You’ve probably forgotten that there was a characteristic bit of cybersturm und drang last fall when Vuurwappen Blog smelled a vegan rat and sent a bottle of FireClean to, well, someone for analysis. Three labs, actually. Their conclusion: FireClean is, for all intents and purposes, garden variety vegetable oil. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if it, you know, works. Nicky wrote about the kerfuffle here. As usually happens in these situations, both sides got their backs up and flung a little poo at each other for a while, then the whole thing died down. The mega-minds at FireClean, however, are apparently woefully unfamiliar with the Streisand Effect . . .
The company has now filed a lawsuit against Vuurwapen proprietor Andrew Tuohy and Everett Baker, the chem major who did some of the analytical work. They’re pissed off that Tuohy said FireClean was really Crisco. For his part, Tuohy says he never claimed it was rebadged Crisco. There’s more claimed in the suit, but we’ll leave all that to vultures lawyers to sort out.
In any case it apparently never occurred to the FireClean brain trust that the suit and attendant hoopla would only dredge the controversy up again for the gun-buying public, further hurting their reputation – whatever the composition of their gun grease may be.
Tuohy and Baker have put up a GoFundMe page to raise some dinero with which to mount a legal defense. If you value the ability of bloggers to write honestly about the gun business, you may want to consider helping them out.
I was *REALLY* hoping that this was an April fools joke….
Nope, and they sued George Fennell, the maker of Weapon Shield: http://goo.gl/zjFPZd
To whom it may concern – This is claimed to be FireClean’s patent application:
It may or may not be Fire Clean’s actual patent app –
https://www.google.com/patents/CA2867869A1?cl=en&dq=CA+2867869+A1&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIyqvwt5XhxgIV0gWSCh2sXg_p
It lists Edward A. SUGG, Edward A. SUGG, David W. SUGG, David W. Sugg as the Inventors…
Just use a little FireClean before you go into court so it won’t hurt as much.
I don’t think guys at FC care so much that Vuurwapen said FireClean was Crisco, I think they are (justifiably) pissed that Vuurwapen and other insinuated that it was suddenly somehow less effective after this discovery. I hope they get every last penny those dopes at VWB have to their name.
Would you mind citing sources for your assertions?
Based on your post you have an Internet connection and elementary typing skills, quit being lazy and look it up yourself sporty. It’s not like this is something obscure, it practically broke Arfcom from the short bus level stupidity and outcry. Google FireClean or click on the links they provided above.
This is unbelieveably rude. From the second paragraph of the original Vuurwapen post:
“I did not – and still do not – believe that FireClean is Crisco”
http://www.vuurwapenblog.com/general-opinion/lies-errors-and-omissions/ir-spectra-fireclean-crisco/
Perhaps you should refrain from digging any more holes for yourself Tex.
Actually, no. Tex has a point. Too many people use “citation plz” as a shield when said citation is usually at their interweb fingertips. They could do their homework and respond with facts about why the original poster is wrong, but instead cop out with this. Even worse, this op’s commentary was loaded with words like “I think” and “I hope”. News flash– No citation is needed for what amounts to opinion. You can agree or disagree, but he doesn’t have to justify it in any way, shape or form.
I don’t recall the original analysis saying anything about how it “makes it worse”. Sure, a lot of people have drawn such a conclusion, but they did so on their own.
“Too many people use “citation plz” as a shield when said citation is usually at their interweb fingertips.”
And far, far more people make stupid claims and refuse to back them up with evidence. The burden of proof is on the claimant.
Basically, Tex here doesn’t have jack or squat to prove himself.
NO Ozzallos – Provide citation (or footnote) is a very polite way of saying “You are full of shit – prove your out of ass assertion”
Note: a note to Wikipedia, anything Obumer thinks/says, or the equivalent don’t count.
+1 for Ironhorse
The burden of proof is on the person making the assertion.
1st amendment, ever heard of it? There is no way in hell FireClean can meet the standard of proof necessary to overcome traditional press immunities.
There’s 1st amendment, and there’s defamation. This is about the latter.
Press protection against defamation is a very hard thing to break. You have to prove, as a matter of law, that…
1. The statements were made.
2. The statements were intentionally and knowingly face.
3. Tha statements were made with malicious intent.
I don’t see thing going anywhere near a jury.
If he had it analyzed by 3 different chemists, and the outcome was “Crisco”, there is no case against him. Before beginning the flames, note I said “if”. Article said he did.
