Automatic Transmission Fluid?

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ATF

Like several others have google Ed's Red. Make it to the recipe for a cleaner and protectant. Follow his recipe for oil. Unbelieveably inexpensive. You won't go back to anything else. The carbon in and on AR15s dissolves immediately.

The only other solution you'll need is a solvent for bad jacket fouling like Sweet's 7.62. Talk about something that stinks!
 
ATF for guns

Try using ATF and fine 4-0000 steel wool to remove surface rust. It works great and willl not remove the blue. Never tried it for lubricant. May give it a try.
 
If you don't care for the red color just get a bottle of power steering fluid, it's ATF with out the red color.

Ed's Red works and you make it your self
 
For real? Transmission fluid - who'd a thunk it!

UPDATE: OK. I got some. ATF may be the best lubricant around but that stuff stinks! BAD!!!! and it lingers on everything including the trash. Who wants their custom guns to smell like that? I'm thinking maybe the Mobil 1 route would be better, huh?
 
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The Mobil1 ATF synthetic has little to no smell at all. When mixed with 10w30 it has everything one could want in a lubricant. Now granted, there is heat in a transmission, there is nowhere near the heat of an engine block! Use the Oil mix as well for the viscosity. You will then have the cleaning properties inherent to ATF and the viscosity of the oil for load bearing under heat.
 
Did you ever wonder why they tell you to 'flush with water for 15 minutes' or longer whenever you get certain things splashed into your eyes (like bleach)?

That's because your eyes and the membranes around them are porous and since chemicals travel from the area of highest concentration to the lowest, it takes a lot of time for the water, in this case, to 'draw' the chemical(s) out.

This happened to my wife recently and I asked the eye doctor why you need to flush it out for so long.

Your skin is porous too. It's the largest organ of your body (no jokes here, please!)

Just something to think about.

I read on the Gunzilla website that it is "formulated to remove the hazardous chemical exposure associated with many gun cleaners".
 
For about 20 years now I've been using a mix of 2 parts ATF, 2 parts Mobil 1 synthetic oil and 1 part STP. This was recommended to me by a National Guard armorer that shoots where I do. I mixed up a quart just for the fun of it and have been amazed at just how good it is for all the things I use oil for (guns, knives, tools, hinges, garage, etc.). The red ATF dye means it's not something I want to get on my white shirts, but I think it's every bit the equal of Break Free or other commercial lubes.
 
^^^ The STP has Teflon in it. That is something that you do not want to get vaporized and breath in.:eek: I use Mobile 1 and PB Blaster mixed 3 parts Mobile 1 to 1 of PB Blaster for my lube and it does smell some but it works great. :D
 
"Straight ATF is great for motorbike chains. The automatic oilers are designed to use it."
Someone mentioned this earlier.............. this is only the case in all metal chains. Modern bikes use O-ring or X- ring chains that have rubber sealing the outer link plates from the inner rollers. If you put engine oil or ATF on these chains they will eat the rubber seals.
As this relates to guns........... some guns have plastic parts. How does the atf and/or engine oil do with polymer frames, sight bases, clips, etc.
 
Wouldn't know Qman, All my firearms are all metal. Except for the grips and stocks of course. Never gotten into the polymer craze. And news flash, if engine oil ate rubber gaskets, you would have one leaky ass engine on your car there buddy. Same with ATF. Lots of gaskets are rubber/silicone gaskets on your transmission. Some of your higher end ones are cork/metal, but most of your stock gaskets are of a rubber based product. Don't know where you got that info but it is mistaken.
 
I made up some eds red not to long ago. First time test mix I just used a synthetic ATF that I already had. It didnt smell bad, but it also didnt mix with the other ingredients. I went and picked up some dextron/mecron atf from Kellys auto parts, and that stuff stinks bad, but it works. So if your just going to use the atf on its own the synthetics are fine, but you've got to get the stinky stuff if you're going to use any of the mixes.

Some some of the synthetics probably mix fine, but I cant tell you want they are.
 
The critters can smell that junk.
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the critters smell EVERYTHING! there is nothing that you can use on a firearm that the critters are not going to be able to smell. with noses that are somewhere between 4,000 and 50,000 times more sensitive than ours. just think about you dog next time you cook up a nice juicy steak, or on the other end, cauliflower! sometimes, it is a blessing not to be able to smell very well. for us, their noses are a curse, for them, it is how they stay alive.

as far as atf goes, it is a wonderful lubricant, and a heck of a cleaner. when i am shooting lead loads, my version of ed's red is only 3 things. mineral spirits, kerosene, and atf. it works great for removing powder residue, and is very inexpensive to make. as a lubricant, it flows very well at any sub zero weather that 99.5% of us will ever hunt in, and the other .5% i honestly do not know. i do know that @ -25f, you can start up a car, drop it in gear, and the transmission works. in both standard and automatics (many modern standard transmissions use atf). in my years of shooting, i have used many, many oils. regular and synthetic gun oils, marvels mystery oil, stp, mobil 1, castrol gtx, and on and on. unless it gets really cold out, almost anything works. guns are made from relatively hard steel, and they never move any whers nearly as fast as a piston @ 6000 rpm. all of them worked fine. if i was going on a dangerous game hunt, or Alaska, i would not take a chance on ANYTHING going wrong, and i would use a synthetic gun oil. it is not worth taking the chance that your gun will not fire when a brown bear is charging you and it has been freezing rain half the day. or when a lion suddenly appears in the tall grass at 15 yards. you do not try to save $5.00 when it has taken $20.000 to get there, and your life is on the line.
 
