Bear Grease for lubricant?

[Yukon_Cola]

I was surfing an old firearms forum and someone mentioned bear fat as lube. I looked a bit online and found some for sale but before I clicked the buy button I was curious if anyone had tried it and could offer input.

 

[WrongHanded]

Sounds like something the old trappers might have used, to keep their guns in good order when no other options were available.

 

[Electrod47]

Its something you want to use with your Front Stuffer Blackpowder Rifle. I use it to lube the bore for storage and as a patch lube when shooting. I get the good stuff from a guy who is permitted to render a couple bears annually and sells the grease. PS: Smells Good! It was the primary premium lube back in the way back day for 100 years.

 

[Yukon_Cola]

Its something you want to use with your Front Stuffer Blackpowder Rifle. I use it to lube the bore for storage and as a patch lube when shooting. I get the good stuff from a guy who is permitted to render a couple bears annually and sells the grease. PS: Smells Good! It was the primary premium lube back in the way back day for 100 years.

How would it be for general use on other firearms? I'm interested to try it.

 

[Armored farmer]

I was given a big tub of bear grease from the old trapper that tended to the fishing cabins that our friends own in Ontario. He was an interesting eccentric old cuss that was the closest thing to a real mountain man that I ever knew. When he found out that I was into black powder arts, he gave me the grease to use in my guns.
"Anything that will keep a bear and cubs alive for 4 months is good stuff!" If you don't like it for lube, you can bake a pie with it!

 

[bearcreek]

I looked a bit online and found some for sale

Curious about the legality of this. It's illegal to sell the edible parts of wild game in the US and I'm fairly sure no one is farming bears. Maybe they're not counting the fat as "edible"?

 

[Pat Riot]

I wouldn’t use Bear oil on an expensive firearm to test it.

Years ago a friend gave me some sperm whale oil to use as gun oil. I didn’t use it for that. I tested it on a cheap pocket knife. It rusted. I gave the remaining oil to a guy that did Mountain Man reenactment.

 

[hso]

someone mentioned bear fat as lube

We have a whole thread on lubricants and bear grease wasn't even a consideration. Perhaps if you were transported back in time and couldn't get whale oil.

 

[JohnKSa]

I looked a bit online and found some for sale but before I clicked the buy button...

If this is just for a fun experiment then just go for it. No need to ask for input first. Test it and report the results.

If you are seriously looking for a firearm lubricant, then there are countless much more accessible and much more suitable products.

Let's assume there are no gun stores in your area.
Let's assume you don't have access to the internet--or maybe that you have some reason not to shop online.
Let's assume you don't have access to any automotive parts/product stores.
Let's assume you don't have access to any department stores like Wal-Mart.
Let's assume you don't have access to any hardware stores.
Let's assume there are no convenience stores or gas stations in your area that carry any lubricants.
Let's assume there are no mechanic shops or small engine repair shops or car dealers that might sell you some oil.
Let's assume you can't order some kind of oil using your phone and a credit card.
Let's assume your grocery store doesn't have a hardware section with any lubricants or a pharmacy that carries things like mineral oil.

At this point, I'm wondering how you got a gun and where you plan to get ammunition for it, what happens if your car breaks down or needs an oil change, but let's just pretend...

You could still go to a grocery store and find a plethora of products that would work just as well, and probably far better than bear fat.

Things like shortening, lard, butter, margarine, vegetable oils, nut oils, cooking sprays, etc. would all be cheaper and easier to get than bear fat and work at least as well. In a pinch, you could even buy some fatty meat and render the fat yourself, or maybe buy some nuts and press them for oil to make a lubricant.

I'm a big experimenter. I probably have around 20 different oils and greases on hand at the moment from testing I've done with firearms, but even I think there's a point where things just don't make sense any more.

 

[Buzznrose]

Back when and where bear grease on firearms was a common thing, folks bathed infrequently, had limited options at the general store, walked or rode horses everywhere, and pulled their own teeth with rusty tools. None of these appeal to me.

Think I’ll stick with Ballistol or something a bit more modern for my guns.

But to each their own…

 

[Riomouse911]

I guess it’ll work. But then again in a pinch I bet bacon grease, would, too. That would be much easier to get and a whole lot cheaper.

I used bacon grease to lube a balky trailer stabilizer jack once, it had been down for quite a while and was squeaking like a demon as I tried to pull it up. I slapped the grease from breakfast on the screw threads and up it went without a complaint. (Lubed the jacks properly when I got it where if was going.)

Stay safe.

