Results of gun care product evaluation

[Rancid Crabtree]

We all want to use goods quality products on our guns, bows, fishing gear, knives, autos, hunting and lake front gear and like you I’m not a fan of letting things get rust on them nor am I a fan of items wearing out prematurely. To protect my investment in gear, I began searching for rust inhibitors and lubrication solutions to make the maintenance of my gear as effective and efficient as possible but I understand that neglect is the primary cause of corrosion and wear and we must be diligent but having a corrosion inhibitor and lubricants aiding us in meeting those goals is helpful.

The problem is there are so many products on the market all making claims of how well they perform. Who do you trust? What is one to believe? Online searches turned up all manner of comparisons, reviews and evaluations of a couple of products here and a few more there but no large sampling of a really long list of products all compared at the same time. So that’s what I set out to do to determine for myself which product I want to use as a rust inhibitor and lubricant. Along the way I will also look at water displacement (a common claim) as well as reactions with non-metal components. The attributes I set out to evaluate are:

Water displacer:

Many of the products I purchased for this evaluation make claims in regards to being a water displacer or that they have water displacing properties. Its an interesting claim but it got me to wondering why I should care?? I thinks its great if a product displaces water does it adds to a products worth or usefulness?? We all know that moisture is everywhere from fog to rain to snow to humid environments to warm to cold condensation as well as sweat and dew. so perhaps the water displacement claims are meant to drive us to their products with promises of improved protection so I plan to investigate that claim.

Smell/odor:

Because my primary passion is bowhunting followed by gun deer hunting, scent/odor is important to me. If a product stinks to high heaven I am less likely to use it even if it offers other benefits. Gauging odor is pretty subjective since something that smells bad to me might be appealing to the next person. I will evaluate odor as best as I can.


Lubrication:

How well does the product lubricate? And in what state, meaning does it reduce friction better in its wet form or in a dry form after its wiped away/allowed to dry? If it offers the most friction reduction in a wet form but that wet form is a magnet for dust, dirt and carbon, then its counterproductive because that wet lube becomes a gritty sludge. If it can be applied, wiped dry and still reduce friction (while fighting rust) that would be preferred. I will investigate lubrication.

Compatibility:

How safe is it for plastics, rubber and gun finishes and coatings?

That a fair question since these products are expected to be applied to guns, bows, knives, fishing gear, etc that are composed of a variety of non-metallic materials and finishes/coatings. A product that displaces water and inhibits rust is great but if it melts your plastic and rubber and destroys the finish on your gun, its destined for the trash can. I plan to investigate compatibility as well.

Corrosion inhibition:

That’s the primary reason for this evaluation. I plan to investigate these products compared to one another for their ability to delay the formation of corrosion.

The goal here is to find a product that does the best job at inhibiting corrosion, reducing friction, does not harm plastic, rubber or finishes, displaces waters and does not force me to wear a gas mask to apply. A product that can do all of the above may not exist but I’m willing to find out.

The next question was "Which products?" Until now, my stable of gun/bow/tool care products was pretty small. Like most sportsmen I had my "go-to" products because that is what my local retailer carried. I hadn't thought much beyond availability and then fell into a comfort zone with those products. I took to the web and did a search as well as asking for suggestions on a couple of web forums and learned many of these products have passionate followers even if I had never heard of them. Was I missing out on a superior product????

The next step in the process was to take out a 2nd mortgage and buy up as many products as I could get my hands on and then wait for the brown truck to become a daily fixture in my driveway. The products I will be evaluating (in no particular order) are

G96 synthetic CLP



Eezox gun care



M-Pro 7



Gun Slick Gun Seal Rust preventative



Breakfree CLP



Breakfree Collector



Frog Lube



Ballistol



Gunzilla



RIG #2

[Rancid Crabtree]

Birchwood Casey Barricade



Rem oil (with Moistureguard)



Rem oil (regular)



Shooters Choice Rust Prevent



Strike Hold



Tuf Glide



Boeshield T-9



Viking tactics Rand CLP



Clenzoil



Quicken CLP



slip 2000 gun lube



Hornady's One Shot



MILITECH-1



PB 50 Blaster



Weapon Shield



Rusteprufe

[Rancid Crabtree]

Hoppe's No. 9 Solvent



Hoppe’s Lubricating oil (with weatherguard)



Hoppe’s MDL (Moisture Displacing Lubricant)



Hoppe’s Elite gun oil



Archoil AR4400



Ogre HP gun oil



Gibbs



CorrosionX



Kano Kroil



Silicone Grease



WD-40 (blue and yellow can)



WD-40 specialist Corrosion inhibitor



ATF



Fluid Film Rust and corrosion protection



Max Professional Super Lubricant



CRC 3-36 corrosion inhibitor



3-In-One oil



Pennzoil synthetic oil



Minwax paste wax



Atsko Silicone water guard spray

[Rancid Crabtree]

Here is the entire ensemble of products used I this evaluation.



