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What to use as gun lube if desperate?


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Ok, here are the 2 scenarios I was thinking about specifically:

 

1) Shit has hit the fan, what do you use if you have no gun lube/oil?

 

- For this I was thinking motor oil off the dipsticks of cars and other man made lubricants, but what would you do and how would you get it?

 

2) If you are in the previous situation, what would you use if you didn't have access to any man made lubricants?

 

- I have no idea for this one, maybe animal fats? But how the hell do you separate the oil from the animal? Maybe there is some sort of plant or plant resin/residue that you could use??

 

I ask because I am trying to educate myself always stay prepared!

Edited by socom688
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You're overthinking it. For an AK type gun, almost anything would work. Most other guns are also less picky than you think. Engine/gear oil, light automotive/industrial greases, maybe even olive/veg oil or crisco. Anything with a viscosity of common motor oils or light grease is probably going to work, some just may burn away faster than others.

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Jeeze....

When the SHTF? What'r you talkin' about?

As it is right now I just grab the dipstick from my auto-trans. :up:

 

"Gun Lube" is a scam.

The best lubricants in the world have already been made, and machines that have a whole lot harder life than a firearm use shitloads of them.

Gun lubes are just a mix of this & that, a few drops of perfume, and a big-ass price tag.

 

A thin layer of black Moly Grease for sheer surfaces, and a drop or 2 of ATF for rotational surfaces.

 

ATF is a high heat lube with all kinds of corrosion inhibitors.

 

If you're desperate, any machine's bound to be packed with lubes, and hell, if you're absolutely desperate start squeezing your pours. you'll get a little grease out each time... granted it'd look pretty weird though, wiping your face with an AK & all... This reminds me of when Pop's taught me how to fish, and he taught us to just drag our thumb & forefinger down our nose with a slight bit of pressure, and that would get just enough grease on our 2 fingers to lube the male end of the old style 2 piece fishing poles with metal fittings, so we'd be able to get them apart after fishing.

Oh, and there you go... :) Fish are real easy to get to the fat in. the underside of the skin's covered with fat (fish-oil).

 

For the best readily available rust protectant & fly-by-night solvent, grab the ol' WD-40. It outperforms damn near everything else out there. It was formulated to help protect missiles. It's main active ingredient is fish-oil.

A lot of old-timers will say not to use WD. Reason being, is because it works so well, that eventually it seeps into the steel, then the guns won't take to being blued, being as bluing is a controlled rusting process.

But now-days, hardly anyone blues guns that aren't safe queens, anymore.

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II don't want to use ATF, it's a paraffinic oil and by nature contains a high ammount of wax and after heat cycles in a firearm it will get waxy, it's designed for high heat/pres, but I personally don't want it gumming things up. The waxy properties are what makes it good at high heat and pres. After having to learn absurb oil info for a job in the area of machine oil/grease and motor/tran oils and then having a lot of customers swear by lucas oil products, which are shit and cause foaming and oxygenation of your oil and in fact make you loose any good properties in your oil, and finding the science to back that up (google bob is the oil guy) I wouldn't call myself an authority, but I know far more then the average bear. Most people think they saw Jesus when I tell them how the PAO levels and the base stock in Mobil 1 mean it is not actually a true synthetic and they are paying for marketing and REALLY fancy oil with high detergent levels.

 

Frog lube is what I go for in guns, and have been for quite some time, it's edible, and that's why I stick by the grease trap statement, if shit really hits, that is a viable option, esp greased peanut oil that is a high temp cooking oil. As Pauly said there is nothing new that hasn't been made, nature already has fantastic lubricants, and the tried and true hops gun grease and good old grandpa's clp will work fine as well.

 

I'm not really a fan of WD-40 it's 50% mineral spirits and the fish oil bit is totally false

http://www.wd40.com/about-us/myths-legends-fun-facts/

What a Fish story!

 

Myth: WD-40 contains fish oil.

Fact:

Consumers have told us over the years that they have caught some of the biggest fish ever after protecting their fish hooks and lures with WD-40. We believe this legend came from folks assuming that the product must contain fish oil since it appears to attract fish. Sorry Charlie®, it just ain’t so.

WD-40 Company has taken steps to respect and conserve the environment, and encourages its users to do the same. While WD-40 can be used to help protect fishing equipment from rust and corrosion, WD-40 Company does not recommend using WD-40 to attract fish.

Edited by Syndicate
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IDK man......

They also say WD's a great lube, which is a load of shit, and if it indeed does have fish oil, would we expect them to advertise it for their competitors?

 

As for its performance as a rust preventative though, check out the Brownelle's test (top link)

 

With ATF... I really never had issues with stuff gumming up. YMMV I guess.

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The info I posted was from WD-40's website, I didn't say it wasn't a good lube, go to that link, it's their facts page, also Snope's and several other sites have the fish oil debunk. The industry I was in had it's fair share of wives tales and a vast array of snake oils. I look at any claims around anything oil related with a lot of skepticism, and thanks to MSDS sheets you can quickly call bullshit on a lot of products.

 

http://www.wd40.com/about-us/myths-legends-fun-facts/

Edited by Syndicate
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+1 to what Pauly said. For my SKS and Mosen Nagant, I use Moly-Lithium grease. On AKMs, I use a little of this grease on the rails after I clean the rifle with my home made Ed's Red, but even if I don't grease up the rails, they're still pretty much good to go with the residue of the Ed's Red, which has ATF in the ingredients.

