Break Free or not?

[BCRider]

I'm sure it doesn't. There's a lot of ways to make and sources for oils of both mineral and vegtable makeup.

The BOTTLE you were looking at may well have been made for Safariland. But it's been my experence that many products are from other sources and are just re-packaged under someone's name. The source of the material itself generally isn't mentioned.

I'm somewhat surprised that the bare steel washer is still not rusty in some spots. I'm thinking that I may not have sanded off enough of the plating or that some of the plating smeared and is still protecting the steel. To test for this I think I'm going to start up a new test set from some 1/8 x 1 hotrolled flat bar I've got. At least I know that when I grind off the black scale there won't be any chance that there will be any sort of residual protection. And just to make it further interesting I think I'll try polishing and blueing part of each to see this working on surfaces that are more similar to our guns.

 

[NCWanderer]

BC, have you thought of instead of sanding.....try taking a light cut off of the washer? Actually your test has peaked my interest to the point that I'm thinking of doing a little test of my own. Not that I don't trust you or your method.....I just like doing things like that. I don't have any canola yet, but I may try comparing 1 or 2 other products I have on hand. Besides you've already proved canola's effectiveness.

 

[BCRider]

I may just do that but it would need to be something other than the washer since it's pretty tough to hold the thin washer well enough for a cut. I'll have to degrease after since the milling machine needs some cutting fluid but that's easily done.

For the small cost I'll go buy a bottle of Crisco oil as well. And isn't sunflower oil another one that is recomended for cooking? I'm concentrating so far on oils used for cooking because we don't want one that will tar up or otherwise polymerize under heat and flame.

 

[NCWanderer]

Hey, you can face them off in your lathe if your chuck is small enough......mine is. Just faced off several. I was careful not to touch them with my hand when I removed them from the chuck. I'm thinking about comparing olive oil, Crisco, Hoppes#9 and Break Free, since that's what I have on hand. I do have some Browning Gun oil, but I expect that it is petroleum based.

 

[Ginormous]

These are going to be really cool tests. I'll be watching for sure.

 

[BCRider]

I can actually face them off but I'll have to leave a bit of a rim on them or risk running the cutter into the jaws

Looking up stir fry oils I'm seeing some interesting options. The oil has to have a high smoke point to avoid a bitter taste. The bitter taste suggests that it's altering the makeup due to the heat. Such a change may have some impact on our use. The hot options (sorry ) seem to be Canola, regular olive oil (not extra virgin), peanut and grapeseed (as in from the seeds of grapes following the pressing for making wine). Corn, soybean and coconut oils also got honorable mention.

I hadn't thought about the peanut oil option.

Another test that occurs to me. Vegtable based oils can often oxidize to a sticky format over time. I think I'm going to also put dabs of each oil onto something and expose them to the light from a 60 watt incandescent light to get both the light and heat and see which undergoes a change soonest.

Off to the market now for some Crisco and peanut oil.....

 

[reverendfranz]

I think peanut oil would just make me hungry for chinese food everytime i went shooting.

 

[BCRider]

Well don't be topping up the fill with oat bran or cream of wheat then or you'll never stay on the diet.....

 

[NCWanderer]

I was browsing on Brownells and found results of a test of several products. While none of them were vegetable based, and this may not be of interest to some of you, I found the results interesting. Break Free didn't do so well. And I was surprised at WD-40's results. While it doesn't appear to be the best, it did quiet well. The ones that did the best seem to have some issues of being difficult to apply or remove. This would no doubt be fine for protection during extended storage, but in my opinion, it could be aggravating for someone who shoots once a week or even once a month. Here's the link if anyone would like to see the results.

www.brownells.com/.aspx/lid=10700/guntechdetail/Gun_Cleaning_Clinic__Knowing_the_Limits_of_Rust_Preventatives

 

[reverendfranz]

Nice find, and also a good reminder why you shouldn't leave your guns on your picnic table in the back yard for 72 hours...

Break Free:

 

[BCRider]

That link to the Brownells testing sure does stir up some serious doubts on some products that I think we all take for granted. The WD result doesn't surprise me. Or at least it surprises me that it did THAT well. While I have a fair degree of respect for it I would not have expected it to do this well compared to those others. Similarly the motor oil sure didn't hold up well which I would have thought it would.

