Weapons Lube Issued by Army May be Costing Lives in Iraq

abclocal.go.com ^ | 11/18/2003 | Jim Hoffer

[CarryaBigStick]

I always change the mag and brush out the action as soon as permissable after any type of messy event like this. I know, we don't live in a perfect world. I've always thought that mud was my rifles worst enemy.

[Uncle Jaque]

FYI - From the BALLISTOL Site:

Marketing Headquarters Facilities
Washington Trading Company, Inc.
BALLISTOL USA
1 Cypress Knee Trail
Kitty Hawk, NC 27949
Phone: 1.800.253.2460
-------------------------------------

Distribution
Products are delivered to independent Ballistol distributors at various locations throughout the Ballistol USA distribution system.

--------------------------------------------
Manufacturing

Ballistol USA now manufactures Ballistol-Lube in the United States with certain very important ingredients still being imported from Germany. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sister Companies:

In 1874, Friedrich Wilhelm Klever, an attorney with interest in economy, founded the "Klever Company" in Cologne, Germany.
He began producing oils and greases from coal and eventually bought a coal mine, so he would not run out of raw materials.
Freidrich's son, Dr. Helmut Klever, had become a professor of chemistry at the Technical University of Karlsruhe. He set out to develop an all-around oil for the Army.
In 1904 Dr. Helmut Klever succeeded in producing an oil, which he named "BALLISTOL, from the word 'ballistic' and the Latin word for oil 'oleum'.

BALLISTOL has been around in Europe for over 90 years. Originally invented for military use it became a household word in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Millions of users have experimented with BALLISTOL and found new surprising applications for it, some of which reach into field of veterinary and even human medicine.

As an aside, I have used it on insect bites and eczema (rashes) of various sorts, with better results than many drugstore preparations.
I even used some as deoderant during a hot and dirty Civil War Reenactment encampment, and it worked pretty well, actually.

Ballistol really is amazing stuff!

[William Tell]

AdamSelene235 said: "A well designed firearm shouldn't even require lubrication..Glocks don't..."

I just received the December/January issue of Handguns magazine. The Gunsmithing article on page 24 discusses a Glock failure during a sidearm qualification and quotes the "Glock Armorer's Manual" as saying "Most important is the drop of oil where the connector and trigger bar meet".

From my own Glock Manual:

LUBRICATING THE FIELD STRIPPED PISTOL
To properly lubricate your GLOCK pistol after it has been thoroughly cleaned and dried, use a clean patch that has been slightly dampened with quality gun oil. Wipe the outside of barrel, including the barrel hood and lugs, the inside top of the slide forward of the ejection port where the barrel hood rubs against the slide and the opening that the barrel slides through in front of the slide. One drop of oil should be spread along the entire length of each slide rail cut.
Most important, a drop of oil is needed (Figure 14) where the rear end of the trigger bar touches the connector at the right rear corner of the frame.

This will assure proper lubrication of your GLOCK pistol without over-lubricating. GLOCK pistols are designed to operate properly with only small amounts of lubrication.

DO NOT OVER-LUBRICATE your GLOCK pistol, as large quantities of oil or grease will collect unburnt powder and other residue, which could interfere with proper functioning of your GLOCK pistol.

WARNING: Do not put oil inside firing pin channel or magazine. The magazine (inside and out) and breech face should be wiped dry before reassembly. Leaving solvent or lubricant in these areas could cause contamination of primers and failure to fire.

My experience in the Army was that the average soldier would think that "if a little lubricant is a good thing then a lot of lubricant is even better". This is a recipe for disaster in a dusty environment.

My own recollection of the proper goal with the M16 was to leave just barely enough lubricant to make a fingerprint on most surfaces. Even less was required on the firing pin and the surfaces on which it operated.

Years ago I knew a fellow who worked on vacuum deposition equipment which made use of rubber o-ring seals. These seals would be cleaned thoroughly with solvent. His approach was to grease the o-rings and then use a dry rag to remove all the grease. The grease that cannot be removed with a dry rag is the right amount. This describes how much lubricant I would leave on the firing pin.

