Grease or oil?
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kilimanjaro
New member
Oil if it rotates, grease if it slides.
kilimanjaro
New member
You oil rotating stuff to spread the lubricant around the shaft. You grease the slide grooves to reduce the wear, it lasts longer than oil. When your slide starts getting shiny wear marks, it means you need to be using grease instead of oil. Doesn't take much, put on with a toothpick or swab and wipe the excess.
Strafer Gott
New member
Spindle oil for revolvers, and Magnalube for auto unloaders. Grease gives a better protection for the hot weather, and I like the Teflon loaded grease, thus Magnalube. I'm hoping it helps preserve all of my alloy framed pistols, like Sig and Colt commanders. I use it on the polymer frame rails as well.
I use a lot of both!
There are all these long debates on oils versus greases and they can get very heated. Greases are a thickener with oil. The oil does the lubrication, the thickener does important things beside making the compound semi solid. Greases and oils have additives that make a huge difference in what the grease or oil does. Some additives make the grease or oil great at rust resistance, but not so great as a lubricant.
The primary reason we use greases is because the stuff sticks to surfaces. This should be a Captain Obvious moment, but think about it, grease clings to stuff and will leave a thicker layer on the surface than an oil. Sometimes that is just great, sometimes it is not.
For firearms the lubrication requirements are not that severe. Can’t say how many times I have seen bone dry firearms banging away at the range. A couple of times I remember semi auto pistols not cycling properly until they received a squirt of oil on the rails and locking recesses. Bullseye pistol shooters lube so much, that they told me the elbow was the drip point!
I use Mobil 1 synthetic a lot. I prefer oils in semi automatic pistols because I found greases got into corners and was hard to wipe out. I use a combination of light greases and oils in bolt rifles and semi auto rifles. I often paint the bolt lugs with Lubriplate 105, a very thin grease, and I oil everything else. I paint grease on with a ¼” flat artist brush.
http://www.lubriplate.com/Products/.../Lubriplate-No-105-Motor-Assembly-Grease.aspx
I bought a couple of quarts of LSA
http://www.e-sarcoinc.com/lsalubricant1quart.aspx
and use that when I am bored. I think LSA is a great idea for a semi auto pistol as it is a little thicker than an oil, it is a semi fluid, and it wipes out easily.
If I have any lubrication advice for Garand and M1a shooters it is : LSA in the winter and Lubriplate 130 in the summer.
http://www.lubriplate.com/Products/Multi-Purpose-Greases/100-130-Series.aspx
But more important than choice of lube, is to keep it lubed!
There are all these long debates on oils versus greases and they can get very heated. Greases are a thickener with oil. The oil does the lubrication, the thickener does important things beside making the compound semi solid. Greases and oils have additives that make a huge difference in what the grease or oil does. Some additives make the grease or oil great at rust resistance, but not so great as a lubricant.
The primary reason we use greases is because the stuff sticks to surfaces. This should be a Captain Obvious moment, but think about it, grease clings to stuff and will leave a thicker layer on the surface than an oil. Sometimes that is just great, sometimes it is not.
For firearms the lubrication requirements are not that severe. Can’t say how many times I have seen bone dry firearms banging away at the range. A couple of times I remember semi auto pistols not cycling properly until they received a squirt of oil on the rails and locking recesses. Bullseye pistol shooters lube so much, that they told me the elbow was the drip point!
I use Mobil 1 synthetic a lot. I prefer oils in semi automatic pistols because I found greases got into corners and was hard to wipe out. I use a combination of light greases and oils in bolt rifles and semi auto rifles. I often paint the bolt lugs with Lubriplate 105, a very thin grease, and I oil everything else. I paint grease on with a ¼” flat artist brush.
http://www.lubriplate.com/Products/.../Lubriplate-No-105-Motor-Assembly-Grease.aspx
I bought a couple of quarts of LSA
http://www.e-sarcoinc.com/lsalubricant1quart.aspx
and use that when I am bored. I think LSA is a great idea for a semi auto pistol as it is a little thicker than an oil, it is a semi fluid, and it wipes out easily.
If I have any lubrication advice for Garand and M1a shooters it is : LSA in the winter and Lubriplate 130 in the summer.
http://www.lubriplate.com/Products/Multi-Purpose-Greases/100-130-Series.aspx
But more important than choice of lube, is to keep it lubed!
What say you ???
The only lube I had with me, was a can of WD-40. Gave it a couple of quirts and we were back in business. .....
Questions;
1) Sounds like some folks are saying; grease on the slide and oil on the cylinders. What about heavy oil on the slide as well as on the cylinder?
2) What about heavier oils that have Moly in them ?
3) What say you about Moly grease for contact areas, like sears.?
Be Safe !!!
