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Posted: 3/20/2014 10:25:33 AM EDT
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@Mods, I wasn't sure this was the right forum, seems like it but if it should be somewhere else then kick it over please?
Note: This test is ONLY testing for rust protection against pure H2O, or as pure as rainwater can be these days. It in no way tests lubricity, heat resistance, viscosity/staying power or anything else. To background this up, I have some 'safe queens' that never come out except a light cleaning and protection and back in they go. I don't 'like' cleaning so I wondered how I could increase the time between cleanings and still retain a personal comfort level. All oils are affected by gravity and will seep down on a weapon. This is why older wooden weapons can have spongy stocks at the receiver join. All that oil obeying the law of gravity. Well in the end I couldn't not run a test. I gather up all the various gun oils I've tried over the years and some 'stuff laying around the house' in case you know Zombies attack and I can't get to the gun store and have to make do with whatever I find. I bought two mild steel plates and cordon them off with blue painters tape. If I was a scientist I'd of cut the sheets up into their own squares of course but I'm not and I didn't, cross seeding be damned. I used two plates just to have some verification that I didn't screw up the application. I also wanted to have one propped up so water wouldn't stand on it and the other flat so it would puddle. When the weather didn't follow suit every couple of days I also hit them with a light misting of water, not enough to drip, just enough to dampen. Note that these were covered in snow at one point so that may have some impact. They've also been exposed to UV rays so that also may have some impact. Preparation of the steel plates was a thorough cleaning with brake cleaner to remove any factor film off. I handled the plates with clean nitrile gloves afterwards. The lubrication were applied with a clean cotton swab. I used a clean swab for each square, not just each oil. Enough lube was used in each case to just cover the square with a light film, usually 3 or 4 drops. No RTFM was done, each was applied as I assume most people would do it, put some on and rub it around. The oils used and all were obtained 'off the shelf' from a variety of places are - 1 - Rem Oil 2 - Break Free Collector 3 - Break Free LP (Safariland version) 4 - Corrosion X 5 - Frog Lube Liquid 6 - 3 in 1 oil 7 Frog Lube Paste 8 - Gun Butter 9 - Mineral Oil (hey it has the word oil in it) 10 Otis O85 11 - Slip 2000 12 - Italian Gun Grease 13 - WD40 14 - Synthetic Motor Oil (clean not used) 15 - Ed's Red Oil (the DIY with ATF+Kerosene+Lanolin) 16 - No protection. Note in the case of the Frog Lube no special heating was done of the metal, I didn't want to compromise the other oils and I question if heating the metal to listed temperatures really will 'open the pores' of the metal. There are others I'd of liked to try but I didn't have them on hand and I figured 16 is enough to start with. (Spoiler Alert - These are the winning oils - Frog Lube Paste, Italian Gun Grease, Frog Lube Liquid, WD40) In all honesty I was rooting against Frog Lube. THere's just something about a gun oil made of green liquid that smells like mint that you can drink if you really really had to that just doesn't seem right to me. So without further ado here are the current pictures taken at various intervals along with comments where necessary - |
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Day 6 - (note there's no real rhyme or reason for the interval between images, just whenever I was in the backyard with my phone)
Note this was after some rain. As you can see RemOil, Mineral Oil and Nothing are showing rust. Ed's Red Oil is showing rust on the plate that ends up holding water longer than the slanted one. 
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Day 10 - Things are getting more interesting. Excuse the weird angle, it was the only image I had from this day. Note how the mineral oi square (9) is far worse than no protection at all (16).
The Frog Lube squares are also showing a weird brownish paste like film to them. It doesnt' appear to be rust but more like they were swabbed with very thinned out applebutter. 
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Day 16 (for no reason other than I had the image)
I started using my mist bottle to try and keep the vertical panel upright as the winds started to show up regularily. At one point I went out and found them stack on top of each other. This will be more obvious later as you can see how that impacted the rust growth lines. Not a great solution but at this point I wasn't that concerned with it staying upright. Rust is seriously encroaching but check out squares 13 and 7... WD40 and Frog Lube paste respectively. #12 is also doing pretty good which is Italian Gun Grease. 