Here are the products marketed and sold for gun care/maintenance.



You probably recognize many of the products in the lineup. Most are dedicated products marketed to the sportsman for this purpose but some are products that over the years have been used by sportsmen that are not necessarily marketed for this purpose. One such example is simple paste wax and Kroil which were recommended to me by people living in coastal environments. Another is WD 40 and 3 in one oil which have been used by everyone that owns metal since the 1940's. These are not marketed as a gun care products but since they are used by so many in that regard, they were thrown into this evaluation for comparison sake. All products were purchased from either local retailers, online or at gun shows with the exception of the Pennzoil motor oil. I secured that from the local speedy oil change location and only a small amount for this evaluation.

First up is an evaluation of Smell/odor:

Because my primary passion is bowhunting followed by gun deer hunting, scent/odor is important to me. If a product stinks to high heaven I am less likely to use it even if it offers other benefits. Gauging odor is pretty subjective since something that smells bad to me might be appealing to the next person. I will evaluate odor as best as I can.

While this evaluation might seem firearms-centric I’m hoping to come away with products that I will also use during bowhunting trips on things like my bow, broadheads, knives, pruning saws, treestands, climbing sticks, camera arms and other items I take afield as well as my firearms and hunting gear that I want to protect from corrosion. For that reason, odor/scent is something I pay close attention to. Some of these products have an odor that is present straight from the container that dissipates quickly after drying while some products continue to smell long after application. A strong odor even if its pleasant is still a strong odor and something I hope to avoid in the products I use.

I created the following ranking for odor.

No odor

Mild odor

Strong odor

And then any notes about the particular odor. I wrote down the first thing that popped into my head after taking a wiff of each product. See the data below.

**NOTE**This exercise may not account for much once you factor in the dissipation factor once dry and the scant amount left after wiping off the excess product but since I had to use each product I noted the smells and recorded them.



Next up in this evaluation is the water displacement claim. In regards to water displacement, the implied message is that the product, if applied to a wet gun/bow/tool will drive out (displace) the moisture and then protect the metal from moisture and corrosion. This is a pretty easy claim to prove or disprove since the very definition of displacement occurs when an object that is introduced to water, pushes the water out of the way and takes its place (displacing the water). If a product simply floats on top of water, it does not “displace” it.

If the product doesn’t break the surface tension of water, penetrate and displace the water to reach metal parts, then for the purposes of this evaluation It won’t be counted as a water displacer. In contrast, those products that break the surface tension of water, displace the water and penetrate it will be counted as water displacers. This will be done with the raw product directly from their container and NOT the dried or cured product after the propellant, carriers or distillates evaporate or dissolves.

The process of evaluating water displacement is as follows.

1. A container is partially filled with water

2. Raw product (from its original container) is introduced to the water filled container.

3. The product is observed and noted as to whether it displaced (penetrated, broke the surface tension) of the water or whether it simply rested on top of the water.

It should be noted that the ability of a product to displace water does not automatically imply that it will inhibit rust or provide lubrication. A rock or brick (if placed in a container of water) will displace water but will offer no corrosion protection or lubrication. Simply because a product can actually displace water does not automatically translate into corrosion inhibiting or lubrication properties.

Rust inhibiting and lubrication will be evaluated separately but so many of the products made a point of claiming water displacing properties that I thought it worth evaluating. In the grand scheme I dont know if water displacing is going to amount to a hill of beans since lubrication and corrosion fighting can take place even if the product does not displace water but so many of the products made the displacement claim that I opted to evaluate it.

Results: The vast majority of the products evaluated DID NOT displace water. 3 in one oil is a good example. It was in no way a water displacing agent but to its credit, it does not claim to be.

Rather than listing each product and whether or not it displaced water, Here are the only 3 that DID displace water as well as a look at 3 in one oil as a comparison. The water displacing products are:



The picture above can be a bit deceiving. The 3 water displacers look as if a thin film of product is floating on the water. That is not the case. What you are seeing is the surface tension of the water acting like a mirror. You can tell by looking closely to see the reflection of the top of metal hex nut that looks to be floating on that thin film. There was no floating compound on the surface of any of the 3 products. I then rolled and tilted and shook the bottle to see if the compound clung to the metal surface and kept water off the metal part. In all cases, the metal part was coated in the compound and resisted water clinging to the metal. After this agitation I allowed the bottles to rest for an hour to see if the compound separated or changed in any way after being exposed to the water. No change was noted. I did however observe some changes to the plastic bottle that held the Strike hold product. Notice the impact Strike Hold had on the plastic bottle. That leads me to the next area of interest.