[Iris7]

Cleaning firearms is a separate matter from lubrication, and depends on what has made the weapon dirty. Tide, sodium carbonate, hot water, and elbow grease will get rid of most things. Gilding metal fouling comes off pretty well with aqua ammonia and stainless bore brushes. Automotive brake and carb cleaner have their place. An amine like Gunk SC is useful.

For maintenance cleaning of unfired weapons there is a ton of stuff.

As for lubrication I have some affection, on "stainless", for Molykote G-n Paste applied with a toothbrush to scrub it in, then a few action cycles, then wipe up the excess (where it doesn't rub) and reassembling.

With steel guns maybe Mobilith SHC PM grease, maybe LPS #2 or #3, maybe Krytox GPL 227, rated to -22 F. or Krytox 240AZ Type 1, rated to -70 F. There is the very rugged Dow Corning #3451 flourosilicone oil, flourocarbon thickener grease, which if probably the best overall in non-dusty applications. Maybe even vaseline in warm marine situations. All of these would be the wrong stuff in a dusty area.

These are all everyday industrial products.

This militec stuff sounds like a straight EP additive, OK for stainless maybe.

M16s need constant cleaning. For lubing them in general I would use Dri-Slide, then dust as needed with a cut down shaving brush. For most troops, who are not riflemen, a properly built AK is more suitable than an M16. With the big chamber so they aren't at all accurate by a rifleman's standards, but reliable.

[Iris7]

"The grease that cannot be removed with a dry rag is the right amount."

That is about right. A little more here and there. Over lube a bit, operate the action maybe fifty times, and disassemble to separate parts, and look at the parts closely with a magnifier. You will see where the little bit extra goes. A table spoon of grease will do a M1911 maybe ten times, with most of that wiped off before reassembling. All that is needed is an amount about the size of a pea.

[MarkL]

I do believe there is a corporate link between CLP and BreakFree. I can research it if you'd like me to.

No, don't bother yourself. I don't use it all that often, and I'm certainly not going into battle.

Thanks,

Mark

[yarddog]

Thanks, I just ordered two of the Dri-slide aerosol cans.

Still think I will check with the hardware store for some powdered Moly.

[newgeezer]

I guess this might explain the many "jammed" guns we've been hearing about.

[biblewonk]

We've certainly heard a lot of that but there is a big difference between Lynch's relationship with her m-16 and a seasoned infantry man or ranger.

[Cogadh na Sith]

Ret. Lt. Col. Robert Kovacic: "It didn't work when I was a tank commander and it's not working now."

He's right. He is 100% right.

I've followed this extensively--CLP sucks by very design. It is a 'modern' lube in that it is composed of microscopic teflon balls suspended in a 'solvent' that keeps them floting--like little ball bearings.

The problem begins when that solvent evaporates off in a hot, dry environment. Under those conditions, the teflon spheres gum all up and stick rather than lubricate--dust loves to stick in that stuff as well. Under more extreme conditions of rapid firing or Final Protective Fire type thing, it gets better: The teflon decomposes and becomes gummy and then burns off to become a rock-hard residue.

Do any of you guys remember the Tech Manual warnings not to use CLP on machineguns for that reason?

Under hot, dry conditions the only way to 're-float' the teflon balls is to throw on more CLP, or clean all the residue out and then put more on--the more lube, the better because the solvent hangs around longer.

Of course, that is exactly the wrong thing to do in a desert environment. For the desert, you want a pretty 'dry' gun with looser tolerances so the dust that works its way in works its way out again. Like the 'sand grooves', the Brits cut on all the L1A1 bolts and receivers.

I've shot and hunted extensively in New Mexico in very hot and dry conditions with M-16 variants (AR-15) and other rifles with no stoppages. I'd never use CLP on a weapon I owned or one I had to trust my life to....

You'd be better off using 'Outers' or plain old 30 weight oil--sparingly in the desert and plenty in humid climes.