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Day 22
You can see the slanted line on the upper plate where it was overlapped by the lower plate at one point. This overlap happened during a rainstorm and as a result water was trapped between the two plates. Obviously trapped water is very much not good for metal. Of interest in this image is the fact that 5, 7 and 13 are still beading water, the rest are not. 
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Day 24
Not the best picture due to the lighting but it does show just how badly we're seeing things rust. Even WD40 is starting to show some tiny pinpricks of rust seeds on the lower plate along the left hand edge. Note that #5, Frog Lube liquid hasn't changed much, it's still showing that weird color, almost like the lube has 'rotted'. The paste on #7 is doing just fine, no weird rot looking colors. #12 the Italian Gun Grease is starting to show a little rust but I believe it's creeping in from the tape lines. 
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That's all I have right now. I'll keep taking pictures and once I hit Day 30 I'm going to use each of the respective lubes to clean off their own square and then try to evaluate just how deeply the rust has etched the metal. I'm also very interested to see what #5 Frog Lube liquid looks like under that rotting fruit looking surface.
Hope someone gets some use out of this, it's been pretty interesting to me so far. And as much as I hate to say it given what I've spent on other oils that had 'great recommendations' on the internets, I guess I'll have to be 'greening' my weapons up going forward. Ribbit ribbit. |
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Seriously? No FIREClean?
That said, if you got the latest Froglube, their current anti-corrosive pack is very solid. I have had great results regarding rust prevention with it. I stopped using it because it rotted like fruit, lol. Their cleaner went rancid in a couple of months (smelled like dirty laundry water when I sprayed it. Horrible stench. When new, it was pretty neutral. Stored at room temp under my sink.) and the lubricant got sticky like watered down Elmer's glue. |
Thanks for the testing! I love all the rust tests! Interesting to see the results, and much appreciated!
| It always amazes me just how well the cheapole WD-40 and 3in1 does, again and again, in these kind of tests against the more modern and expensive products.Used them both as gun lubes back in the 70's and 80's,never had any corrosion issues in those days.Guess it should be accepted by now they're pretty decent protectants. |
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Quoted:
It always amazes me just how well the cheapole WD-40 and 3in1 does, again and again, in these kind of tests against the more modern and expensive products.Used them both as gun lubes back in the 70's and 80's,never had any corrosion issues in those days.Guess it should be accepted by now they're pretty decent protectants. Yeah this seems to get discussed on the job often. And someone always says "it means Water Displacement 40, not Lube40" I've always used it as well. Works great for drying out a wet distributor cap, cleaning oily hands, and removing grease off the windows of heavy equipment. Never seems to last as a lube very long but its cheap. Lol |
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Quoted: It always amazes me just how well the cheapole WD-40 and 3in1 does, again and again, in these kind of tests against the more modern and expensive products.Used them both as gun lubes back in the 70's and 80's,never had any corrosion issues in those days.Guess it should be accepted by now they're pretty decent protectants. Time, after time, after time, people discount it. Yet, it's always done the trick. "but it gets gummy and varnishes" Yea, that's why it works good  Spray more on! |
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I did add the disclaimer unscientific! The oils used are the ones I had on hand out of my own stash. :P So no Militec-1, Fireclean, Eezox, Tetra, Shooter's Choice, FP-10, etc etc. I'm happy to accept donations if someone wants to ship me a few drops of their particular favorite. But it would be easier and cheaper to just go pick up a small piece of clean steel from one of the big box stores or a local hardware store the stuff marked 'weldable steel', brake clean it, use a cotton swab/q-tip to apply it in a thin layer and then set it outside and compare results over time. Every 2 to 3 days if it hasn't rained/snowed then hit it with a light mist of water and leave it where it gets sun. Then use either the propped up or the laid flat images of my test images to compare against yours. It's not going to be apples to oranges but it might be tangerines to oranges :)
With that said, I would like to test other oils but it won't be soon. I think it's going to be hard to beat the winners here. And again this is only testing rust prevention, basically how 'secure' the layer of the lubricant is at blocking oxygen from reaching the metal. Any given lube may not be the best choice or even good at lubrication i.e. lubricity factor or at cleaning. 12 and 13 also sort of show the necessity of making sure a surface is completely covered in protection. As you can see from the close ups rust is eating into the squares from the edges under the tape where water collected the most. One it has a hold rust will continue to eat sideways through the metal, under the protective layers. I've seen it quite a bit in painted car surfaces, once you have that initial spot of rust, it'll just keep growing, burrowing under the paint. It's also why it's so critical if you do have some rust to make sure you either get it out completely, kind of like getting a tooth drilled and filled, or you use a chemical neutralizer to kill the rust. Day 27 - I'm also including close ups of the 'winners' so far. 