[Rancid Crabtree]

Compatability:

Next up is evaluating compatibility with non-metal compounds. This is a tough claim to challenge since there are more plastic and rubber compounds and types of finishes than anybody could possibly check. Some products clearly stated they are not safe for rubber or plastic or finishes and cautioned the user to first test on a discrete location. Other products stated they are safe for (or outright encouraged use) on finishes, leather, wood, etc while still others made no warning nor statement in this regard. A simple check for reaction is to place a small amount of each product on polystyrene (Styrofoam) and observe the reaction. We know what Gas and Acetone do to Styrofoam and we wouldn’t use those harsh products on our gun finish or plastics or rubber so I will use that as a base for this evaluation. Compounds known to destroy polystyrene are Gasoline, Benzene, Toluene, Acetone, Xylene. There are other agents harmful to polystyrene but you get the point. Since its not practical to do a compatibility evaluation with every known type of plastic and every type of gun finish and paint, I only tested polystyrene and took the warnings about compatibility from the product labels.

The majority of the products did not harm nor soften polystyrene. Here is the sheet I used for the evaluation.



Here is an easier to read image of the products in this evaluation that dissolved polystyrene. It should be noted that all 3 water displacers were harmful to the evaluation sheet of polystyrene yet 6 other products that were not water displacers were also harmful to the sheet.



lubrication:

The reduction of friction/heat in moving metal parts is what I evaluated next. Many of the products make claims in regards to lubrication meaning a reduction in friction/heat/wear. (some make fantastic claims) To evaluate lubrication claims I will evaluate static friction forces. If you slept through your science/physics classes, Static Friction is the force that resists the movement of two objects against one another when the objects are initially at rest. To evaluate the lubrication claims I made a simple device to evaluate static friction forces. Two polished steel surfaces are used to mimic firearms parts. Its size and length of travel was meant to mimic the travel of the action of your typical firearm. A force is applied to cause the weighted steel sled to begin moving on a steel track. Increasing amounts of water are added to a container that is tethered to the weighted sled until the weight is great enough to overcome friction and move the sled. The weight of that water will be recorded to establish a factor compared to dry steel against dry steel.

To establish a baseline value for two dry steel surfaces, the exercise was repeated 8 times and then an average was established. Each product will be evaluated by applying the product to both surfaces and recording the amount of weight (force) required to get the weighted sled to move and then repeating the exercise 8 times to arrive at an average force.

Here are a few photos of the device used to capture static friction forces.











Here is a brief video of the device in action. (note that in an effort to make the video as short as possible I poured the water faster then I will during the actual evaluation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfdn5OuL8TY

How much lube to use:

We have all been instructed to apply lubrication liberally and to wipe off any excess. This seems counter intuitive if you consider something like packing a wheel bearing or using a grease zerk where metal parts are suspended in a bath of lubricant. Gun parts, folding knives, fishing reels and tools however are tightly toleranced with almost no room for large volumes of lubricant but aside from space constraints, excess lubricants cause an increase in effort required to get parts moving. I’m not versed in fluid dynamics but I quickly learned what happens when too much lubricant is applied. Being curious about what I observed I took to the web to review terms such as “Cohesion”, "Adhesion", “Fluid tackiness”, "Viscosity" and "Fluid shear" which explained what I was observing.

Excess lubricant acted like a glue that slowed or resisted parts from movement because of the surface tension and viscosity of the excess lube. As I removed more and more of the excess, I observed that less force was required to overcome static friction. In almost every case I found that removing all visible lubricant resulted in the lowest levels of friction between the two polished steel plates. What we have been told is correct, apply liberally to coat and then remove all excess to the point where you think you have removed too much and you will enjoy the least amount of friction. The side benefit to that dry level of lubrication is that it will not attract foreign contaminants that could get trapped in excess/wet lubricant.

To ensure there is no cross contamination of products on the sled/track device, after each product is evaluated, the sled and track are cleaned with acetone and paper towels until the dry to dry friction values were restored. Several dry runs are performed before the next product was evaluated.

NOTE** I recognize this evaluation may have deficiencies. My lubrication evaluation was conducted at 70 degrees F so it is unknown if the results would be the same if evaluated at 0 or 120 degrees F. Also I am not evaluating longevity. I cycled each product 8 times to arrive at an average force and understand that a product that performed well during 8 cycles may fail long term where a product that performed slightly worse may in fact have better long term lubrication. With that said, equity was my first priority. Every product and action was conducted the same way to ensure each product was getting a fair evaluation.

I recorded the results of the force required to move the sled and used a spreadsheet to tabulate the results for this chart.