1st amendment is stating that your research suggest FireClean is chemically similar to Crisco, defamation and misleading advertising is insinuating a product with a lengthy track record of working as advertised by the manufacturer somehow no longer functions properly in light of your previous discovery.
Lengthy track record != a bunch of gullible people buying it.
Except, of course, he never said that.
They said it wasnt doing what Fireclean claimed it was, in that the smoke billowing away wasnt carbon fouling leaving the gun, but just oil burning off.
Really, this suit is just a stupid persons reaction to getting called out for repackaging something at a huge markup. That’s not defamation, and if Vuurwappen has adequate legal defense, Fireclean isnt going to see a dime, and they shouldnt.
Well, they never said any of that. If you read the articles, you’d know that. Got any other arguments?
Fireclean is just collecting the wages due on buying canola oil, slapping a label on it, hammering the price really high, and getting caught.
“They said it wasnt doing what Fireclean claimed it was, in that the smoke billowing away wasnt carbon fouling leaving the gun, but just oil burning off”
Did anyone ever actually believe this? Because it never made the least bit of sense to me. A car blowing clouds of oil smoke out its ass is NOT less likely to be packed full of sludge, after all. Not to mention the whole ammo-testing fiasco it was determined FC used to ‘dramatize’ the billowing plumes in its advertising.
I believe the only contentious statement anyone close to the story has ever made is that FC is probably charging customers an embarrassingly high premium for a common oil marketed by glitzy advertising and celebrities; a charge leveled long before spectroscopic analysis. That the criticism ‘took’ and impacted their sales does not constitute ‘damages,’ but ‘consequences.’ I suspect any judge will feel the same way & hopefully dismiss this nonsense before it wastes any more of peoples’ time, so FC can go peddle their Doc Vickers Miracle Oil all the way to bankruptcy court.
My favorite thing that’s come from all of this is the name, ‘Doc Vicker’s Miracle Oil.’ I’ll have to re-label my bottle.
Not true. VWB said that it was not as effective in keeping down carbon build up as FC claims it to be, but never claimed that it was a product that was inappropriate for the purpose. Even FC’s own testing (included in their complaint) reveals that its formulation, whatever that may be, is extraordinarily similar in performance to vegetable oil. What VWB said was that FC is “essentially vegetable oil,” and even FC admits that this is true (as a vegetable oil is a principal ingredient)–but that it have secret additives that make it somehow better.
Finally, according to the portions of the complaint I read, FC is more pissed, not by what VWB ACTUALLY said, but what other people commenting on VWB or other sites had to say based on the VWB posting.
A couple of things to keep in mind. 1. The truth is an absolute defense. 2. You cannot sue people for their opinions. 3. As long as VWB accurately posted their testing results, their opinions based on those results are not actionable. I wold think that FC has a big hill to climb to win, and even if they do, there is not likely to be anything to get. If FC wins, it can claim that it cleared its reputation–but if it loses, well, then this was a huge waste of money and a terrible way to advertise their product.
1. The truth is an absolute defense.
What I learned in Business Law Class.
FireClean will lose.
Per Full 30, Rem Oil works well in sub zero temperatures.
Hey Tom Rem Oil works great on bicycle chains and gears too! Better than Crisco…
Actually Vuuperwapen Blog said the opposite. He said that it is a good lube that worked well in the 10,000 rounds brass vs steel test that he ran.
“…I think they are (justifiably) pissed that Vuurwapen and other insinuated that it was suddenly somehow less effective after this discovery.”
They never claimed it to be less effective. People are pissed because it’s overpriced vegetable oil. They don’t state how much one bottle contains, but honestly it doesn’t look like it could be more than 12oz based on the pictures (go to their site, or look at Amazon, the bottle size is diminutive next to a Glock slide) and I believe I am being HIGHLY generous on that assumption.
They sell a two pack for $29.99, so let’s be even MORE generous and say that’s two 16oz bottles, so you get 32oz for $29.99. Amazon sells a 32oz bottle of Crisco vegetable oil for $1.85. If we go ahead and round up (disregard shipping and taxes) that means for $2 you can essentially get what FIREClean sells for $30.
FIREClean is putting a 1500% markup on what is, more or less, vegetable oil (yes, some guys even cooked with it to prove a point afterward).
Then they throw a fit when someone calls them out on it with evidence that is about as objective as it gets.
If their reputation wasn’t ruined before then it surely is now.
I looked at every product combo they sell. If you look at the dealer cases, it says 2 ounce bottles. The regular 2fer “deal” is 29.99. That’s 960 dollars a gallon.
960.
