https://youtu.be/UHLnI3NlLsU

God bless America. If there’s a need for a product, it’s filled just like that, seemingly out of thin air. OK, that’s not completely true. As anyone who’s watched sixty episodes of Shark Tank will tell you, launching a new product takes hard work, chutzpah, some well-rehearsed schtick and a banging body. Unless it doesn’t. Thanks to YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the social media rat pack, a dollar’s worth of viral marketing can launch a product in less time than it takes Proctor & Gamble to figure out the tab for a lunch meeting. (Who ordered the pastrami?) I don’t know if . . .

this formulation works as a gun lube solution, but I know a man who can tell us — Nick. Meanwhile, I suspect that there are members of TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia who have their own recipe for firearms lubricants. Keep it classy and spill.

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65 COMMENTS

  1. Woo who! I’ve spent less than 20 bucks 4 years ago for CLP and RemOIl-I still have it. No need to concoct…

  2. Thanks for the link guys, and yes, I am one of the regular Armed Intelligentsia. Although the Intelligentsia part is debatable.

    I don’t think I would use Crisco on a gun. Anyone who has worked in a kitchen will tell you what happens to veggie oil after a few weeks of sitting and soaking up the air – it’s get sticky. But, yes, I have used a variety of common garage oils on my competition guns and they all run just fine.

  3. I’m still using olde school Break Free CLP, Otis Ultrabore 085, and TW25B. They all work great, except CLP gets sluggish at 8 below zero. I’ve used light machine oil and WD-40 to good effect on occasion, but still primarily use the first 3 lubes I mentioned. I guess I could save, but I get CLP for free and don’t blow through 085 and TW25B very fast.

    Policy forbids the use of any other lube than Break Free on work guns, and I used the same CLP as an 0311 (USMC grunt).

    I guess I don’t see the point in switching from what currently works great for me to something that *should* work for savings of about $20-30 / year.

    • I use froglube. Not because of any performance characteristics, but because the minty smell is pleasant to not just me, but my wife as well; therefore I can clean my guns in the living room rather than being forced to take them outside or into the garage to clean them.

    • I like the frog lube cleaner, but I stopped using it as a lube, because was gumming up in my guns. I could see the slide cycling slower after just a few hundred rounds fired.

  6. My *secret recipe* gun liquid is Progressive Tears.

    But you can’t use fresh Progressive Tears, that stuff is far too corrosive.

    Progressive Tears must be refined by a proprietary process that includes using Unobtanium as a catalyst and Methyl Ethyl Death as a PH-Neutralizer and buffer, in a vacuum filtration apparatus.

    Progressive Tears by their very lethal nature require full personal protective gear and a positive-pressure Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus and a fumehood.

    All OSHA regulations apply.

    MSDS available on request.

    Use at your own risk.

    Do not Fold, Staple, Spindle, Bend or Mutilate.

    And for God’s sake, don’t even *think* about ripping the tag off of it.

    • Geoff-reading just before bed. Your “progressive tears” is provoking tears of laughter. Thanks…..perfect lullabye…….and to all a goodnight.

    • You’ll have to share your secret. All I ever get from progressives is mouth-froth and spittle.

      • And venom.

        Venom combined with mouth-froth and spit makes Progressive Tears as corrosive as the molecular-acid blood the creature used in the first ‘Alien’ movie…

  7. Blah blah blah oil oil oil. What I want to know is what’s the best tactical cleaner?

    Let me guess, it all comes down to kerosene?

  9. Ed’s red. Google it. I’ve made it with Dexron ATF And mobile 1. I don’t notice any difference. The reality is guns aren’t very demanding of lube.

  11. Equal parts white vinegar and hydrogen peroxide for the stainless steel guts of my suppressor. Of course, the resulting lead acetate is extremely toxic so you must dispose of it properly.

  12. I’ve been using Slip2000’s products since they first went into business I reckon. I’ve used the old Birchwood Casey “Gun Oil”, Rem Oil, CLP, 2-in-1 Oil, 1 Lube, USGI Grease & Oil and everything else in my 45 years. The Slip2000 line has just been amazing…I know it’s “plant based” and it doesn’t cost nearly what “FireClean” does…(about half).
    If I ever have to put a firearm in “storage” then I will use good old LSA, CLP and the old USGI grease. Purely because they have stood the test of time.

  13. I’ve been using the left over clean 5w30 full synthetic after my oil changes for a few years now.

    Used to clean with the ol’ Hoppes9 but recently bought a little bottle of M Pro7 cleaner. I like the lack of fumes and seems to work well and I’m a fairly high volume shooter

    • I used No9 since I started shooting. I tried MPro7 to appease the wife who can’t stand the smell of Hoppe’s. The first time I used it was on a 1911. Patches came away white, so I figured I was good to go. I then started wiping oil on with a white patch which now started coming away black. So I soaked a patch in Hoppe’s and wiped various spots and every one came away with black fouling. I now only carry what’s left of the MPro in the range bag for on-the-spot quick cleans. Last time was cleaning some crusted up factory grease that jammed a friend’s 92FS. Other than that, I don’t trust the stuff like I do No9.