Frog Lube Close up (5 liquid , 7 paste) 
WD40 (13) - Italian Gun Grease (12)- 
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| Thanks for doing the test. I've added it to the tacked rust protection post here. |
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Quoted:
No kidding. Time, after time, after time, people discount it. Yet, it's always done the trick. "but it gets gummy and varnishes" Yea, that's why it works good Spray more on!
Quoted:
Quoted:
It always amazes me just how well the cheapole WD-40 and 3in1 does, again and again, in these kind of tests against the more modern and expensive products.Used them both as gun lubes back in the 70's and 80's,never had any corrosion issues in those days.Guess it should be accepted by now they're pretty decent protectants. Time, after time, after time, people discount it. Yet, it's always done the trick. "but it gets gummy and varnishes" Yea, that's why it works good Spray more on!
As the story I told previously in BuckMKII's corrosion test thread,long story short,if you don't allow the gun to build up lots of fouling(years in my case) and just hose the action with WD-40 and do nothing else other than punch the bore(as I did with a Remington 742 and Model 4)theres no gumming issue with WD-40.Just don't be a knuckle head and blame the WD-40 for being lazy,as I did.If you want to use WD-40 just apply it frequently to keep a lube film and PM regularly...Not much different than say using Rem Oil IMHO. Never seen anything negative with 3in1,stays on the metal much longer than WD-40.I still like to give my Gerber and Leatherman multi-tools a bath in 3in1 regularly....Gerber and Leatherman recommend the WD and 3in1 in the maintenance instruction,or did..And I do mean soaked in 3in1 and hung up to allow excess drip off before a quick wipe down and back in the sheath.No rust issues either.Personally love the oily/citronella scent of 3in1....reminds me of granddads work shop from childhood as he used it on everything. |
| your rifle doesn't allow oil to puddle as it is seldom lays flat so anything you tested to puddle is inconclusive. What matters is the oils ability to cling to the metal to provide protection. No, I didn't read the post just my thoughts from selling racing oil for a living..and it's not the oil, ilt's the additives. |
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Very true in terms of water puddling on a weapon barring it sitting outside unattended in the damp and that raises a whole lot of other questions. :)
I did the flat surface primarily to see how big the difference in rust appearance and growth was between one that the water doesn't sit on. And as you surmised, it's definitely worse and not necessarily 'real world' given the mostly slanted surfaces of a firearm. A less obvious factor is water trapped between surfaces is, just based on my observations, going to rust just as fast as puddled water and not always be apparent. Example dropping the weapon in a puddle and water getting in the chamber and sitting as a film between the upper and the BCG or just between any of the moving parts or hunting in the rain etc. Quoted:
your rifle doesn't allow oil to puddle as it is seldom lays flat so anything you tested to puddle is inconclusive. What matters is the oils ability to cling to the metal to provide protection. No, I didn't read the post just my thoughts from selling racing oil for a living..and it's not the oil, ilt's the additives. |
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As a reminder, this is pretty far from real world conditions for the vast vast majority of guns owned by responsible gun owners. Guns sitting in a climate controlled environment like a safe or RSC need minimal protection and any of the common in use oils will be fine obviously. I've used RemOil and CLP for decades and never had a problem with rust.
