Posted on 09/05/2012 4:09:22 PM PDT by Kartographer
We discovered that the regular issue Cleaner, Lubricant, Protectant (CLP) [which is a Mil-Spec lubricant, sold commercially under the trade name "Break Free CLP".] CLP was contributing to the problem more than fixing it. It is true that we cleaned our weapons daily sometimes two or three times depending on conditions and enemy activity. Our M16/ M4s would function properly as long as they were cleaned routinely. Problems would occur when troops were engaged for prolonged times and couldn't risk breaking down their weapons to clean out all the dirt. We would simply pour in more CLP. An AR-15 type rifle will fire and function dirty as long as it is liberally lubricated. The problem is the more oil you pore down the bolt and into the chamber the more dirt it collects. What we discovered is that using Mobil1 synthetic motor oil usually in a 0w30 or 5w30 works much better than the CLP. At $10 per quart it is on the expensive side as motor oils go. But when compared to CLP or Rem Oil that are usually sold in 6 ounce containers at $5 to $6 it is much more cost effective. We also experimented with it on out crew served weapon systems. We found it to out perform the (Lubricant, Small Arms (LSA) used on the M2 (.50 Cal Browning machinegun) and MK-19 (40mm grenade launcher).
(Excerpt) Read more at survivalblog.com ...
I wish I could find the pic of guys on an M-88 somewhere in Vietnam dumping a quart of "issue" motor oil into the guts of a smokin' hot .50 cal to keep it going.
I’d watch using anything with acetone in it on any component of synthetic/plastics.
It was pretty common to use 5606 (hydraulic fluid) on the air 60s, mostly for cleaning. Very similar to xmission fluid, or at least it’s red.
Speaking of red, “Ed’s Red” is great stuff. It’s a homebrew cleaner preservative, a modern variant on a recipe from one of the old arsenals.
The “red” part comes from Dexron - tranny fluid - along with Acetone, Kerosene, etc.
I’m a big fan of Ballistol. It can be found here: http://www.ballistol.com
I wish I could afford one of those. I do have an RWS Diana model 48 which is a side lever springer. It is both accurate and powerful and not that hard to cock.
Well what do you know, I’ve been using Mobil 1 on my guns for at least 10 years now and synthetic ATF on my fishing reel bearings. It’s good to accidentally be ahead of the curve.
It’s good for leather, too. Supposed to be excellent for muzzle-loaders, with the black powder residue.
However,
Still have most of the can left that I bought, - that stuff really stinks, enough to make me hurl. It ain’t Hoppes #9 lemme tell ya. Hm.
Most of the stuff sold or used as “gun lube” is at best, more expensive than it ever needs to be and is no better than motor oil, some things are at worst detrimental to firearms.
On the “worst” end of the spectrum we have WD-40 and CLP. WD-40 is NOT a lubricant by design - it is a water-based machining coolant dispersing fluid. It’s designed to get under water-soluble oils used in machining and get it off the metal, which used to be an important function in a machine shop before non-corroding water-based oil emulsions became more common.
CLP is OK for cleaning, but is a poor lube.
In my work on guns, the only thing I used WD-40 for is lubricating a cut on aluminum. When I’m milling or flycutting aluminum, spraying a little WD-40 into the cut produces a mirror finish. Other than that... I don’t even have it in my toolbox.
On the fairly expensive but only-slightly-better-than-useless end of the spectrum are things like RemOil.
But let’s get back to your point: The idea of using synthetic motor oil has real merit.
Let’s back up a moment: What is or has been the best gun lube in the past? Because gun makers used to have a strong preference in the past... and it was sperm whale oil. It was the perfect lube - didn’t dry out, didn’t turn rancid or gummy, resisted breaking down at higher temps, stayed where you put it, lubed even in sub-zero conditions, etc.
As a kid, I remember how well sperm whale oil (which is actually more like a gel than a pourable oil at room temp) lubed my model cars, guns, you name it. Then the damn bunny-snugglers banned importation, sale, etc. People have been fined thousands of dollars recently for putting “found” inventories of sperm whale oil up for sale on the ‘net.
