Have read from several sources here that cleaning of the ar15 rifles is over rated. In that most of my experience with the platform was in the military I'll say that it was overdone if not over rated in that time and place.

What is the best way to clean this rifle and how often should it be cleaned?

Bore? how and when?

BCG?

Anybody ever touch the gas system?

Don't overthink this. With a spray can of carb cleaner. Get the chamber and extention. Spray the bolt and carrier down. Break the bolt down and spray the parts. You will have to scrape some carbon on the bolt. Oil it, put it back together. This should take all of 5, maybe 10 minutes. Go back to shooting. The Army has no concept of time so cleaning it the Army will take you hours.

kwg

I run a large pipe-cleaner soaked in Hoppes in the gas tube, hit it with some air and you'll know if its clean.

About every 30k rounds or one year, whichever comes first, rinse it off with JP4.

What about the bore? How many rounds are you guys comfortable with?

if its a chrome bore gun? rarely cleaned.

I clean the bore about every 250 - 500 rounds. Not to bare steel, but enough to get out some of the copper and most of the carbon. About every 700 rounds I'll clean the BCG. Oil the BCG when I clean the bore, maybe a time or two between.

30k or a bit more. I wasn’t joking. A little LSA in the bolt race probably helped now and then.

I just keep oiling them. The dustcover was invented to keep all the oil in.

I do a detailed tear down and cleaning about every three times I shoot. No issues yet. The guns are so simple to work on, it's easy to do.

Check out Hickok45's video on AR rifle cleaning.

put a few drops of slip 2000ewl on the bolt, in the bolt, on the bc, put it up, maybe a thousand rounds or so I suppose i clean the bolt and bcg, wipe out the chamber. I trust my experience more than I trust anyone on the interwebs. If you keep the bolt and bcg well lubricated and its a good bcg, it will go a long time, honestly now I don't know how long one will go without cleaning.

I don't have any special knowledge about cleaning protocols for the AR-15, but I like to keep my guns clean. All it costs is a few expendables and my time. Not to say I'm fanatic about it, well, maybe I'm fussy about technique. By that I mostly mean do no harm with the stuff you push through the bore. I've even seen benchresters do things that make me cringe, like sawing a cleaning rod up and down like an aerobic exercise or picking a patch off the ground and shoving it through the bore, or laying a coated rod on a gritty bench.

As they teach in medical school, First do no harm.

One tool I've made for myself and a few others is a short 3/8" cleaning rod with a fixed handle to clean the chamber and locking lug recesses with the special brush made for the purpose, then wiped with a patch wrapped around a .30 cal. bore brush. The short non-rotating rod lets you twist and pull more vigorously than a conventional bore rod with rotating handle.

Paul