Interesting conversation last night

G

George Hill

Staff Alumnus
Correia, Yorec, Stratfordholdings, Pvt Pyle and I were hanging out last night after busting some 12 gauge caps to the beeps of a timer.
One cat there was an Officer from Oregon and he and Yorec had just come from a nice long training session at the farm.
Correia asked Jim (the officer from Oregon) about the guns being used out at the farm and what guns were showing the most malfunctions.

The answer was interesing.
"The 1911 guys."
He then went on to say that most all of the failures were do to the Operator and not the gun. Pretty much it's because the guys out there are running the guns too dry. He related about one cat that was having major jammages and one guy took the gun and dunked it into a bucket of oil. Ran just fine after that. "Sloshy" with it throwing back the juice... but it was running. No failures after that.
It's often said that 1911 like a lot of oil. It's also said that 1911s are like Hot-Rods. It's also funny that a lot of 1911 guys, myself included, expects these hotrods to run like little hondas and be miserly on the gas, or oil in this case. It's a hotrod... it's thirsty. Filler up.
For CCW that can be troublesome. The gun will "bleed" on you and on your clothes. Seepage or weeping or what ever you want to call it... your loosing the oil you need to keep the gun going.
Is grease the answer? That is a debate.
Let's discuss.
 
Too "tight" 1911's?

Not that under lubrication isn't an issue, but one of the major reasons for jamming with 1911's is a gun that is too tight.

According to something I read about John Browning was that he told someone he designed the 1911 to have a looser (Not sloppy) fit between the frame and the slide. The looser tolerances were to create a more reliable weapon in all circumstances.

The same thing is said about why the AK 47 is so reliable under any conditions. Kalishnikov himself said he kept everything loose because, in his own combat experience, you could not count on being able to clean a speck of dirt or sand out when the gun got dirty.

Now it seems that everyone is trying to get a tighter fit for increased accuracy but the trade off is reliability. (Every store saleperson that shows me a 1911 insists on showing me how "tight" that slide to frame fit is. Is that part of their sales training?) I guess if you're Rob Latham and shooting a Steel Challenge course and have the Springfield pit crew there to clean it up after every round of fire, fine.

For CC use, I'll take a looser fit and greater reliability since most confrontations take place at less than 10 feet I think and only involve three to five rounds being fired.

IMO, grease on the rails and lightly on the link. Use a needle oiler on the bushing and other friction parts very lightly. If you carry in hot weather "check your oil" every couple of days and re-oil if it feels or sounds dry.

Just my .02.

Don P.
 
George - Are you refering to all 1911s, or just the higher-end ones? As far as I've found, my milsurp Sistema does run like a Honda...
 
I use Tetra grease from time to time, actually veery rarely on pistols (little on my fiancee's Makarov). I do use it on the bolt carrier, rails, etc. on my Kalashnikov and would on other such rifles. My only pistols are HK and Glock and those do not require much lube.

When I lube it's with Militec. Works great. I'll just preempt by saying that if $35 for lubes/protectants (Militec, CLP, Tetra grease and Tuf Glide) is too much, then $3,500 is too much to spend on firearms (see other thread). It's not a need thing, it's a want thing and I like chemicals. I guess you can always do the Mobil-1 and used Glock thing and have your needs covered.


Back on track. If I carried a lube loving handgun, I'd try Militec 1st. It does not flow all over the place like CLP.

Got a free 14oz tube of Militec grease to try out, going to use that on the rifle next cleaning. Smells waaaay worse than Tetra grease.

Also. CLP, Tetra, Tuf Glide when used as a lube... aren't they supposed to function as well dry? As in the oil/hydrocarbons is just a carrier for the actual lubricant? Sure you receive what Sentry calls a "dampening" effect that makes an oil based lube "feel" slicker but in the long run these carrier based lubes should technically be working still, no?

Yeah, if I carried a lube lover and the liquid phase lubes didn't work I'd switch to a liiiittle amount of grease. Grease does have much better staying power in the sense that it doesn't bleed everywhere and also doesn't dissipate as readily.
 
Good Auto

Tight tolerances
Generous clearance...............note the difference.

I have always greased the rubbing parts, no problems.

Sam
 
With my 1911 it likes to have the CLP on the rails and the guts. I tried some tetra and it worked ok but nothing too special on my pistol. I have thought about getting one of those tight fitting 1911s, but mine is a little loose and runs like a tank. Someone once said "I would rather a reliable loose fitting gun, than a tight and unreliable one." He was talking about the 1911s.
 
The issue of "Tight" vs "Right" is a totally valid one. But that isn't really what I am talking about.