So, rough figures… but I am going to continue my generosity and just round things to nice, clean numbers. If anything, I am doing them favors with that here…
FIREClean: 2oz x 2 for $30 = $7.5/oz
Crisco: 32oz x 1 for $2 = $0.07/oz
So, if you’re a regular consumer then FIREClean is over 100 times more expensive than an identical product. That makes it a 10,000% markup.
Everything else aside, man oh man did they pull one over on their consumers (if this is all true of course… please don’t sue me, FIREClean).
Nah, feel safe that you’re right, Tacos; there’s no way in hell that whatever they’re peddling costs much more than vegetable oil to produce, so that profit figure is probably about right. Seeing how they claimed smoke was carbon fouling leaving the gun and was somehow evidence of lubricity (I still don’t understand the pseudoscientific nonsense they were claiming), I doubt they had high-end chemists doing high-end chemistry. It’s a gun oil, not a damn cancer biological serum. Would love to see what their overhead-vs-production costs were (since I suspect their business model was entirely based upon advertising w/ Mr. Vickers, etc.). Hell, would love to see the ‘chemical plant’ carefully formulating the product that justifies all this supposed expense, which I suspect is nothing but a cheap bottling plant squirting QC-rejected non-food-grade rapeseed oil into containers.
What FC is pissed about is someone uncovered the fact that FC charges enormously for a product whose composition is apparently identical to cooking oil. Cooking oil is dirt cheap, FC is hugely expensive by comparison. The difference between the two represents “pure profit” for FC…in the public mind; ripoff, snake oil, fraud. If i whiz down the back of your shirt and convince you it is rainwater, and you find out different, is your reaction going to be calm, measured, forgiving, benign?
The difference is that ‘Snake Oil’ was narcotics posing as medicine, and killed many users, addicted even more, and didn’t do a damn bit of good for the conditions anyone purchased it for. Fireclean is by all accounts a fine gun oil, so literally the only ‘betrayal’ is the realization of their profit-taking, which is probably more embarrassing to guys who fell for the sales pitch than if we had found out it was carcinogenic or something. They made some rather ridiculous claims about its superiority, which really didn’t make any sense on their face, and sold a product that was 30$ a bottle to people who were naiive enough to think that could possibly be warranted outside of pharmaceuticals. Now that we all know its cheap, the cat’s out the bag, and FC is pissed. Won’t change anything, to be frank, so I have no idea what the FC folks are bothering for. They won’t get enough damages to offset the end of their little scam from some stupid bloggers, they darn sure won’t get back the same gullible customers who fell for the racket the first time. The party’s over, and they’re just frittering away their diminishing profits trying to keep the music going, instead of cashing out & moving on.
They never said that Tex300BLK. Maybe you should go back and actually you know read the original post.
Tex300BLK, you are talking out of pure ignorance.
First of all Vuurwapen never, at any point, stated that FireClean was Crisco.
Second, if you read Vuurwapen’s posts, it is abundantly clear that he ALWAYS stated that FireClean worked well as a lubricant and that his findings in no way negated how well the product worked. So you’re assertion that “Vuurwapen and other insinuated that it was suddenly somehow less effective after this discovery” is totally and completely wrong. Vuurwapen never insinuated anything to that effect. On the contrary, he very openly and expressly stated the exact opposite.
So either you *know* that you are lying, or you are 100% talking out your ass. Which one is it?
Lol, the Internet white knights are here, that’s my cue to leave I guess.
I read most of the stuff when this story broke and was unimpressed and just went back and read the Vurwapen “sorry but not sorry” “clearing the air” post someone linked above, and honestly all I really got out of it was a bunch qualifications trying to explain why he did it, a little by of time trying appear unbiased, more justifications and then a little bit of time spent confirming that FireClean doesn’t do stuff that the makers of the product themselves said from the start that it doesn’t do, followed by an entire paragraph plugging for FP10.
Microwave dinged with the popcorn, and got some
Cold ones on ice, so I’m gonna just sit back and watch where the rest of this goes.
Nice non-reply, Tex300BLK. Way to not respond to the very direct statement that Vuurwapen explicitly stated that he did NOT think that Fireclean was Crisco and that he explicitly stated that his findings in now way altered or negated the usefulness of the product.
