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Gun Lubricants Take Two Odawgp

He Dog
Odawgp, cite your evidence. Many may indeed have other applications, but the same as Vasoline? I doubt that, and few of the oils or greses are up to the dry lubricants. I would agree that among the top on offer, there is probably not much to choose between them.
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  • beantownshootah
    While I do believe that lubrication reduces wear and tear on guns, and helps them run more reliably, I'm fairly skeptical about claims of "superlubricants" for gun applications. Yeah, some may be better than others for certain specific applications, but I believe that once you get to the better purpose-designed products, they're all going to work fine.

    Personally, I just use CLP-Breakfree and forget about it. Its probably not the "best" product out there for any of its individual three purposes, but its been around a LONG time, its been battle-tested, its readily available, not terribly expensive, and I know it does actually work.

    Still, some things are just empirically true.

    I think its plain that if something as common and inexpensive as ordinary vaseline could function well as a gun lubricant, lots of people would already be using it for that purpose successfully.

    But I have yet to hear of ANYBODY using it at all, let alone with any degree of success.

    In contrast, I've seen, or heard of individuals using all sort of inexpensive common substitutes for purpose built gun oils with varying degrees of success: Mobil 1 or other synthetic motor oils (which supposedly work well), 3-in-1 machine oil (also pretty good), various homebrew formulations like "Ed's Red", WD-40 (gets gummy; avoid), lithium or silicone greases, etc.

    Again, while it will work to some extent, ordinary vaseline is just too temperature sensitive to stick around in a hot gun, plus its too thick to flow easily into places you'd probably like it to go.

    Ff you're the kind of shooter who just fires a magazine or three through your gun then cleans and lubes for storage, then sure. . .you may never notice a difference between something like vaseline and a purpose-built gun lube.

    But I think if you're stressing your gun with a few hundred shots in a row, making it run hot, and not cleaning it, you are a lot more likely to run into the shortcomings of something like vaseline.

    In terms of a firearms application where vaseline really *could* excel is as a gun PRESERVATIVE. Vaseline is a gelled petroleum product, basically similar to cosmoline, only purer. So if you wanted to lock your gun away in maintenance-free storage for a decade (eg in a safe or your secret bunker), you could liberally coat it inside and outside with vaseline, and so long as it didn't get super-hot in your storage facility, you'd be good to go.
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  • Garth
    The best firearm lubricant on the market is by far bdsuperlube out of Lakeland Florida. Check out their web site for details. They have a contract with Macdill airforce base in Tampa Florida. I have personal experience with it. Once I owned a rusted solid double barrell shotgun. Solid orange. The superlube removed all rust and returned the original bluing finish. It repels carbon as well as lubricating firearm mechanisms. Every firearm omner should own a bottle of it. One small bottle costs approximately $10.00 and lasts 50 cleanings. F.Y.I. Best
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  • slumlord44
    If it will remove rust and restore blueing, I will take a gallon or two.
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  • Garth
    Its not that it restores the bluing, its the fact that rust grows over and covers over the metal and finish. It will remove the rust uncovering whatever finish is left. Best
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  • beantownshootah
    Edit: Again with the cheap substitutes, ballistol is highly regarded as a gun lube/cleaner and contains as its main ingredient paraffin oil, similar to the mineral oil you can buy over the counter at any drug store. So just mineral oil could probably work in a pinch.

    quote]Originally posted by slumlord44
    If it will remove rust and restore blueing, I will take a gallon or two.
    [/quote]
    Now we're getting WAY away from the original question about vaseline.

    Well, in theory it should be possible to chemically convert rust (which is Ferric Oxide, Fe2o3) to black oxide of iron (bluing, Fe3O4), but I don't think its possible to do that at room temperature with non-toxic agents, and I strongly doubt that this product will do it.

    I think many of the "penetrating" type oils can lift off rust, and if there were residual bluing underneath, you'd see it. So that could remove rust and (to some extent) restore bluing.

    Again, personally, I'm not inclined to believe in "superlubricants". I'll believe the marketing hype if and when I see objective scientific comparative testing done in a blinded manner by neural third party observers to prove it.

    This sort of thing comes close:
    http://www.thegunzone.com/rust.html

    I think this study is flawed in many ways (too small sample size and a good amount of subjectivity being two of them), but at least the idea is good:
    http://www.militec1.com/histresstest1.html
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