  14. My Opa uses sewing-machine oil on his pump/bolt/lever-guns, and a 70/30 mix of it with MMO for his semi-autos. When my supply of Army-issue CLP finally ran out last year, I thoroughly stripped all traces of CLP from my rifles & pistols, and began using his SMO/MMO recipe with my CETME, SKS, and M1 Garand.
    The MMO seems to help keep things coated without gumming up in extreme cold, or running dry when really hot. The plain SMO works fine in my Winchester 1906 and Mosin Nagant, as long as I use it sparingly.

    • Years ago, SMO was made from sperm whale oil. Made with real sperm whales.

      And it worked quite well on both sewing machines and guns. Matter of fact, the dual use often led to a little bone of contention in households otherwise enjoying marital bliss: “Honey, do you have my container of sewing machine oil? Did you take that hunting and leave it up at the deer camp?”

  16. Nobody but me uses the G 96 family of products? I have used their cleaner and lube for a long time and never had a problem in warm or cold climates.

  17. I use KY Jelly Yours and Mine ever since my wife found them stored in my truck console. Combined they seem to cause rust even on my plastic parts
    but it is saving the marriage.

    • +1. I’m SO tired of using Astro-glide on my guns and then having to clean them later when she’s out…

      • Uncle Sam will be sending you guys a bill for the cleaning fee for my now coffee covered monitor. My only concern is that you don’t combine the Yours and Mine near your ammo….the reaction might cause…spontaneous combustion….

  20. Seeing all this fixation and obsession about what oil to use on a gun really, really tempts me. An unscrupulous man would look at all of this, go out and buy some commonly available light lubricating oil (say, R&O oil) by the 55 gallon drum, get some deeee-lux little bottles, maybe 2oz, maybe get him one o’ them scruffy unemployed starving artist types (compleat with ironic pony tail, goofy facial hair, and hipster glasses) from an art school to do some Maxfield Parris art on the labels, then comp some former operators known for operating their operator guns operationally for endorsements, and thereby turn a $500 barrel of oil into $10K in sales.

    Or I could be a curmudgeon and shake my head at some of the thin and pathetic attempts by other people to pull this cynical dodge off properly…

    • Maybe I’m just ethically impaired, but that sounds like a good plan to me. If the product works and consumers are willing to pay that much for it, then everybody gets what they wanted in the end.

      I live in a college town that’s positively lousy with hipster-artist types…I could find one of them and get a branding scheme rolling in nothing flat, but it’s the marketing that might trip me up. Anybody know where I can find a couple of operationally operating operators for endorsement purposes?

      • Special forces guys are easy to rent. After they retire they’ll use that special forces title for anything that makes money. Look at that perfect pushup infomercial gadget, “invented by a former Navy SEAL”

  23. all you need to know is motor oil. its engineered to bond to metal. yes i know it cooks off after firing, so does any oil. froglube is a joke.

  24. Gun oil? Gun lube? I hardly ever use oils and lubes other than Rem Oil but I go thru about a gallon a year of various solvents/cleaners. Varget is dirty powder. Reminds me of old WW powders. Can’t the folks at Hodgdon or VV make an accurate propellant that isnt dirty and doesnt cost $40 a lb?

  27. I never bought into the fireclean hype although I entertained the thought a few times, just couldn’t justify dropping that kind of money on such a small amount of product. I was at a gun show recently and spoke with a rep for XF-7 and decided to give it a go but haven’t got a chance to degrease one my guns to exclusively apply the XF-7 as recommended. Has anyone had any experience with the XF-7 lube?

  28. Nice to see people holding snake oil salesmen accountable.
    I wonder if Froglube is a similar thing with some minty goodness…or in the grease: shortening.

    10W30 has always done wonders for me. These cars can go for 3000 miles on it…

    • The newer synthetic oils will take you a lot further than 3K miles between changes.

      If you want to see how far, get an oil sampling kit from a local oil jobber or (possibly) some well stocked auto parts stores. The next time you change your oil, take a sample and send it in to the lab. When you get the results back, you may be surprised by how much “wear” is left in your oil – ie, how much lube, detergent capacity, etc is left in the oil in your crank.

      I started doing this in 2003 on my diesel pickup, which costs a lot more on each oil change than a common gasser car. I found that common “fleet” hydro-cracked oils were good for 5K miles between oil changes – easily. Oils have improved tremendously in the last 20 years, and the common oils on the shelf in any auto parts store with the correct service rating for your car is miles ahead of where oils were in the 80’s.

      When I first changed to synthetic oils, I started sampling again. As a result, I’m now up to 10K miles between oil changes on my diesel. At some point, I’ll add a bypass filter and I can probably extend that to 15 to 20K miles.

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