I am of course, referencing statements made by Vuurwapen in his two initial posts on Fireclean when he first revealed the results of two different chemical essays. In the first post, made after the initial Infrared Spectrascopy comparing Fireclean to Canola Oil, vuurwapen made the following statement:
“I did not – and still do not – believe that FireClean is Crisco”
You can verify this for yourself here:
http://www.vuurwapenblog.com/general-opinion/lies-errors-and-omissions/ir-spectra-fireclean-crisco/
On the second blog post, made about a month after the initial IR Spectrascopy, and after the results of that first test were confirmed by high performance liquid chromatography and nuclear magnetic resonance testing, Vuurwapen stated the following:
“As I have continued to state since forming an opinion on the product, FireClean works very well as a lubricant for the AR-15. I chose it for the LuckyGunner 40,000 round ammo test because I had used it with good results – I was provided with samples early in 2012 – and wanted to give a fledgling company a chance in a crowded field. I don’t regret that decision – the lubricant worked well for the test.”
Again, you can verify that statement for yourself here:
http://www.vuurwapenblog.com/general-opinion/lies-errors-and-omissions/a-closer-look-at-fireclean-and-canola-oil/
Given those posts and the statements made in them, there is simply no way anyone can make the claim that Vuurwapen claimed that Fireclean was Crisco or that he “insinuated that [Fireclean] was suddenly somehow less effective after this discovery.”
The simple fact is that Vuurwapen explicitly stated the exact opposite of what you’re accusing him of. So, again, either you are lying about this or you are taking out your ass. There really isn’t another option.
@tex
daaammm dude you got “called out” a little over an hour ago, where is your self respect? Jeff threw down the gauntlet after hitting you on both cheeks, with citations to boot, this can’t go unanswered can it? come on man defend yourself!
I’m on the edge of me seat here waiting for your reply [to Jeff] with my bowl-o-popcorn and a cold Lutheran pop
@everyone else [and jeff too] sorry for being an instigating D**** Rat B****** I just could not help myself 😉
Dont make microwave popcorn-it’s not good for you. You should make it on the stove with FireClean – much better.
“Lol, the Internet white knights are here, that’s my cue to leave I guess.”
Confronted with actual data; flees because he has nothing to back up his claims with. Won’t be missed.
@Jeff
Copy pasting a few cherry picked quotes from some of his articles doesn’t constitute “facts”
The first quote you posted was him realizing he needed to cover his ass because Firearm Blog and others took his initial research and made the conclusion that he full well had to have known they would make and referenced him(he spent an entire paragraph talking about this). I.e. He stirred up a bunch of shit and then filled his articles with a bunch of qualifiers trying to appear unbiased which is why we see you second quote that you copy pasted, which is funny because you left off the parts where he basically spent the entire time bitching about how expensive fire clean is and he w the bottle leaks, etc etc etc.
So again I HAVE read all of VWBs posts on FireClean and other gun oils he has looked at for that matter and there is a very clear trend, you cherry picking all of the qualifiers that he threw in to try and come off as unbiased don’t change my opinion, all of his gun oil articles show that for whatever reason he has taken it upon himself to wage some sort of crusade against any of the newer vegetable based oils such as Frog Lube, Seal1, FireClean (at least he is consistent) basically anything that isn’t a traditional CLP. He claims over and over again that he is not being biased but then does stuff that can only be described as deliberately antagonistic. Like in one article he gets all excited because he sent some loaded emails to different marketing department of the different oil makers trying to get them to admit they were basically ripping people off and repackaging other people’s product. This just amounts to someone who repeatedly throws rocks at hornets nests, and now he is getting stung and set up a gofundme page and is trying to make it about blogger integrity.
For whatever reason he has taken a particular focus on FireClean and while he doesn’t outright say he thinks it doesn’t work or is misleading he doesn’t have to, plenty of others have taken his “research” and connected the dots of what he was trying to say, and that is my point from the beginning. If it quacks like a duck, has webbed feet, and waddles like a duck, I don’t really care how much it tries to deny wrongdoing or claim to be unbiased. All of his gun oil articles are, at their core, just over worded plugs for traditional petrochemical based CLP vaguely standing behind scientific analysis that he even admits really only shows that the different compounds are similar or different with no real indication of if they perform as the manufacturer advertises.
Tex300BLK,
Not only does Vuurwapen NOT say those things, he does not even IMPLY them. In fact, he states — explicitly and openly states — exactly the opposite, as my earlier response proves beyond any reasonable doubt.
And calling the quote Cherry Picked doesn’t dismiss it from existence. In fact, the quote isn’t even “cherry picked,” which would mean that I pulled it from context to skew the meaning of the quote. If you read that quote within the context of the article the meaning remains exactly the same: Vuurwapen continues to feel that Fireclean is a good lube for the AR-15, just as he did prior to the discovery that Fireclean was basically re-branded Canola oil. The context does not change the quote so it is, by definition, NOT cherry picked.