[Uncle Jaque]

Yowzzah!

Most of the products you mention, I've never even HEARD of!

I'm impressed!! {8^{D~

My Dad was an Engineer and got ahold of some Molibnium (?sp) grease, which he used on the hinges of bullet-casting moulds and such.

It is (I still have some in a 35MM film cannister) a dark, sticky charcoal gray substance. It seems that it applied just like regular grease, but at high tems the colloidal gel it was suspended in voporized, leaving a coating of dry molibnium between the working parts. That was good up to about 1200F or the metal started melting down, at which point I suppose that lubrication would be a moot issue.

We used to use it on the cilyender (I never could spell that right) pin of cap-and-ball revolvers, but other greases seem to work about as well for that and I hardly ever use the "Moly" any more.

Perhaps it might be effective in machine-guns where high temps are an issue.
I would not know, as there are none of those around here, and hopefully will never have need of one.

How BALLISTOL performs at very low temps I don't know either, and one of the products you mention might well prove a better alternative under those conditions.

Since I was such a lousy Hunter I gave it up years ago (the only deer I ever bagged was with the front bumper of a NHSP Cruiser over 30 years ago) that will probably not be much of an issue here any time soon.

There has been a related topic over on one of the gun forums about the relative merits of the M-16 family vs. the AK-47 which is kicking up some interesting controversy between quite a few contributors, including former Army and USMC Armorers and (it seems) some active - duty Warriors in the field as well.

I posted a link to this topic over there, and am hoping that some of them can weigh in on this issue as well, as they, like yourself, seem to really know what they are talking about (from field/combat experience in many cases) and both sides of the issue are being represented.

BTW; I like your Tagline! Amen indeed!

[js1138]

This sounds like 'Nam all over again.

[Uncle Jaque]

RE:

"... there is a big difference between Lynch's relationship with her m-16 and a seasoned Infantry man or Ranger."

What!!??

Really??!

But... but... She had that nifty new black beret, didn't she?
Her weapon SHOULD have worked all right!!!

(Now that Rangers have to wear brown hats, will they have to start cleaning their weapons, too?) };^{)~

[biblewonk]

I'm not sure we understand each other.

[jjm2111]

Bump to read comments later. If my unit gets recalled, I'm going to buy cases of Militec with my own money if need be.

[jjm2111]

I'm glad this info came out. My unit has CLP and if we get recalled I want the good stuff. Thanks for the link. Bookmarking.

[Blood of Tyrants]

First, imagine that you are driving down a road in a truck with the windows down because it is so damned hot and you don't have A/C.

Now, imagine that the road isn't paved and never has been.

Now imagine being 15th in line behind 14 other trucks and that the dust almost chokes you such that you have to wear a rag over your nose and mouth to breath. The dust literally gets into EVERYTHING.

Now imagine that your job in the Army is mechanic and truck driver and that since your weapon was stored most of the time and hardly ever fired, it hardly ever needed maintainence nor did it malfunction. You, being young and not up to date on weapons in dusty environments, simply use what the Army gave you, naively thinking that the Army MUST have known about the dust and the problems with the M-16 (after all, it has been the standard issue rifle for almost 40 years) so you simply use what they gave you.

Of course, the above is a recipe for a rifle jammed tighter than a tick on a hound.

Now, if for a few dollars per soldier, this can reduced by even 25%, why not give it to them?

[Blood of Tyrants]

He gave it to my buddy in Iraq even though I had already ordered it and given him my CC.

[Blood of Tyrants]

They never hit anything either. The relatively low velocity 7.62 X 39 round makes it unsuitable for ranges more than 300 yards and the inherent inaccuracy of the AK-47 (4-6 MOA) reduces that to about 100 yards.

As our troops in coutless battles have proven, only hits count. Volume of fire means nothing if you can't hit the broadside of an elephant from 200 yards.

I would be more afraid of one sniper at 1000 yards who had a bolt gun and knew how to use it than 20 Iraqis with AK's at 300 yards.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Except now they are freezing their butts off at night!