Atf is a odd thing. Remembering from my rebuilding classes 30+ years ago, It does lube everything in there, but also provides a environment for good friction of the friction material and metal discs. I use it for my honing stones and that is all.It does have additives that control foaming,heat dissipation, and more.The metal may not get affected , but wood finish may be different or syn. stocks. One thing I forgot to mention is that it has properties to swell the seals so they don't leak but also don't break down the rubber. So be careful on rubber parts. Those rubber parts are made compatible for atf fluid.
 
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FROGO207 said:
OOPS, yeah I was wrong about that.:banghead: I was thinking of Slick 50 not STP.:eek: Should not trust my memory till I verify.
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Slick 50? Isn't that the stuff they invented to clog up oil filters and oil channels? :D

Do they still make that stuff anymore?
 
I used some Valvoline DEX/MERC universal ATF and it really didn't have an odor. My mix seems to work great as a bore scrub.
 
Fleet said:
For all you guys putting Marvel Mystery Oil on your guns, you're risking damage. MMO contains chlorine. Combine that with water and heat and you get hydrochloric acid.
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I'm calling BS on this one.

First of all, you do not know what is in Marvel Mystery Oil. They do not publish it's contents.

Secondly, just because something contains chlorine does not mean that you can get HCL out of it. For example, adding salt (NaCl) to water and heating it only gets it ready to cook spaghetti in.
 
From the MSDS sheet: Decomposition Products-- carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons.

No acids.

This is for Fleet who likes to combine different materials and get acid that will disolve you guns into a pile of nothings.

There is/was/claimed to be a "philosophers stone" that will transmute base metals into gold.
 
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If straight ATF is too expensive a lube for your guns, try cutting it with canola oil.

I some times use a two to one mix of canola oil and Dexron III ATF. It seems to lube just as well, and it doesn't smell near as bad. (It still smells, though).

I have tested it down to 10 below. If it gets any colder than that, I am not going shooting.
 
I've wondered how mixing ATF + 90wt gear oil would work out.

I regear axles all the time for 4x4s... the sheer forces that the ring and pinion have to withstand are astronomical, and especially when you have up to 400hp going through the axles, multiplied by ~4x from the transmission in first gear, then another 3-5x for having the transfer case in low range and bouncing off of rocks.

The only problem with gear oil is that it is incredibly sticky. Good for staying put... yes. But probably very good at attracting dirt.


I used it once on my 1911 to lube the slide rails. Shot 150 rounds through it with no failures, and still had some lube left when done... but gritty stuff built up as well, though not much/any more than usual. I didn't have any gun oil on hand.

FWIW it DOES work freaking fantastic for wiping down the surfaces of my 1911... it soaks into the metal really well, then you can wipe/buff it off without having any streaks left over. It works 10x better for this than Hoppes oil in my experience. When you wipe it off, it doesn't leave a residue, but you can tell it still has some oil on the surface protecting it.


If you ever need to break a bolt loose, or get something un-seized... mix 50/50 ATF and acetone... it works way better than PB Blaster or any other store brand rust penetrant I've ever used. Only downside is you need to shake it right before use as they will separate. And it will eat through plastic spray bottles.;)
 
flatlander937 said:
......................The only problem with gear oil is that it is incredibly sticky. Good for staying put... yes. But probably very good at attracting dirt................
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This is the problem I worry about - all these heavier lubes attracting dirt, grime and powder residue as you shoot. I'm talking here mainly about semi-auto pistols that get shot thousands of rounds a year and hundreds (or thousands) in a day, repeatedly. Some ammo can be really dirty if you combine grit from all the rounds in a match. That's why I think a thorough cleaning and a small application of CLP (or your favorite (not thick oil) on the gun may be the best.

I have cleaned a fairly good amount of crap out of some of my pistols after only 100 rounds or so in a club match. (I shoot Vihtavuori because it shoots cleaner than most powders and plated RN for the same reason - still my guns get dirty without using a thicker lube mixture.)

I'm wondering why all the hoopla and I'm caught up in it myself. I'm thinking that the motor oil belongs in your car, the ATF in your transmission and STP should just stay on the shelf. You CAN use the motor oil to lube your Dillon if you have one - I believe that's what Dillon recommends.
 
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I'm wondering why all the hoopla and I'm caught up in it myself. I just bought a quart of Mobil 1 Oil, Mobil 1 ATF and a bottle of STP for mixing it up to try it. Now I'm thinking I might be better off putting the stuff in my garage and using it there. (I'm just thinking all this over.)
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I have about 20 years of experience that says it doesn't attract dirt/grit any worse than other stuff does. I think it's great stuff, and I have plenty of other lubes to compare it to.
 
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