferrets i'm still plus 4 or 5; i've kinda lost count on the rifle front)

I've seen the buffer retainer fail. Locked the guy's gun up pretty solid.

AF,

I was paraphrasing the "minimum" standards....I left off the 1k round per rifle minimum as well.

If you have more, so much the better.

Ammo ain't a thang. Or at least the guns and ammo weren't a thang, till that horrible kayaking accident while goose hunting a couple months back.....

Additional note re OP: *DO NOT USE LOCTITE ON THE CASTLE NUT OR BUFFER TUBE THREADS*

It will *ALWAYS* migrate through the threads into the buffer retainer, and cause severe forking in an upward direction.

Mostly Extractors and I always have spare gas rings and a firing pin. I've seen rotten gas tubes also

Interesting. I almost always use Loctite on both, and have never had it migrate to the buffer retainer pin. I'm using Loctite 243 though, not one of the wicking grades, so maybe that's the difference? I also apply it to the male buffer tube threads, not the female receiver threads, so it doesn't get forced towards the retainer pin hole when the buffer tube is installed.

Lotsa barrels.

Hint...............

What is "forking"?

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

Hint: If someone were to say "that's forked up" on *THIS* forum, using context clues and what you know about certain deliberately misspelled words, use your critical thinking skills and report back to the class with your conclusions.

Don't tease Trybone...she's doing her BEST. Hint.

LAUGHING!..............

There's a jeopardy meme with that poster's name all over it.

He needs to get it together (grin)

Your gonna wind up on her Imaginary Pretend Ignore.

Laughing!...............

Somehow I thought it was more technical than that!

Don't be getting like BS now, using made-up lingo to try to sound like some sort of insider. That's just lame.

Hey Fug Stick, you rich bastard you, did you fly down to the Orange Blossom Regional and win some gold or are you still a loser/poser?

Trybone,

Your raging Estrogen levels are nearly as fhuqking HILARIOUS,as your Stupidity. Nearly. Hint. Congratulations?!?

Bless your heart for trying.

Hint.

Laughing!..............

Muktuk express is waiting for you stubby/stinky

Now you can say that you've "seen" a Garrow Hummer...you "lucky" kchunt. Hint. Congratulations?!?



Bless your Whining heart.

Hint.

LAUGHING!..............

Maybe some day you'll be able to shoot it.

Too bad you are too poor to buy a plane ticket and pay an entry fee.

88's and their .545BC at 2800fps ala magfed ASC smooch ain't hardly even "fair"...but now you can at least say you've "seen" one,you "lucky" kchunt. Hint. Congratulations?!?

Hint.



LAUGHING!.................

Actually, not much. The 5.56 AR-15, M-16 is a pretty well proven, well developed platform. After careers in the Marines and then in law enforcement, I used and maintained quite a few of the rascals. Parts failures, rifle failures, were rare.

Honestly, I've never messed with the other interesting cartridges currently available in the AR-15 rifle.

Semper Fi, Guy

I have seen more breakage on machine guns then on M16/M4s. Broke an operating rod on a M60 once and those things are thick. M-2 .50 cals went down pretty regularly. It seemed that M249 SAWs broke the easiest, but maybe we abused them the most. Every September, we would get whatever remained on the units ammo account and told to expend it over a 3-4 day period. We were rarely successful due to the sheer amount of ammo, and machinguns breaking down. I think they stopped that during the War in Iraq when .50 cal ammo started to get scarce. We abused the M16/M4s and and I am sure we burned out a few barrels, but really not a lot of breakages on them.

extractor issues. bolt lugs. doctored on single stage "GI" triggers( NEVER do this)go double/or worse. Thats about all I can recall, but the competition group we shot in for years didn't abuse their guns quite as much as others can/do. And a good chance most of them didn't start with the bottom line guns.

Other thing I"ve seen now, twice, since I saw it this past weekend, pin hole in a hammer not drilled straight which can cause issues.