To ensure that I was getting credible data and to increase my confidence level, I conducted the lubrication evaluation a 2nd time because as you can see, one product (Frog Lube) in the first evaluation reduced friction so much that I could no add water to the container. Simply hanging the empty container on the device caused the sled to move. For the 2nd evaluation I added weight to the sled and raised the end of the track to create a 10 degree upward slope meaning the sled would have to slide up-hill with the added weight. The results changed but not by much. The top 10 performers remained the top 10 and the bottom 10 remained the bottom 10. The products did jockey each other for position within their respective groups. Here is a chart showing the results from the 2nd evaluation for friction. To make it a little easier to read I am showing only the top 10 performers and the bottom 10 performers in their new rankings.

[Rancid Crabtree]

Corrosion protection:

Lastly I evaluated corrosion protection and inhibiting. It’s a common claim made by the products in this evaluation so I want to evaluate that as well. Some of the products state that they meet or exceed this test and spec or that test and certification (the most common being ASTM B117 and ISO 9227 salt fog chamber corrosion test and a variety of mil specs. ) All of those tests are very good and harsh controlled environment tests but where I found them lacking was:

1. No UV component. All the tools and gear I use spend a lot of time outside and UV rays break down even the best of products . Those UV effects are not mimicked in a sealed fog chamber in a lab.

2. Constant temps. Our gear is expected to perform in subzero to super-hot temps and sometimes those fluctuations may happen all in the same day or week. A fixed 95 degree F test is certainly equitable to all the samples but not a true environmental test with real world applications for a guy that hunts in freezing temps and then brings his gun into the cabin where it sets near the wood stove to dry out and then is returned to sub-freezing temps the next day.

3. Proximity and cross contamination. Since it’s just not cost effective to test each metal plate all by itself in a fog chamber, many samples are ganged together in a small test chamber. Being that the test chamber is only so big, they are positioned very near one another and samples are misted with the same recycled salt water carrying the corrosion from products failing the test (and the products being tested) onto samples adjacent to other parts. I hope to avoid that.

4. No real life dirt or debris. The wind carries all manner of debris on it that rests on metal parts (some more than others) An outdoor evaluation more closely simulates real “in the field” situations.

For these reasons (and because I plan to sample far more products than has perhaps been done at the same time during any other evaluation conducted) and because I want to increase my confidence level in the results I get, I conducted 3 evaluations. Many of the home spun evaluations I have seen online ran only a single sample set implying the results would be the same if repeated. I ran 3 separate evaluations under a variety of conditions. A portion of this evaluation took place outdoors in direct sunlight with the fluctuations of night and daytime temps as well as UV exposure and wind, airborne debris and rain. Rain or not I planned to mist one group of the sample plates with a salt / water solution in the ratio of 1 tsp non-iodized salt per cup of tap water (and I have hard water with mineral deposits). This will be the most harsh environment meant to expedite the formation of corrosion.

All the sample plates were given a 320 grit (two direction) brushed finish to remove any rust inhibitors the steel maker placed on the steel so they don’t rust in the store. Then the plates were chemically cleaned with acetone prior to applying the product. Each product in the evaluation was applied to the metal per the product instructions on the label. Nearly all products labels direct the user to apply liberally and then wipe off excess product. I followed those instructions as I don’t care for a sloppy, wet gun where excess product is dripping or rubbing off, onto my clothing, gear or car. I left an amount of product on the metal just as I would when I store my firearms. The plates were attached to a suitable (non-metallic) holder at a roughly 15 degree angle from vertical. I didn’t want them lying flat so water would pool on them and I didn’t want them standing perfectly upright either as they would shed water and debris too easily.

All the metal samples were sheared out of the same sheets of cold rolled steel sourced at my local hardware store. Several of these sheets were purchased for this evaluation.



Here is sample board #1 after all the products had been applied to the sample plates. This sample board then sat in my shop for 5 hours to allow the products to fully dry or cure or evaporate or set a film before the board was exposed to the elements.



Here is a short video of all the samples on board #1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sj8HZApO6Y

Then the samples were misted with the salted water. Here is a closer view of the plates after the misting. Notice the different reactions with water. Most plates beaded the water.





Not all products beaded water. I don’t know the significance of this but observed and recorded it anyway. The products that did not bead water can be seen below.







After 2 hours I observed the samples. The controls were already exhibiting signs of corrosion. White spots are the result of the salt left behind after the water evaporated and does not indicate rust, just dried salt.



The plates spent the night outside and it was quite a night. Temps in the upper 30's, a storm rolled through with wind gusts to 30 MPH and on and off rain. 24 hours after each product was applied to the plates they were observed for signs of corrosion.