 

[P5 Guy]

Sperm oil is a waxy liquid obtained from sperm whales. It is a clear, yellowish liquid with a very faint odor. Sperm oil has a different composition from common whale oil, obtained from rendered blubber. Although it is traditionally called an "oil", it is technically a liquid wax. It is composed of wax esters with a small proportion of triglycerides, an ester of an unsaturated fatty acid, and a branched-chain fatty alcohol. It is a natural antioxidant and heat-transfer agent. In the late-18th and early-19th centuries, sperm oil was prized as an illuminant for its bright, odorless flame and as a lubricant for its low viscosity and stability. It was supplanted in the late 19th century by less expensive alternatives such as kerosene and petroleum-based lubricants. With the 1987 international ban on whaling, sperm oil is no longer legally sold.

The oil from bottlenose whales was sometimes called "Arctic sperm oil." It was cheaper than and inferior to true sperm oil.

Petroleum products are probably superior to organic lubes.

 

[someguy2800]

Petroleum lubricants are a relatively modern invention. Animal fats were used as lubricants for thousands of years.

Most modern firearms designs don’t require any lubrication at all so adding animal fat to them is likely to do nothing except attract fouling and gum up when very cold, but it’s not going to hurt anything either. I noticed a long time ago that our 100 year old meat processing equipment never rusts.

 

[JohnKSa]

Most modern firearms designs don’t require any lubrication at all...

A gun range owner I used to know apparently believed that. He cleaned a brand new batch of Glocks he was renting out using his ultrasonic cleaner and didn't bother lubricating them properly afterwards. Not only did they not run, it was very difficult to operate the slide manually. Most modern firearms don't need very much lube, but almost all of them need at least little bit in the right places.

 

[bearcreek]

Most modern firearms designs don’t require any lubrication at all

Which designs would that be? None that I've used, that's for sure.

 

[someguy2800]

Which designs would that be? None that I've used, that's for sure.

Each and every one that I own including glocks, glock clones, ruger’s, S&W’s, Kahr’s, CZ’s, Wather, Star’s, and Colts. I only use oil on steel firearms for rust prevention, and all of mine run perfectly fine dry and stay cleaner longer. First thing I do when I buy a gun is clean all the oil and accumulated gunk out of them.

 

[JohnKSa]

Well, that's got to be really good news for the OP. Not only does he not have to find bear grease, he doesn't need to bother with lube at all.

Except on steel firearms, of course--although I'm not sure why that would make a difference as nearly all firearms, regardless of whether they are polymer, aluminum or steel, have very similar designs in terms of where there's metal-to-metal contact of moving parts.

 

[Jim Watson]

I went to a muzzleloader specific gun show in the BC (Before Covid) era and saw bear fat on sale for $20 a quart.

I once read that pastry chefs liked bear fat for baking.

I read that early automatic transmission fluids contained sperm oil, which is why Ed's Red is formulated with ATF to simulate an old CLP type mix.

Lard oil is still used in industry, here is what one vendor says:
"No. 1 Lard Oil is used in cutting oils, lubricating oils, drawing compounds, textile lubricants, sulfonating and sulfurized bases, copper rolling and drawing, grease formulations and as a lubricant or lubricant additive where a high shear and thermal stability better than that of petroleum lubricants is desired."

 

[someguy2800]

Well, that's got to be really good news for the OP. Not only does he not have to find bear grease, he doesn't need to bother with lube at all.

Except on steel firearms, of course--although I'm not sure why that would make a difference as nearly all firearms, regardless of whether they are polymer, aluminum or steel, have very similar designs in terms of where there's metal-to-metal contact of moving parts.

Steel firearms meaning carbon steel rather than stainless steel.

 

[JTQ]

About a decade ago, I got interested in the organic/bio lubes, probably prompted by posts on forums regarding Frog Lube. More research made me realize, organic products can go bad, while a synthetic or petroleum based lube won't.

 

[Rule3]

Black or Brown??

We use FROG lube, We keep a few in cages at the range and just rub them on our guns when needed. No need to call PETA they have luxury accommodation and finest food!

 

[someguy2800]

For example this LC9S which is carried regularly and shot often has never had a drop of oil applied to it and it functions 100% reliable after several thousand rounds. As you can see nothing is worn and it doesn’t fill up with gunk. It covered in frost because I was just outside with it and it’s -20 F. And it will function 100% when it’s -20. That is always a question when oil is present.



The only guns I oil besides for corrosion protection on carbon steel guns are 22 lr’s because the wax bullet lube combines with the fouling to make gunk so you have to flush that out. I do use a tiny drop of moly grease on the trigger connector of glocks to smooth out the trigger pull, but they don’t need it to function.

 

[JohnKSa]

There's really no way to tell anything about wear from a picture like that, especially not with the gun covered in frost.

I will say that kind of reliability when totally dry is pretty impressive.

It makes sense that you would use the LC9S as an example. That's the only one of your pistols that's never had a malfunction, right?