 

Mix up your own Ed's Red. From this website, you can see how you can make it yourself, and the "why" for each ingredient.:

http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm

 

From the 'Ed's Red' formula section:

You can divert a small quantity, up to 4 ounces per quart of the 50-50 ATF/kerosene mix for use as an "Ed's Red-compatible" gun oil. This can be done without impairing the effectiveness of the mix.

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I use kerosene for my choke tubes, have a big mason jar and just throw them in it lol

 

I have something like that Ed's Red, it's what a local Matco Tool truck guy makes, it's like a moly grease though, I use it for assembly lube on brake jobs, tiny bit on all the threads etc, use it on my M1A and Garand, but also find 1911s really like it. I got a mini grease gun for it.

 

I'm all about homemade stuff, funny enough the less complicated always seems to be the better.

 

http://www.froglube.com/productinfo.htm check it out though

 

this review is from someone that tried to debunk it http://forum.saiga-12.com/index.php?/topic/81288-what-to-use-as-gun-lube-if-desperate/

and several labs were going to use a bearing wear test to debunk it and in fact found that they would use it

 

also I liked it because the lack of burn off residue

 

Cost is the only thing I don't like about it, but it lasts quite a while

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Some of these posts made me LOL! But yeah, I'll be more specific. In my mind when I wrote up the question, I wasn't differentiating between a highly viscous grease as to an oil, I was just thinking about something that would keep the gun working.

 

A lot of these are good, but mainly focus on man made stuff. The scenario I am most interested in is in a situation where you don't have access to anything man made viscous oils/grease. Imagine being lost in the forest for a very extended period of time or something like that.

 

Animal fat. Ever skin a fat ass coon and try to wash that shit off your hands? Work well untill a bear or somethin smells it.

 

Nope, never skinned or cleaned an animal besides fish!

Edited by socom688
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well start damn it! :P

 

and your scenario was not defined that well, you said SHTF, if SHTF, I don't think we have to worry about a run on grease traps.

 

Ok so in your scenario, go find a place with crude oil, make a hand drill and then harvest it. :P

 

OOOORRR Go find a whale, murder it's ass whale wars style ie FUCKA YOU WHALE FUCK A YOU DOLPHIN! and then get the oil, done. It's pretty easy right?

 

Find animal like a cow, beat it over head, render fat, there ya go.

 

Or find an annoying person beat them over the head...

 

I find it hard to be in a scenario where there is no man made junk left unless you are on another planet, rule of thumb, men leave shit everywhere.

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I'd just go to the bench and get the next can of Rem Oil, or G96, or WD40. Failing that motor oil ought to work just fine. As a side note when WW2 soldier Hiroo Onada surrendered in 1973 his Arisaka rifle was working just fine after 30 years in the tropics using coconut oil.

Edited by Groovy Mike
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Step 1: Find a car

 

Step 2: Remove said car's oil pan screw

 

Step 3: Profit

 

Repeat steps 1, 2, and 3 if you are running low.

 

As some have said above, all that fancy gun oil is good and all but motor oil was made for moving parts. Just stock up on motor oil. As to which type of brand to use, many people have their opinions to which is the best.

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I'd use WD-40, I've used it for my S-12 a couple times, when I was at Knob Creek I noticed that most people on the firing line had cans of it behind them to keep the guns running through the show, and every garage or shop I've been in has had at least one can of it.

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I like that Top Ten show on rifles where the guy says that with the AK you can tie a knot in a boot lace, dip it in motor oil, and pull it through the barrel and that's good enough. I would think that most AKs, you could totally degrease them and they'll run just fine (not good for rust protection obviously). Even more so with the S-12 since you have no concern with rifling in the barrel.

 

On the WD-40 I've heard some stories of it penetrating into pistol and rifle rounds and making them not go bang. Probably a good idea to keep light penetrating lubricants away from the ammo.

 

Does ATF have penetrating properties?

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well start damn it! tongue.png

 

and your scenario was not defined that well, you said SHTF, if SHTF, I don't think we have to worry about a run on grease traps.

 

Ok so in your scenario, go find a place with crude oil, make a hand drill and then harvest it. tongue.png

 

OOOORRR Go find a whale, murder it's ass whale wars style ie FUCKA YOU WHALE FUCK A YOU DOLPHIN! and then get the oil, done. It's pretty easy right?

 

Find animal like a cow, beat it over head, render fat, there ya go.

 

Or find an annoying person beat them over the head...

 

I find it hard to be in a scenario where there is no man made junk left unless you are on another planet, rule of thumb, men leave shit everywhere.

 

haha.gifhaha.gif

 

 

 

 

On a more serious note, all valid points.

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K-Y Jelly.

 

So do you keep a large supply of K-Y "just in case"...?haha.gif

 

Nah. I'd only use K-Y if I was in a tight spot.

ZING!

 

as my esteemed coworker used to say, apply enough KY to anything and you can fuck it. He's like I stand by this, if a chick ever lets me, I will fuck her ear hole.

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K-Y Jelly.

 

So do you keep a large supply of K-Y "just in case"...?haha.gif

 

Nah. I'd only use K-Y if I was in a tight spot.

ZING!

 

as my esteemed coworker used to say, apply enough KY to anything and you can fuck it. He's like I stand by this, if a chick ever lets me, I will fuck her ear hole.

 

That sounds kind of hostile.

At least she'll hear you coming.

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