Everything since then has been an effort to duplicate sperm whale oil. Synthetic motor oils and (especially) synthetic ATF’s are getting closer to sperm whale oil characteristics all the time.
ATF and hydraulic fluids have important attributes of being pretty good at low temperature performance, but they tend to run off too easily. Synthetic motor oils share many of these attributes, and stick a bit better where you put them. Motor oils have lots of detergents in them, which is used to carry away combustion byproducts to the filtration system. ATF’s and hydraulic oils (or spindle oils) avoid these additives.
So we need a tackifier added to the oil, much as some types of machining oils (in particular, “way oils” used on machine ways) have in them. Using “way oil” on guns is probably better than most of the things you can get out of a bottle, but most people can’t find way oil without going through an full oil line dealer or a machinery supply shop. What people need is something they can brew up from local supplies - like the local NAPA parts shop.
One homebrew formula I’ve been taught is ‘Bug juice’ from some USA armorers:
2 quarts Mobile 1 synthetic 10W30
1 quart ATF (doesn’t much matter which ATF - Mercon/Dextron III is probably easiest to find)
1 pint STP oil treatment (which adds tackiness to the oils)
1 9 oz bottle of Hoppes #9. I think you could sub a little bit of mineral spirits here.
This is not the same as “Ed’s Red” cleaning mixture, which is a whole ‘nuther issue.
On my AR-type objects, which have now tragically been lost due to a boating accident (in which my boat collided with another former gun owner’s boat on the Purgatory River in Colorado, and both craft exploded, burned and subsequently sank beneath the rocks on the bottom of the river bed...) this mixture is needed only in small quantities. Put a drop (as in ONE) on the bolt and wipe it around the rings before you insert it into the carrier, put another drop on the outside of the carrier and smear it around before you put the carrier into the upper, etc. On a bolt gun, you need only put a drop into the bolt raceways. On shotguns, you need only lube the breech block, action bar(s) and possibly a gas piston (depending on the shotgun in question). On something like a A5, you might want to lube the barrel/receiver interface.
As for cleaning: Look into a product called “M-Pro 7” for cleaning carbon and plastic deposits:
http://www.mpro7.com/mpro7-gun-cleaner.html
This is the first thing I use when cleaning guns - especially shotguns suffering from plastic wad fouling. To remove plastic fouling from a shotgun, push a sopping wet bore mop or shop towel down the bore and then leave the barrel sit for, oh, 30 minutes. Go down the bore with a bronze brush, then follow with a dry cleaning mop or cotton rag pushed with a small dowel. Plastic is gone.
Sometimes, people are alarmed to see pitting “suddenly show up” in their barrels after using M-Pro 7. Here’s the reality - the pitting was there (on older guns) or developed from non-cleaning by the owner(s) - and the pits used to be filled with plastic and carbon. MPro 7 didn’t cause the pits - it only cleaned them out.
On rifles and pistols, M-Pro 7 removes the carbon fouling better than any other product I’ve used. NB, I’m saying ONLY the carbon and plastic fouling is removed with this product - but those are often the most difficult to really strip out of a bore. I’ve seen people saw patches through a bore for 20 minutes after soaking with Hoppes, then using a brush, and they still can’t get a clean patch. With MPro, you can get clean patches pretty quickly if you let it soak for a little while.
For removing copper fouling, there’s several active bore cleaners which I’m sure people know about - but people should NB that these won’t attack all copper fouling. Not all copper used for jacket material is the same. The copper solvents that remove the jacket copper from your run-of-the-mill or premium jacketed hunting bullets might not remove copper fouling from Berger or Barnes 100% copper bullets. USP Bore Paste is a very fine garnet non-embedding abrasive which can remove copper fouling from a barrel pretty quickly.
Lead fouling can be removed with penetrating oil type products, of which Hoppes #9 is one. Another good one is Kroil penetrating oil (available only directly from Kano Laboratories). These all need time to penetrate under the lead to allow it to be removed with a brush.