Some more news on the Canola front. We had 3 days of cloud, intermittent showers as well as a couple of passing thunder squals that dumped buckets for a short time here and there. I looked at the washers last night and took a picture for you just now.

On the left is the Break Free. Note the obvious rust blooms. On the right is the Canola. The odd brown hue that I thought was the first sign of rust has not gotten any worse at all. In looking at it closely in the sunlight I'm now thinking that it's the heat and light that has "dried" the oil. The brown bits on the Canola washer is not rust but rather some bits of grass, moss or other stuff that tends to blow around any old yard that stuck to the oil. Touching both washers does not leave any sign at all of oil on my finger that I could see readily. On the Canola side trying to very lightly wipe away the bits of grass or moss showed that they are actually now stuck down. So that seems to support the idea that the brownish hue to the oil is due to the sun and heat having dried it. It may well be that fact that it got sun dried that allowed it to protect the washer better from the recent rains. Still not something I'd like to see happen to my guns in the long term though.... Thanks to the rain it would appear that we're down to the most minimal of film on the washers where I actually started with a nice wet but not puddle thick coating.



The idea of the Canola "drying" or thickening in the sun worries me a little for the longer term aspects. However it's been around a month and a quick check of the guns lubed with Canola shows me that the oil in the darkness and coolness of the gun safe is still as liquid as it was first coming out of the bottle. Over a year or more I have no doubt that it would turn gummy and sticky since there's some signs of that on the bottle that lives in the kitchen. But then again the idea of the use of the Canola is short term use during the active shooting season where it avoids the need to clean away storage oil that may turn tarry in favour of the Canola which so far for me seems to ensure that the powder forms at worst a soft grease like and easily cleaned deposit in combination with the BP residue.

I'd heard lots of great stuff about the Boeshield so I'm not surprised at the results of that. But I'd also heard that it was not that easy to remove. Apparently it makes a good internal rust resistant coating for high quality steel bicycle frames.

 

[arcticap]

Notice that the description for Eezox Gun Care includes black powder guns.

http://www.eezox.com/gun-care.html

EEZOX® weighs 10.42 pounds per gallon - squirt or spray EEZOX® into a container of water and it will sink to the bottom. This density prevents water from penetrating the thin layer of EEZOX® and from reacting with the metal to form rust. Because of the hydrocarbon oil content of other products, they will "float" on water. Therefore, water penetrates this oil layer and rests on the metal surface. The water then reacts with oxygen and the metal surface to form rust.

Our research clearly shows over 75% of gun owners are not satisfied with gun care products presently being used. Compare this to the 98.7% of EEZOX® users who are greatly satisfied.

http://www.eezox.info/truth.html

 

[NCWanderer]

I'm not sure what to use now. Canola looks promising for the short term. And I guess for the long term, in spite of the tests, I'm going to be forced to use Break Free, because I have 2 cans of the stuff. And it did protect Dad's old Winchester which I cleaned for him and it hung on the wall for about 6 years until I brought it home with me. But I will check it regularly since I've found it has collectors value now. After I've used it all I may decide on something else. I'm going to be watching the results of these tests closely. And as reverendfranz pointed out, I now know it's not good to leave your guns out on the picnic table.

 

[NCWanderer]

I checked that link furnished by articap about Eezox. It sounds like it's good stuff.....but is it? Has anyone here tried it? I'm becoming somewhat skeptical of some of these products.

 

[NCWanderer]

Hey I found this. :banghead:

www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=316555

 

[BCRider]

Well, I can attest to the CLP as a lube. On my CZ semi I was getting an annoying amount of jams and FTE's even with it newly cleaned and oiled. At first I thought it was my shift from 115gn bullets to 124gn because the jams seemed to be due to the slide not coming back far enough to clear and throw the casings. Then I remembered that I had used air tool oil to lube the gun since it was handy to where I had cleaned it. That night after the the first of two back to back IPSC club match days where I had all my jams I cleaned it again and lubed with BF CLP. No jams the next day at all despite a mix of 115 and 124 ammo. It was a club match with nothing on the line and it was only my second day of shooting IPSC style so I didn't mind playing with the ammo. In fact I haven't cleaned it since that time and have put perhaps another 100 or so rounds through it and it's still working a treat.

So there's no doubt in my mind that CLP is a darn decent lube from the lubricity standpoint. The Eezox sounds like good stuff for the off season longer term storage lube though.