Oh, and if you would like additional corroborating quotes from Andrew Tuohy (aka Vuurwapen) you can find them in the comments to the Vuurwapen blog posts I previously linked to. Here’s one comment from his first post, with the comment dated September 12th, 2015:
“Feel free to look at my past experiences with FireClean. I’m not saying it doesn’t work as a lubricant for the AR platform – it does.”
And here’s another comment made by Andrew to his second post on October 26th, 2015:
“…I have been very consistent in saying that FireClean works very well as a lubricant for the AR-15 platform. I even say that in this article to which you responded (perhaps you missed that)… If you look at this article written in 2013, I say that Fireclean works very well but that I would not buy it due to cost…I feel that I have been exceptionally consistent, considering recent revelations. I’ll repeat what I said in 2013 – Fireclean works very well as a lubricant, but I wouldn’t buy it because it’s too expensive.”
Do those comments sound like someone who is trying to, as you put it, “insinuate that [Firecleen] was suddenly somehow less effective after this discovery”? Answer: absolutely not. Does that sound like someone who has, as you put it, “taken it upon himself to wage some sort of crusade against any of the newer vegetable based oils”? Again, absolutely not.
As I stated in my initial response to your first BS comment, Vuurapwen/Andrew never said or insinuated what you claim, and in fact explicitly stated the very opposite. I have now shown exactly where he states the opposite of what you claim both within the blog posts in question and in follow-up comments. These aren’t “cherry-picked” quotes. They are his official statements on the matter. And unless you can point to where Vuurwapen has said otherwise, the honest thing for you to do is admit that you are wrong. But I’m not holding my breath for that…
Initially I said you were either ignorant or lying. Your subsequent responses have made it abundantly clear that your accusations against Vuurwapen are based on dishonesty and not ignorance.
“while he doesn’t outright say he thinks it doesn’t work or is misleading”
So you admit this case has no ground. Thanks for playing.
Jeff took texas to the woodshed! I love it
Thats what getting smacked with the gauntlet feels like
You are completely wrong, maybe you should take your own advice figure it out what you’re talking about before jumping someone else. The lawsuit is posted on Fireclean’s site (google it if needed) and their MAIN contention is that Andrew claimed FC is Crisco. So again, Tex300Blk 100% incorrect.
Then it shouldn’t be too hard to show where he said FC was Crisco? Odd, because I’m having a hell of a time finding that. Sure, lots of random people who aren’t VWB have stated that, but they’re not the ones being sued.
That is a crock of bulls–t if there ever was such a thing
If anything, andrew proved that fire clean was actually a good product. DID you happento venture into the thread about the AR15 reliability tests where 40k plus rounds were fired? That was the best advertisement for fire clean ever produced IMO.
The lawsuit is fire clean trying to play the victim, while suing an independent blogger and a competitor who happens to be highly respected in the gun world. Good luck with that stupid circus.
I don’t recall it ever being insinuate that it was less effective post analysis. What was said was that it would be cheaper and just as effective to buy vegetable oil at the grocery store instead of paying fireclean’s price.
Defamation actions are difficult to win in most jurisdictions in the U.S. There are two main elements to prove. One is that information was published about you that is false, and the other is that the false information caused damages. Truth is an absolute defense. If the statements made about Fireclean are true, then bye-bye case. If they’re not true, then they still have to prove that they were damaged. Sometimes that’s hard to do.
Damages will be pretty easy to prove. Their revenues fell precipitously immediately after this whole thing blew up, with no other changes occuring in the business or the market as a whole. Pretty easy to show damages, especially with there being easily tens of thousands of comments/blogs/etc saying things to the effect of “This stuff is just Crisco? I’m never putting this stuff on my gun again!!”
LOL
24,000 in loss of revenue monthy? I call major bulls–t on that.
A commenter on arfcom was right, “god, this industry is retarded”.
Don’t forget that they have to prove that the information is not only false, but that it was knowingly false.
First off, anyone who uses fireclean needs a little lesson in chemistry. Without going into specifics, an oil smoking is a BAD thing, not a good thing. Clean burning processes do not leave visual smoke, just like a clean burning wood fire puts out less smoke than a poorly burning or smoldering one. The fact that fireclean somehow convinced people that the lube vaporizing during firing is a feature not a bug is one of the greatest marketing successes of modern history. Think about it this way: do you want your car to smoke? Do you want the oil in it to reach its smoke point during normal operation? (hint: no) This is no different. Increased smoke can only lead to increased fouling. There are no two ways about it.
