Some Mobil 1 rust prevention testing

W

win-lose

New member
Hi folks,
First some background.... So, I did some testing of various products with my son. We cleaned some bright common nails in synth safe gun scrubber. Applied each product to 2 nails, then placed the nails in a labeled plastic cup filled with a salt water mixture (8oz water / 1 teaspoon of table salt). We then let the nails sit for 24 hours, we checked at 3, 12 and 24 hours.

We found that Mobil 1 15w50 came in 3rd out of 7 in our testing. Only eezox and S&W premium lubricant did better. The mobil 1 faired better than the control, valvoline synth ATF (virtually no protection), Rem Oil (virtually no protection), and Hoppes 9 lubricant (low/moderate protection).

Ok... now the interesting part. We decided to research Mobil 1 formulations, as it appears that Mobil is using different corrosion additives, depending upon the oil's purpose. So we went to redo the test, but this time with different mobil 1 products. This time, we simply cleaned the nails with soap/water (didn't want to deal with gun scrubber) and only used 1 nail per sample. We also let the nails sit for 48 hours.

From best to worst
Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel Truck 5w40 - rust only present on the very bottom of the nail where the greatest concentration of salt would have settled. About 10-15% of the nail effected.

Mobil 1 4T Racing 10w40 - rust present on the bottom 35-40% of the nail, again following the concentration of salt.

Mobil 1 V-Twin Turbo 20w50 - rust present on the bottom 50% of the nail, following the concentration of salt.

Mobil 1 15w50 - rust on the bottom 60-65% of the nail, again following the salt concentration

Control - Rust all over the nail, with greatest concentrations following the salt concentration.

Sorry for not having any pics. I only have a cell phone camera and didn't like how any of the photo's came out (plus I'd need to set up a hosting solution). I'll try to repeat these and grab some better photo's. I want to see the difference between S&W Premium (which turned in the best performance), Eezox and Mobil 1 Turbo Truck 5w50. Regardless of how it turns out, it looks like I'm going to be using Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel Truck 5w40 which is much less toxic, plus I now have a gallon of it :o
 
Interesting, thanks for the test. I found a small spot of surface rust on my CZ Carbine and wiped it with my usual Mobil 1 so hopefully it'll prevent further corrosion.
 
I don't think I have anything to worry about, since my guns are not stored standing in salt water!!!!!!
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Man, why didn't I think of that???? Guys, we've been wasting our time and money using rust preventatives... Apparently, if you don't store your guns standing in salt water, you have nothing to worry about. Boy do I feel stupid! When I get home, I'm taking my guns out of their salt water storage containers and chucking my protectorants!!!!!!!!

Thanks!
 
Thought it to be an interesting test, thanks for taking the time to do it. I imagine the Ballistol and CLP I am using would have placed close to the Hoppe's.
 
Interesting, thanks for the test. I found a small spot of surface rust on my CZ Carbine and wiped it with my usual Mobil 1 so hopefully it'll prevent further corrosion.
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Thanks and your welcome! Which version of Mobil 1 do you use?

Thought it to be an interesting test, thanks for taking the time to do it. I imagine the Ballistol and CLP I am using would have placed close to the Hoppe's.
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Thanks and your welcome! It would be interesting to see how Ballistol would fair. I knew eezox would be a strong contender, but I didn't expect S&W's (which is now discontinued) to do as well as it did. I was expecting Hoppe's to do better, just because of its popularity. On the positive side, Hoppe's was the least "offensive" of the products.

We really wanted to make the test easily reproducible by anybody, with minimal expense, time and effort.
 
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For those interested, TFL member DIY_guy did the most comprehensive test of this nature I've ever seen and published it here. (It didn't include Mobil1 though)
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DIY-guy's test is pretty much the gold standard! I've read through it many times.

I just figured I'd set out and answer some questions I had, which weren't covered in his tests, and posted the results thinking others might find them interesting/helpful.
 
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Yes sir, and thank you for the efforts. I just figured many others wouldn't have seen the DIY_guy thread so I'd direct them to it if they were interested in the topic.:)
 
Thanks for taking the time to do the testing and posting the results. I am really surprised at the variation in corrosion protection among Mobil-1 products. I never would have guessed that. I'm using Mobil-1 products on my guns with good results from a lubricity standpoint today.

Eezok also fared very well in a corrosion test in another forum. I will have to try one of these days. I can sure believe Rem-Oil did poorly as it has seemed to evaporate a few days after I application.

BTW the salinity testing is a very valid test method to accelerate aging and give us an idea what might happen down the road. Ionic contaminates are everywhere and unless you clean with deionized water you never remove them completely.
 
So... we re-ran the test with Mobil 1 Turbo Truck Diesel 5w40, Eezox, Smith & Wesson Premium Lubricant and a control.

I made 1 change to the test. I used hot water ~ 190 degrees (from my sinks instant hot) to create the salt water mixture (8oz water / 1 teaspoon table salt). I did this so that the salt would better dissolve instead with less of a concentration sinking to the bottom. The nails went into the hot mixture. I let the nails sit for 96 hours.

The control had rust over the entire nail with a more even distribution than the previous test.

Eezox finished last. Showing a few small spots of rust. It was a close last.

The Mobil 1 and S&W were pretty well tied, each only having a couple of small spots of rust. If forced to pick the better performer, I'd probably give it to Mobil 1.
 
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