Some firearms which can lead up very fast might need a more aggressive tool to remove lead. eg, revolvers have notorious leading issues in the forcing cone. A Lewis Lead Remover does the trick well:
http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=21587/Product/LEWIS-LEAD-REMOVER
When I was in Nevada, I found that most any oil or grease on guns attracted the powder-fine alkaline dust that blew in off the playa, seemingly from every direction at once. I ditched most all liquid or grease lubes and ran with a mixture of powdered graphite and moly disulphide, with a little mineral spirits as a carrier that would dry off. Fortunately, most gun owners will never need to deal with the alkaline dust blowing in off the playas. It’s both gritty and corrosive and is the very work of Satan himself, as far as firearms are concerned.
My personal experiences were with the UN-chrome barrels was the problem not he oil we where using. ,,, back in the 60's,,, 40 plus years take it toll on the memory,,
I’m a big fan of Ballistol too. It’s my go-to light lube for lockwork and trigger areas, but I’ve had very mediocre results when using it as a lube in gas-operated guns.
It is, after all, a lube that pre-dates gas operated guns by a fair bit, and was designed as a “all-in-one” lube - for saddles, tack, boots, guns, etc.
It does do a bang-up job for a quick rub-down on leather boots, holsters and other leather goods.
“Seems that I’ve read that the soviets discovered that mixing a bit of gasoline with the oil kept the oiled parts moving freely during the winter siege of Stalingrad.”
Mobil 1 takes care of this problem. And I have an additive for Mobil 1 that will enhance its lubricity...PowerUp.
Power Up NNL 690 is a unique boundary lubricant which is specifically formulated to solve many of today’s tribological problems in high pressure boundary conditions where metal to metal contact is inevitable. NNL 690 works by forming a wear reducing, protective film which is capable of withstanding extreme pressures as high as 200,000 lbs per sq. inch. NNL 690 provides critical engine parts, such as the ring zone, cam lobes and turbocharger, with boundary lubrication protection far exceeding that of conventional oils. NNL 690 is a carefully balanced, complete additive package which contains anti-wear and extreme pressure additives, detergent/dispersants, viscosity index improvers, corrosion inhibitors and acid neutralizers. http://www.powerupusa.net/index.php/products/power-up-products/nnl-690
Add this to Mobil 1 and you will have an unbeatable lubricant...1 to 2 oz of NNL 690 per quart of Mobil 1. For this application I would choose either 0-30 or 5-30. It will not make a significant difference in lubricity. The NNL 690 provides the boundry layer lubricity, and the Mobil 1, a full synthetic, provides the temperature independent lubricity.
I use this combination in my vehicles, have for many years. I love this idea for gun oil. And compared to the best, high priced gun oils, this combo is very economical.
Thanks
The new lube all the rage on other gun forums is something called Froglube. Comes as an oil and a thicker stuff that is supposed to go on warmed parts to spread, and stays on to lube when cooled down. No idea how well it works.
I used to use WD-40 until I took apart an old airgu that I had lubed the trigger bits with the stuff years before. It had congealed into a gooey mess. A RWS air pistol recently disassembled had the same issue. Dunno what happens with the stuff, but it does not stay stable with time. Tri-flo for similar stuff these days, or Mobil 1 for guns.
Ed’s Red = equal parts each of ATF, kerosene, paint thinner and acetone.
Conveniently, those can all be gotten in quart quantities, to make 1 gallon.
I have used it to clean numerous guns with both polymer and wood furniture (including Glocks) ... never had any trouble with the acetone eating the plastic.
Full synthetic motor oil was recommended years and years ago to those of us who cast heavy lead bullets for bigger bores used in extreme cold weather. Extreme cold can really slow bullets down, otherwise.
Did you read Ross Seyfried in the day?
I was shooting my .44 and came to believe that 240-300 gr heavy hand loads were better than the faster 180-220 gr loads I was playing with. A couple bears and a few deer seemed to agree over the years.
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