Motor Oil for lubricating guns

[keita]

I was involved in a discussion in firearms forum about lubricating guns. It was surprising to find MANY people who actually use Mobil 1 for lubricating their firearms.

I'm not a big fan on Group III "synthetic" Mobil 1's and personally use German Castrol 0w30 for my turbocharged engine, but have any of you used motor oil for lubricating firearms??

Any pros/cons, recommendations on which oil?? One of the guys recommended single viscosity racing oil since a gun doesn't go through temp. cycling like engines, but I thought that was baseless. I would think any fully snhthetic oil with less additive pack would be superior to conventional oil. Opinions??

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Many guns have actions that must cycle in below freezing weather.

I use a good gun oil -- Breakfree CLP or Birchwood-Casey Synthetic Oil.

 

[dwendt44]

I'm certainly no expert on guns or oil, but from what I've read, my opinon(FWIW) is this:
Oil in/on guns is as much or more about corrosion prevention than lubrication.
Group IV and V oils aren't that great for rust prevention.
A light conventional auto oil would be better.
A quality gun oil would be the best, since it's made just for guns.

 

[dnewton3]

There is a forum for fireamrs on this site; isn't that where this topic belongs?

 

[Turk]

My friend uses Slick 50 One Lube in the Red can to lube the metal parts.

Any (non-Slick 50 oil slamming) comments??

 

[Cmarti]

I would worry if a 5W-20 wt would be shear stable in conventional. Would ARX prevent sludging in the action?

 

[nooil]

Use motor oil in motors and gun oil on guns

 

[mechtech2]

I often use high temp synthetic wheel bearing grease.
Any oil is better than dry [in the right places].

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
Group IV and V oils aren't that great for rust prevention.

Quote:
One of the guys recommended single viscosity racing oil since a gun doesn't go through temp. cycling like engines, but I thought that was baseless.

You are more or less correct though I will say that there is no need for VII in a gun oil. Monograde oils do not use these.

Quote:
I would think any fully snhthetic oil with less additive pack

Just about any motor oil will lube guns fine. I would go with a quality 5W20 or there abouts. Rust protection might be light, but it will be fine if you don't abuse your guns like leaving them in the rain.

There are only a few quality gun oils that are "better" than motor oil.

 

[gomes512]

Yep been using motor oil in trigger assembly. Recently I have been mixing 50/50 motor oil and bar/chain oil, works great as it tends to hang around in the areas you applied it to longer.

For the rest I use a moly #1 grease, never really had any cycling problems in winter on my firearms.

 

[2hellandback]

Have you ever had a 45colt acp or ar-15 work fine all summer long and then have both jam up or malfuntion at -5 below? Well i have, while shooting IPSIC competition, and synthetics solve this problem, I use Mobil 1.

 

[springs]

All of today's gun oils are very good. I use mostly FS-10 on most of my firearms and Rem Oil on some others. It's difficult to believe that motor oil would work better than these excellent gun oils.