I was cleaning my Garand yesterday after a recent match. I disassembled the receiver and cleaned the barrel and action. As I was wiping the muzzle, I noticed the gas cylinder move a hair. So I checked, and my gas plug was loose... like by a 1/4 turn or so! I've never noticed any problem with cycling. I've had this Garand for several years and I always disassemble the rifle and do a good thorough cleaning but I've never removed the gas cylinder before, so I guess it must have been loose for a while and I never noticed. Well, I took it all apart and cleaned the carbon out of the gas cylinder, trap and plug. I put it all back together and now it's nice and tight!

My question is how critical is the tightness of the gas plug, and how often should I really be disassembling the gas system to clean it?