Last range time, I had the opportunity to shoot my buddy's SIG .22lr in the 1911 style. I was really looking forward to shooting it and it did not disappoint me. After about 30-rounds, It started to mis-feed. I noticed that the slide was starting to drag and noisy. I inquired as to the last time he had lubed it. He said that be cause it was new, he didn't think it needed it. .....
The only lube I had with me, was a can of WD-40. Gave it a couple of quirts and we were back in business. .....
Questions;
1) Sounds like some folks are saying; grease on the slide and oil on the cylinders. What about heavy oil on the slide as well as on the cylinder?
2) What about heavier oils that have Moly in them ?
3) What say you about Moly grease for contact areas, like sears.?
Be Safe !!!
Unlicensed Dremel
Moderator
Is plain old white lithium grease ok to use? I've been putting that on pistol slide rails for a couple years now, as well as other guns.
Based on your experience, I would say, Yes!
I really don't know how the plastic frames of modern pistols will hold up to greases and oils, you know, like dissolves like, but since I have not read mass complaints of plastic pistols dissolving away, I guess, it is not a real problem.
It is my opinion, light greases are what you want to use if you use greases in firearms. In extreme cold weather, get the grease, oil, off, but I don't live in such an area, but I have seen Garands act sluggishly in 40 ish weather with greases.
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Bear in mind that there's various types of greases, based on the thickeners used to make a lubricant into a grease. It pays to know your bentones from your silicas. Remember, grease is essentially an oil that has a thickener in it. You wouldn't mix mineral oil or vegetable oil in with your engine oil when you're a quart low in your car (or maybe you might, lol)
White Lithium Grease:
Remember that the popular 'white lithium grease' may or may not be miscible with other oils and greases.
You may end up with a blobby mess that doesn't lube very well. The problem is that lubes that are not miscible, well...don't mix. They shear against each other, meaning that one or more lubes never actually do any lubing, they 'ride' the other lube.
I like a 630-AA Lubriplate for things like my M1 rifle and my P226, that get re-greased after use. It's an NGLI 1, meaning a pretty soft grease, so it doesn't low down my moving parts. Since I only need a little dab and it gets re-greased after use, no problems. 105 is probably every little bit as good but I think it breaks down quicker, being intended to dissolve in conventional motor oil.
Why do you use grease on a linear item and oil on a rotating one? Easy- the oil won't stay on the linear object as well as grease because oil has no thickener, and grease won't flow into the rotational interface as well as oil because grease has a thickener.
White Lithium Grease:
Remember that the popular 'white lithium grease' may or may not be miscible with other oils and greases.
You may end up with a blobby mess that doesn't lube very well. The problem is that lubes that are not miscible, well...don't mix. They shear against each other, meaning that one or more lubes never actually do any lubing, they 'ride' the other lube.
I like a 630-AA Lubriplate for things like my M1 rifle and my P226, that get re-greased after use. It's an NGLI 1, meaning a pretty soft grease, so it doesn't low down my moving parts. Since I only need a little dab and it gets re-greased after use, no problems. 105 is probably every little bit as good but I think it breaks down quicker, being intended to dissolve in conventional motor oil.
Why do you use grease on a linear item and oil on a rotating one? Easy- the oil won't stay on the linear object as well as grease because oil has no thickener, and grease won't flow into the rotational interface as well as oil because grease has a thickener.
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Perhaps the oil vs grease discussion is good for ideal conditions but I think you need to consider your environment. When I was in Afghanistan oil and grease were sand magnets. We experimented with a lot of dry lubes that worked fairly well. I still liked a little extra lube on some of the critical parts to prevent locking up in a fire fight, even if extra cleaning was needed.
Found same problem here in AZ on windy days when lots of dust blowing. By the way, Sig provides a little packet of TW25A with new guns which it recommends for slides.
Found same problem here in AZ on windy days when lots of dust blowing. By the way, Sig provides a little packet of TW25A with new guns which it recommends for slides.
leadcounsel
Moderator
I disagree. Bearings are round balls, and bearing units are often packed with grease. And engines have linear areas (a piston is convex 'linear' and doesn't rotate but it slides) and you use oil, not grease in an engine.
Looking at their web site, it looks like it is available in three forms: liquid, aerosol, and grease. The stuff I have from a long time ago is liquid in a can that has to be shaken (a LOT) before applying. The liquid carrier eventually evaporates and a dry, slippery powder is left.
Lou
I use a minimal amount of lubricant on my guns. I prefer a dry lube on my AR's, and they've worked well. As far as precision rifles, I use a tiny amount of grease on the locking lugs and under no circumstances whatsoever do I ever put oil on my trigger. The grease I use is a high temp/pressure clear that I obtained from a scientist who worked for the Naval Research Lab. It's some good stuff. I do use it on the rails of my semi pistols, but even there I apply it very sparsely and wipe off every bit of excess.
After DIY_Guy's testing I've been using more of the dry lube like Hornady one shot dry lube. I still use the eezox for general cleaning and still in the habit of a very light coat of grease on rails.