 

[someguy2800]

There's really no way to tell anything about wear from a picture like that, especially not with the gun covered in frost.

I will say that kind of reliability when totally dry is pretty impressive.

It makes sense that you would use the LC9S as an example. That's the only one of your pistols that's never had a malfunction, right?

Let’s have a serious discussion on this without insults please.

Of course not, I’ve had many malfunctions in the course of load development from light charges, hollow point profiles that won’t feed in picky actions, brass with bulges that were not caught while reloading ect… Always a learning process. My regular carry and training guns are this LC9s and and my SR9 and both are run free of oil and are completely reliable with their worked up loads and get shot a lot. My other pistols are all also reliable with ammo they agree with but I don’t shoot them with thousands of rounds a year as they are fun guns.

I’ll tell you why I came to do this. It’s pretty common to get down to -20 F here and sometimes -40 or less. I snowmobile and fish and generally keep outdoors through the winter so I insist my firearms work in the cold, and I also used to shoot pistol league in the winter so shot many thousands of rounds in practice at my outdoor range in the winter. I’ve found some lubricants retard the slide motion enough that either the brass ejects only a very short distance or I start getting miss feeds or out of battery in very cold temps, especially with my 9mm 1911 I shot in competition which was sprung pretty light. I’ve also seen triggers in handguns and rifles fail to reset in the cold because the trigger return spring wasn’t strong enough. All the lubes I’ve tried do retard the slide to some degree, but some obviously worse than others. It’s been well known for decades by people in the arctic that no lube is sometimes the best lube when its very cold so I started stripping all the oil off my guns in the winter and found they all function perfectly again once the oil is gone. After shooting all winter with no oil I found the gun stays 10 times cleaner because the fouling and dust and pocket lint doesn’t stick, and can find no wear, so I just kept on without oil in the summer too. Like I said the guns that need corrosion protection still get a light film of CLP on a rag on all surfaces but I do not put any grease or drops of oil in any handgun anymore and they all have kept shooting happily for years.

Here is a better picture of the LC9s showing the bottom side of the slide rails, which are aluminum by the way, and as you can see they are not worn. You can see there are a few rust spots on the outside of the slide where the nitriding or whatever is worn through, so it could probably use some more CLP on the outside for corrosion protection but it’s a working gun so I don’t care. I don’t remember the last time I actually thoroughly cleaned it.



This is my SR9. I haven’t owned it as long but nothing wearing here either and this gun will feed, fire, and eject anything that fits in the mag.



Note I am not telling anyone thst you should stop lubing your gun or that there does not exist a handgun that won’t function without lube. If you don’t live where cold is an issue and you are going to regularly clean the gunk that accumulates out then lube away! I’m just relaying my experience that all the handguns I own do in fact function happily with no lubrication or just the small film that is required to keep them from rusting. In my opinion you either need enough oil that it flushes the gunk out, or so little that it can’t stick to it in the first place. Do what you see fit.

I’ve also started running my AR’s dry also as many others do. I have one with over 1000 rounds of steel case 7.62x39 with no lube or cleaning and it’s still running like a champ.

 

[entropy]

I wouldn’t use Bear oil on an expensive firearm to test it.

Years ago a friend gave me some sperm whale oil to use as gun oil. I didn’t use it for that. I tested it on a cheap pocket knife. It rusted. I gave the remaining oil to a guy that did Mountain Man reenactment.

It was a premium lamp oil back in the day, not sure about lubing qualities.

Back when and where bear grease on firearms was a common thing, folks bathed infrequently, had limited options at the general store, walked or rode horses everywhere, and pulled their own teeth with rusty tools. None of these appeal to me.

Think I’ll stick with Ballistol or something a bit more modern for my guns.

But to each their own…

That's even a century old.

For example this LC9S which is carried regularly and shot often has never had a drop of oil applied to it and it functions 100% reliable after several thousand rounds. As you can see nothing is worn and it doesn’t fill up with gunk. It covered in frost because I was just outside with it and it’s -20 F. And it will function 100% when it’s -20. That is always a question when oil is present.

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The only guns I oil besides for corrosion protection on carbon steel guns are 22 lr’s because the wax bullet lube combines with the fouling to make gunk so you have to flush that out. I do use a tiny drop of moly grease on the trigger connector of glocks to smooth out the trigger pull, but they don’t need it to function.

Like someguy2800 says, it gets a bit chilly in Minnesota ya know. During deer Season, I'd remove all oil & grease from my deer guns, and use powdered graphite. Nothing at all also works at those temperatures. Just as he's saying he's not telling people not to switch to the way he runs his guns, I'm certainly not going to tell him he has to lube his guns. Seems to work for him.