lubricationI recently stumbled over a video where someone swore by using wheel bearing grease on his ARs for high round count shooting and training. A can of wheel bearing grease costs about $8 for 1lb, while a 1.5oz tube of TW25 might cost me $8-10. This actually makes quite a bit of sense, firearms didn’t invent high temperature, metal on metal friction surfaces. I’m about to begin an experiment with ceramic brake lubricant on one of my handguns and was wondering if anyone has tried something like this before? If so what were your results?
For additional references see: http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm#Oil
firearms didn’t invent high temperature, metal on metal friction surfaces
Exactly right. Oftentimes excellent results can be had from non-firearms-specific lubrication products.
There are several different types of lubricant needed, depending on the purpose/requirement of the joint/surface of the firearm in consideration. For example, the bolt lugs of a rifle need to have lubricant that stays in place even in the face of high pressure sliding/wiping contact. A pretty ordinary grease does a good job of this, whereas a high tech high performance oil might not stay there after several dozen (or hundreds) of cycles - it’s not that the high tech gun oil is a poor lube, it’s just that it doesn’t fit that particular application well. But on the bolt body of a rifle or the slide of a pistol the applicability is probably reversed.
Automatic Transmission Fluid is also a fantastic lubricant for ARs and slides. For personal shooting, a $5 quart of it will last you years easily. Here's the first Google result for "Automatic transmission fluid gun lubricant.
Bonus: Casually referring to it as ATF will confuse folks at the range. "Yeah, the ATF is really protecting my bolt carrier! I'm very pleased with the job it's doing!"
I use a 50/50 mix of ATF (automatic transmission fluid) and 5w30 (oil weight is not to big of an issue) synthetic motor oil. Having used CLP in the military (4years, Infantry, 82nd Abn) I have found that this mixture dissolves carbon much better and prevents the gun from getting dirty better as well. As of now I have only used it on my ARs, but have plans to start using it on my pistols as well.
I am not a fan of using grease as a lube. I explain in the following Q & As…
http://firearms.stackexchange.com/questions/549/lubrication-methods-oil-vs-grease/589#589
http://firearms.stackexchange.com/questions/543/how-should-i-lubricate-my-1911/582#582
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