just as the title says i am interested in people who mix your own lube- whats you mix and how many rounds you have through it. thanks. i see alot of the atf/10-30 and would like to see a few rifles with thousands of round on the mix.

60% mob 1 5w30, 35% synthetic atf, 5% hoppes no.9. around 1400 rounds so far.

I agree that ATF does nothing but DEGRADE any lube you mix it with. Home chemists should stick to mixing baking soda with vinegar to make cute little volcanos!

Asking a guy what he uses to lube his guns is like asking him about politics or religion. And this phenomenon is not limited to firearms. I used to own a Golf TDI, and the arguments over on the TDI boards regarding lubrication would rage on for weeks.

I run straight dino-based ATF to lube my AR's, with some grease on the high wear points. I'm not a petroleum engineer, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I've done enough cursory research on the interwebz to feel comfortable with this choice. This study (funded by the Ford Motor Company), seems to suggest that ATF actually has pretty good boundary layer lubrication properties. This characteristic, coupled with the robust detergent and pressure additives package, makes ATF a good choice to me. But I wipe down, clean, and re-lube my guns after every shooting session, so I can frequently check for any undue wear.

Around here, the cheapest ATF I can find costs about $3.50 a quart. I don't even bother mixing it with more expensive synthetic motor oil. I use some of the ATF to mix Ed's Red, and the rest to liberally lube my guns. The only specialty solvent I need is something to remove copper fouling if needed. I'm not claiming ATF is the best gun lube out there, but all things considered, it works for me.

That is a very interesting paper, but it has little to do with boundary lubrication on metal. That paper is referring to the wet clutches in an auto trans and how the fluid affects them, not metal on metal contact. In fact, ATF has far lower Anti-wear and detergent additives than does motor oil. Motor oil must deal with combustion byproducts from burning gasoline, whereas ATF is in a sealed unit and doesn't deal with this, so the levels (and types) of detergents in an ATF will be very different. Detergents in these types of oils will have no affect on guns anyway (amount of gunk is far too great, and the oil is replaced far more often). Motor oil also has greater acid fighting ability for the same reason.

Neither ATF or motor oil will contain true EP additives, only AW.

The introduction of the paper states:

Which is correct. Heavy duty boundary lubrication is not part of their scope. Hydraulic (moving clutches/torque converter) and heat transfer are the primary roles of an ATF. And getting the proper dynamic friction against the clutch material is very important as your paper shows.

Most guns are overbuilt so in reality, for most shooters, it won't care what you lube it with so long as it has something on there. For those with high round counts, it will.

All i know is when i can burn off CLP in a matter of 100-200 rounds and my mix keeps me going 1,000+ rounds without a relube it must be doing something right.

Im no engineer, just someone who shoots alot and has tested alot of lubes.

Wha would you recommend then?

When I was teaching the M2 we used pure motor oil as a lube. We never had a problem due to lack of lube. CLP, LSA, etc, would burn off after 50 rounds or so.

I have a plastic bottle for my gun lube, and it started out as a mix of motor oil and ATF.

Now I just top it off whenever with whatever is on hand - over time it has become a mix of the above, along with 3in1, all purpose lubricating oil, the generic oil that came with a few pistols I purchased, the leftovers from a few oil changes, etc.

Making sure that the weapon is properly cleaned and adequately lubed is more important than the lube itself... Just my 2 cents...

Well over 10K.....half of that using Mobil 1 10w30 Synthetic and the other using Walmart Brand Supertech 10w30 Synthetic which is cheaper and works just the same.

I've been using 3 parts 10w30 Castrol Syntec blend mixed to 1 part Rem oil with Teflon. I always like the idea of a touch of Teflon, it also seems to make clean up just a touch easier vs. regular motor oil.