Second, it really doesn’t matter if it does work. If the guys at fireclean were really taking straight soybean oil and selling it for 10 bucks an ounce, they need to be run out on a rail like the snake oil salesmen (literally) they are.
“IF” it works…
I drank the kool-aide. But when the word came out I checked on some Fieclean lubed pistols that had not been used for 4-6 months. Two strikers had gummed up…totally would not kick a pencil from the bore much less dent a primer. The others were so gummy and tacky that they could not be trusted to go bang. I had just CCW’d one of them a few days before. Scared the crap out of me!
I DO NOT use Fireclean any more.
I hate to break it to you, but unless you change your cleaning regimen to stop glopping lube into your striker channel and then carrying it for 4-6months without checking it, it’s going to happen again.
All oils do two things really well, they attract dust/contamination/pocket lint and over time tend to gum up. So if you keep filling your gun full of oil where it wasn’t intended to go, you will get gummed up actions and failure to fire like you experienced REGARDLESS of which oil you use.
But I completely understand not wanting to use a specific product again, guns and gun accessories are like relationships, once you perceive betrayal it’s pretty hard to trust them again, even if it was your fault to start.
The problem with vegetable oils like FIREclean is they tend to polymerize much more readily than mineral oils. So that “gumming up” isn’t just dirt and lint attracted to the oil, but the oil itself oxidizing into a gummy, sticky substance. Both kinds of oils will attract dirt, but the vegetable oil will gum up on a gun locked in a safe, solely from the exposure to oxygen.
Additional info: The strikers in question were NOT over-lubed (and therefore inviting the resulting situation) and have not EVER had the same issues with other lubes.
Really? Because I can easily get CLP to “smoke” in any event. Actually, it is quite common to smoke in a good ol’ firefight. Iraq combat vet here…
Not defending FC.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m saying it is not desirable. Smoke in a prime indication that the oil is reaching its limit and cannot perform its intended function. A good oil smokes less than a bad or incorrectly applied one. This is true for all oil applications, from cooking oil up to motor oil.
^^^THIS.
Well hell. I had almost convinced myself that the blue smoke coming out of my tailpipe on my beater car was a good thing.
Nope, per the lawsuit it’s NOT straight soybean oil, but a special blend of THREE natural oils!
You are obviously a malicious hater, so prepare to have the suit amended to include your name.
Also as an update Fireclean is now suing Weaponshield over the George Fennel making fun of Fireclean calling in various brand names for kitchen oil.
I don’t have any extra money to give or I would 🙁 What I do have is a lot of people who come to me with firearms questions, and for advice. And I spend an unnecessary amount of time in local gun shops. I will be telling every single person I know to stay away from any fireclean product like it’s poison.
I’m sure fireclean knows that suing will only make them look bad to most people. I think they want vindication through the court of law, since they already lost in the court of public opinion. Blogs have the right to free speech in a review, but companies also have the right to sue if they feel that the are being defamed unjustly. I’m sure that FC thinks it has a case, since vuurwapen did claim scientific fact instead of just opinions.
Meh-I’ll stick with Rem Oil and CLP. Works great for everything I do. If I need more I got some Crisco like stuff from Aldi’s…
I’ve always liked CLP for on the go; it’s great to keep in the bag for the range if you wanna do some quick cleaning with a rag.
Otherwise I use Butch’s Bore Shine and swear by it– it’ll get out any carbon fouling you can reach with a nylon brush easily. Then some Hoppe’s oil for lubrication.
Litigation isn’t always based on the law. Sometimes it’s merely an intimidation strategy perpetrated on people/companies with shallower pockets than the plaintiff.
Perhaps Fireclean is just hoping VWB will settle to limit their attorney fees. Problem is, it tends to have a chilling effect on people who review products.
Easy way around that for a reviewer: “and purely to avoid litigation I’m going to give five stars. Again that’s just fyi avoid litigation.”
My guess is that VWB will settle. They simply do not have the capital or resources to survive litigation or a jury trial (which is what FC requested in federal court).
I prefer coconut oil for my guns. It is stable at much higher temperatures than olive or vegie oil.
The smoke point of coconut oils (~350 deg.) is only about 25 degrees higher than olive oil. Canola oil, which is what the lube in question above is most similar to in composition, is about 100 degrees higher than olive oil, and corn or peanut oil would be about 50 degrees higher than that.
