A Bugout AR Cleaning Kit

[EssOne]

Over the years my life in a state that is either burning or flooding brought me into an intimate relationship with a lot of evacuations - my wife and I even had to bug out ourselves in the face of a bad flood in 1986. Because of these experiences I’ve tried to have my bugout stuff all ready to go, including my AR’s. I should explain before getting started that my Army and LE experiences led me to consider my firearms as complete individual weapons systems, with little to nothing shared between the different guns. Each rifle has it’s own individual case, sling, supply of extra mags, spare parts, oil, tools, and so on. Each pistol is contained in its own case with extra mags, oil, rod, and mag loader.

 

Not too long ago I woke up to a goodly flaw in my bugout planning - it finally dawned on me that I didn’t have a bugout rifle maintenance kit for each rifle. So here’s what I did to correct the problem.

 

I really enjoy repurposing stuff, so I decided to make a bugout maintenance kit for each AR from extra items I already have on hand. The kit had to be compact, bare bones simple, inexpensive, effective, and it had to last long enough to clean the rifle several times.  So to get started I had to decide what to put in the kit. After some study I decided that each kit had to have these things:

 

Solvent

Oil

Patches

Rags

Pipe cleaners

Bore brush and chamber brush

Toothbrush

Homemade bore pull

A bore rod

 

OK, I figured out what to put in the kit, so the next problem was to figure out what to contain this stuff in.

 

 

A couple of years ago I bought a couple of wallets that were packed in very compact metal tins.  These tins were flat, strong, and had enough room in them to hold many of the things I needed, so they became my kit containers.

 

 

To store the oil and solvent, I needed two containers that would fit into the tin, last a long time, and wouldn’t be broken down by the oil and solvent. The answer was a couple of empty nose drop sprayers with the labels removed, straws discarded, and soaked in 90% Isopropyl Alcohol to sanitize them. They are about as close to ideal as you can get without having to buy a specialized container.  They hold a good quantity of liquid, have a very useful pointy spout with a screw-on cap to prevent leaks, dispense liquid at a useful rate, and lay flat in the tin.  Just what the doctor ordered.

 

OK, what else?

 

 

For oil I went to the tried-and-true Mobil 1 0W20 synthetic motor oil for lubrication, and M Pro-7 for my solvent. I actually prefer Ed’s Red, but I chose the M Pro-7 because it has a water base that doesn’t attack the container, and because it’s a darn good cleaner. (I think the Ed’s Red would eat away at the squirter, so I didn’t use it.)  You may be aware that the Army and Armalite Corporation conducted a study and determined that the two most commonly available substances that can be used to clean and lube these rifles are synthetic motor oil and automatic transmission fluid. I’m sure that in a bugout situation I will always be in close proximity to an automobile, so I kept my quantities in the kits small.

 

 

 

 I had a couple of extra five dollar Walmart coated steel .22 rods, so I put one in each rifle case, essential for knocking out stuck cases, but primarily to use for cleaning the receiver and chamber (woops, next photo). For bore cleaning I made a chain pull out of a 6” piece of bead chain tied to some 20lb. monofilament fishing line, which was in turn attached to the cut-off lower hem of a T shirt. I’ve used these homemade pulls for a long time and they’re super.

 

 

 

This photo shows the entire kit all laid out. For brushes, I included a .22 caliber nylon rifle bore brush for general bore cleaning, and a .45 caliber nylon rifle bore brush (or else a nylon chamber brush ) to double as a chamber brush and mandrel for rags used to clean out both ends of the bolt carrier. Then there is the double ended nylon gun cleaning toothbrush for getting into the barrel extension and just about everything else. For rags, I had some 8”x 8” storebought cleaning rags left over from a revolver class I’d done a couple of years ago, so I included four of them and four rough pipe cleaners and  a dozen or thereabouts .22 caliber patches. Just for good measure I included some 12 gauge patches to augment the cleaning rags.

 

 

 

I’d like to say I can get everything into the tins, but I can’t. The cleaning rags, chain pull, and toothbrush have to be kept in separate zip lok bag in the same compartment in the rifle case as the tin, usually rubber banded to it. And obviously I have to carry the bore rod in the case with the rifle.  I figured I wouldn’t be able to get everything I needed into them, and sure enough couldn’t. But I’ll claim credit for a near miss on that one. They do a great job of protecting the oil and solvent dispensers.

 

 

 

During the writing of this post I acquired another rifle but didn’t have any more tins. So I raided my tackle box for a plastic Plano lure box and found that the nose drop bottles wouldn’t fit, so I used some other bottles instead. Here’s a photo of it. Moral: More than one way to skin a cat.

 

 

 

And here is a photo showing the two kits all set up and ready to go into their rifle cases. Hopefully this will give you an idea of their size and bulk. You'll note that both are wrapped in a good plastic bag to protect the gun cases from leaks.

 

There are things I was tempted to do differently, like use commercial Bore Snakes and add grease to the ingredients. But I was trying to do this as cheaply as possible while including only the very essentials. Besides, I don’t intend to spend that much effort on the bore in a field situation. I’m a firm believer that 90% of field cleaning effort should be devoted to the action and only 10% to the bore, especially with the AR. And that’s where my chrome lined bores and chambers come in handy, IMHO.

 

I’m sure my kits aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some will find them too simple or too basic, and some guys just don't like home made stuff. My Army experience was light weapons infantry, so I’m accustomed to cleaning rifles with the barest of barebones cleaning gear, and I had to practice economy of space in order to get everything into the rifle cases I want to bug out with. So I kept them very, very basic. After all, they are intended to get me through a rough spot in the road, not support the rifle for a long period of time.

 

Anyway, these kits are what I believe will suit my needs if push comes to shove and I hope you might have gotten some ideas from them for your own use. Good luck.

 

EssOne

Edited August 20, 2015 by EssOne

[Caster]

Poor Man's OTIS.  I like it.   :up:  :up:  :up:

[gjohnsoniv]

You know that's one if the nice things about the A2 stock, the storage compartment. I really like your idea though. Might have to make some for my other rifles.