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 0w-30 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 dino 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 mobile one.

 

[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.