Another important issue that’s not being mentioned is viscosity at various temperatures, including at or above smoke point – that would be an important factor in deciding the applicability of a particular oil to gun lubrication. I don’t have much info handy on that last point, however.
I use synthetic 10w30 mobile1. Worked well enough on the AR, Glock, and Mossberg. Even tested it sub 0 when I lived in midwest, and 90+ in the humid summer.
Don’t see much or a reason to use anything else.
it was a joke. your reply is a mess of pedantic, unecessary bullshit.
Nonsense. Grease that puppy down in good old fashioned LARD and watch her run for months without cleaning
Pork fat rules!
Meh…who cares? Fireclean is a great product and I will continue to use it. As for their dispute with VWP, it’s none of my business and why should it be?
It’s your business, because this lawsuit is basically intimidation. “We know you don’t have any money, and we know we don’t have a case. But, we’re going to sue you so you have to spend all the money you have to win a case you shouldn’t lose. Or, you ritually abase yourself before us, pay just our lawyers, and destroy your reputations. We’re not really doing this for any other reason than to warn the next guys: we don’t care about the truth, we’re just here to fuck you over. Don’t fuck with us.”
If you want to know the truth about guns, or firearms products, or anything, you have to oppose this. To put it another way- the Remington R51 was dangerous junk. We only really know this because a lot of guys on the internet tested production copies, and told everyone else. Now, imagine for a moment that Remington decided, rather than recall the pistol, to sue the reviewers who said it was junk. Next time there’s a dangerous piece of gear out there, who would speak up, given the example of earlier reviewers who now owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to their lawyers for telling the truth?
Don’t conflate the two things. VWB didn’t “expose” any wrong doing or false advertising on the part of FireClean. They revealed a very common practice in the firearms world of re-labeling common items and selling them for a healthy markup. Which still doesn’t matter. This is all just a bunch of feaux outrage. If the product works, use it… if it doesn’t then don’t. If you are using so much gun oil that the price difference between a gallon jug of canola oil vs multiple $10 bottles of Fire-Clean makes a difference then you either have an actual arsenal or you are using way to much oil on your firearms. I have been shooting for almost two decades and I just bought what will be my 3rd bottle of CLP (which is likely just some generic thin machine oil repackaged for a firearms company). So in nearly 20 years I have spent a whopping $30 on CLP, you don’t see me out in the back yard burning an effigy of CLP bottles like all those pre-teen girls who stomped on their Dixie Chicks albums when the lead singer made fun of George Bush, all because i could have saved $20 over that time period if I had just grabbed a jug canola oil from Sams Club. Give me a break.
You understand that FireClean are the ones suing…right? Unless you’re referring to something else when you talk about “this faux outrage”. The only other “outrage” was when a blog showed that an expensive product was a rebranded inexpensive product and people vowed not to buy the expensive product. This is how free markets work – if some company tries to screw consumers out of their money, consumers learn better and spend their money elsewhere (on the cheaper, same/similar product or on a company with actual innovation).
So surely the “outrage” you’re complaining about is the company that is trying to forcibly take money from someone who taught their customers about a cheaper product?
I find this form of pro-business capitalism to be strange, yet prevalent. Some people think businesses can do no wrong, consumers are the bad guy and if anyone helps consumers wise up, they are bad too.
Well sure, libel and slander are illegal. And it’s not illegal to sell something that’s basically re-labeled vegetable oil. However, buyer beware. This is yet again why I use CLP. It’s cheap and you know exactly what it is.
Threshold for proving libel/defamation is pretty high. And since Vuurwapen Blog is pretty much a one man operation, this lawsuit is classic intimidation – even if it’s a frivolous lawsuit, it costs MONEY to defend yourself in court.
This is pretty much a Donald Trump style tactic. SUE EVERYONE! Google “The Lawsuits of Donald Trump” to get what I’m sayin’.
Looks like I picked a bad day to clean my carry gun.
TTAG should do an experiment focused on using cooking oils on weapons in the event of SHTF. Perhaps they could do the bacon wrapped barrel thing, then save the grease that drips off for cleaning afterwards.
–I’m not a lawyer, but how can a company whose product was identified a vegy oil,—-then that company state yes it is mostly vegy oil, then sue the company that first proved it————–I don’t know—reminds me of that marvelously mystically oil stuff—-the product ingredients were released—(very common stuff), but I still use it————by the way—thank you everyone for the info I received reading these articles—I mixed some gun oil from a formula from this site, from stuff in the garage, and use it for cleaning/lube, along with brand name items—-prior to that, I have reduced the amount of oil left on the firearm, (smoky gun syndrome), and feared gumming up the firearm after heavy use—-
Your hyphen key appears to be stuck.