How much oil do you guys use? I have a feeling that most of the time, I am just not using enough. More oil... Lot's more oil. Even with CLP. I guess being jobless I've become somewhat of a miser prehaps. Then again maybe oil really isn't the ideal lube for a 1911 (or similar type gun - 97B). Maybe a grease is what would be needed.
I think I'll try some Tetra next time I'm out buying some lube. Give it a go. I've not used a grease on my gun in a long time. Especially not these newly developed for guns type greases. Used a white lithium from Napa. Worked fine I guess.. but wasn't ideal.
 
One drop per slide groove, one drop on each of the contact point of trigger mechanism (base of hammer, transfer bar contact points, etc) and one drop on the barrel where the flat area above the chamber meets the slide.

With grease, I usually use on contact points after detail stripping them, but then I usually buff most of it off. Have not found a significant difference between grease and oil in terms of lubrication.

Even if I don't use a given firearm, I will still lube every month or so if it looks dry upon inspection.

To my knowledge, my father and grandfather never used grease in their 1911 while at war. Oil was all.

Tetra works well, btw, but does need to be kneaded to rehomogenize - some product separation?
 
For what it's worth. 1911's like to be lubricated, especially if they are stainless. Before any match, I pull the slide off, lube the rails and put a couple of drops on the barrel to lube up the bushing. I do not want it dripping, but I do wipe off any access.

For my carry, a SS 1911 also, I check it every day. If it needs it, it gets it. Usually a drop or two every week or so is all that is required.

I like to use a lubricant that keeps the metal surfaces wetted, but does not take a lot to do that. An excellent pistolsmith that sure knew his way around a 1911, that is no longer with us, said the best thing he found was automatic transmission fluid. The red stuff. I have tried Breakfree, RemOil, and a few others. It works. You have to be careful, I always take the stocks off to clean, lube thoroughly and wipe down before putting the stocks back on.

I do not use grease. It hardens over time and collects all manner of particles.
 
Rock-Jock, The FARM is a police training facility out in the deserts of Utah. Great facility. It is where Action Target shows off all of their groovy moving target systems. They have big LEO training sessions with lots of great instructors where they show off all the new cool stuff. There are occasionally civillian classes out there when a big instructor passes through. It is also where we have our State IDPA match, and where we have our 3 gun matches.
 
That's why I've gone over to using Tetra grease on slide/frame.
I just hate getting 'sprayed' in my glasses by lube, but I still do use lube on the hammer/action.

Since UT has so much desert, does foriegn substances (sand) contribute to these 1911 failures?
 
I use Kroil on many of my guns. It's a good cleaner too. Two weeks ago I squeezed too much and it splattered all over my workbench. I thought that I cleaned it all up. Well, yesterday I pulled out my dremel box and there were still several, very wet drops of Kroil on it. It seems this lightweight oil doesn't evaporate as much as I expected.
 
I would have to disagree with the assessment. I only put a light coat of oil on my 1911s after cleaning and wipe it down...it doesn't get oiled again until after the next time it is shot. This means it spends most of the time nearly dry, yet I have no experienced any reliability problems.
IMHO and in my experience, the majority of problems with 1911s can be attributed to
1)operator error (limpwristing, improper grip that engages the slide stop or fails to push in the grip safety)
2)BAD MAGAZINES...this is the main problem and is due to the myriad different manufacturers that make 1911 mags
and
3)bad ammo. Most 1911s (most autos for that matter) perform better with jacketed bullets. 1911 shooters, particularly those that shoot a lot, use a lot of lightly-loaded cast lead rounds.
 
Oil does dry up

Gotta relube with oil about once a week here. Those tiny tubes of "Gunslick" last me a long time though and I've never had any complaint with it's performance on the slide rails/contact points. It does not disappear. Looks like a graphite grease being as it is black. Only drawback is availability of late.
 
I totally agree that the 1911 likes to be as wet.

I had my 1911 BlackT'd by Birdsong and it seems to have fixed that problem. The teflon/polymer finish seems to get everything working smoothly regardless of the amount of oil/grease on the rails.

I spray down the rails with a light coat of Remoil when shooting, but do not worry about it drying out any longer. The coating really is a functional addition.
 
Just to push the envelope, I've wiped all the lube off one with a Kleenex to see if it would run dry. It did -- for about 30 rounds. Then it began to stovepipe every 6-7 rounds, progressively getting worse. At about 80 rounds, it was jamming after one round.

Field striipped it, wiped the firing crud off, slathered oil on it, wiped off the excess, and it was happy as a clam. I figured that the lack of lube wasn't the problem as much as the crud from firing combined with firing destroying the residual lube film that cannot be wiped off.

I'm not going to carry a dripping or weeping gun, but I'm not going to fire a CCW for anywhere near 30 rounds without a pit stop either....
 
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