I don’t understand this issue at all.
Ballistol, the gun/etc oil/cleaning/etc product out of Germany, is made from vegetable or plant sources. Works well, has for 100+ years, the Germans used it for gun cleaning/lube, cleaning horse tack, supposedly brushing their teeth, etc. I like it because it is made from plant sources, so it isn’t as likely to cause health problems as something filled with cyclic hydrocarbon compounds.
I prefer gunzilla myself over ballistol because of that god awful smell it has. That said, ballistol goes on leather slings and wood and it does work very well. The issue many people and myself had is fireclean put out a video with Larry Vickers spewing some BS about smoke from the pistol they were using being carbon not able to bond to the gun because they used fireclean. Vuurwapen blog put up a good post on the Vickers video, exposing them using different ammo to do these smoke tests amongst other inaccuracies.
Its amazing how many are saying that andrew somehow rigged or lied about the infamous vickers smoke story.
I would say vickers got caught red handed shilling for a company’s product, in direct contradiction to science and objectivity. The video itself was rigged to inflate fireclean’s effectiveness (ironically, which didn’t need to be done, thanks to andrew’s AR15/ammunition reliability test)
Whatever.
The issue has never been that vegetable/plant oils are inherently bad – it’s that FireClean is JUST vegetable oil. Ballistol is formulated and as far as I know, is not available in another, MUCH cheaper form, just with a different name.
Anyone think Fireclean is gonna go into selling high-end bath soaps, next? (that’s a Fight Club reference, for the kiddos out there)
Ooh, or knowing their business practices, this whole lawsuit is a kickback scam with the bloggers to get a bunch of free money through Gofundme now that the rapeseed oil money has dried up, lol
They are not being sued for a negative review. That is a ridiculous assertion. They are being sued because they claimed that FireClean is something that the company says that it is not.
Anyone can publish a negative review and not get sued. If they said, ‘This product sucks, it doesnt do a good job, dont buy this product, its just not as good of a lube as brand-X’, or anything negative or disparaging like that it would have been fine. No lawsuit.
But if you make claims about what the product is and the company says that its not what you are claiming it is… then you open yourself up to a defamation lawsuit.
It will get settled in court, and Andrew very well may win, but I think Fireclean has a good case. We will see how their patent holds up to what they are claiming the product is or is not.
This most definitely has nothing to do with a blog’s ability to say that a product sucks or to advise people to spend their money elsewhere.
FireClean’s lawsuit contains at least one demonstrably false technical claim cleverly stated to appear true. VWB’s claims also leave something to be desired, but they do not appear to be deliberately lying. Just practicing internet chemistry.
The real issue here is blog authors protecting themselves from legal intimidation. These kinds of claims are probably best made from behind the shield of a thinly capitalized corporation. Something tells me that several gun collections are at risk here.
I can’t believe all yall people buy lube and apply it to your firearms. What a waste of time and money. And if u really wanna get crazy, who don’t have wd-40 in there car hole.
TXBlk300,
Please just stop before you wind up like Muhammad Ali.
He’s got to justify overpaying for veggie oil somehow.
They should settle this in the back 40, with guns, like real men.
There is something lame about suing a “blog” about some post they made in ridicule or otherwise. If the product is truly good it stands on its own. Also the company shouldn’t have bothered themselves with some blog. At the most they should have denied the accusations, and proven them false if they so wanted. Proving them false would have been detrimental to how viewers of the blog view the blogs integrity.
Got halfway through comments before I quit. Try explaining why anybody cares? There are lots of oils out there, including lots of vegetable oils. Pick one. But why get into a pissing contest about it? Is this just “fun with phones” or something? Nanny-nanny boo-boo? I know you are but what am I? Didn’t damage any guns, so I don’t care.
That beats Lynn Thompson’s attempt at CRKT.
Has none of you heard of anti-SLAP laws?
So, when some first amendment hating asshole files a frivolous suit with the intent of suppressing your speech, you can make them show a judge that they have some valid claims before they cost you much money, and if they don’t convince a judge, THEY HAVE TO PAY YOUR COSTS.
https://popehat.com/2012/06/07/why-yes-i-am-into-slapping/
Popehat is a law blog that is deeply into freedom of speech, and can even help you find a pro bono (free to you) lawyer for cases like this. Read their site, learn about a different critical amendment!.
Comments are closed.