So don't feel like "OMG my oil rusted in X days when left outside in the sun and rain and snow and frequently sprayed with water! I've got to buy a high priced oil to fix that!" As long as you do reasonable maintenance at reasonable intervals depending on usage and exposure you'll be fine with most any current lube/protections (except mineral oil, don't even think about that one  ).
This test came about out of my own random musings, "I wonder what the best LP would be to use so I don't (unnecessarily) worry about my safe queens?" :). Where this data might be of use to some is in the protection of a person's EDC, especially during the spring and summer where the humidity factors go up from the environment and from the person. (Summers in OK we tend to sweat and sweat a lot when it's 118 outside). |
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Quoted:
This test came about out of my own random musings, "I wonder what the best LP would be to use so I don't (unnecessarily) worry about my safe queens?" :). . And I appreciate it because I have the same musings and ponderings....... Thanks again Tophatman... Just test more as you get them! 
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Day 30 -
Okay last photo's in this sequence. This includes a final 'rust' image and a follow up 'clean up' image. I used the same lube to clean each square that it had been protected with. The cleaning process was the same for each, I put some of the lube on a .30 patch and scrubbed the square as hard as I could with it, this was followed up by a dry patch. I took close ups of each quadrant but as it turns out the images sucked arse. Worse than the 'after' shot below, not enough light so they're very grainy and slightly out of focus but they don't really show much you can't tell from the full image. Hands down, no contest, so far ahead the others aren't in the rear view, Frog Lube paste won. The metal protected with the paste looks brand new, not a sign of rust anywhere except right at the tape line where either it wasn't covered or the rust ate into the metal from under the tape. Frog Lube liquid was second best. It does have some slight discoloration that mostly cleaned up but the surface is smooth to the touch, no etching. Third place was pretty much a tie between Italian Gun Grease and WD40. Yeah WD40 beat almost every other lube tested. Both of these failed to some extent on one sheet in the same fashion and succeeded mostly on the other sheet. Not shown is the back side of the metal sheet that was laying flat the whole time. It is mostly clear of rust, just some encroachment at the edges where the water drops touched it as they fell off. The back side of the leaning sheet is covered in rust since it was actually hit with rain and snow. And the images - 
Cleaned up 
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So every now and the I should spray my safe queens down with WD-40? ETA: I found my Dad's old shotgun which had been sitting inside a gun case with those feather like material and no rust. He said it was inside the closet for at least 10 years without being shot. |
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Quoted: your rifle doesn't allow oil to puddle as it is seldom lays flat so anything you tested to puddle is inconclusive. What matters is the oils ability to cling to the metal to provide protection. No, I didn't read the post just my thoughts from selling racing oil for a living..and it's not the oil, ilt's the additives. So basically you don't know what the premise of the test was... but feel like because you do something with oil and sales, it's analogous to corrosion testing? |
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For what it's worth the Ed's Red was a 50/50 mix of kerosene and synthetic ATF with a dollup of liquid lanolin in it. It failed pretty quickly in the test which I found surprising. The motor oil test was synthetic oil but it was 100%, no mix.
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If anyone else does a similar test with other lubes, I'd like to see a test of synthetic motor oil mixed with synthetic ATF at about 75%-25% ratio. |
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Quoted:
For what it's worth the Ed's Red was a 50/50 mix of kerosene and synthetic ATF with a dollup of liquid lanolin in it. It failed pretty quickly in the test which I found surprising. The motor oil test was synthetic oil but it was 100%, no mix. Quoted:
For what it's worth the Ed's Red was a 50/50 mix of kerosene and synthetic ATF with a dollup of liquid lanolin in it. It failed pretty quickly in the test which I found surprising. The motor oil test was synthetic oil but it was 100%, no mix. Quoted:
If anyone else does a similar test with other lubes, I'd like to see a test of synthetic motor oil mixed with synthetic ATF at about 75%-25% ratio. Kerosene? 
I didn't know that... just seems strange. Thanks for the info. |
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It's part of the standard recipe for "Ed's Red"
http://www.handloads.com/articles/?id=9 Quoted:
Kerosene?
I didn't know that... just seems strange. Thanks for the info. |
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Quoted:
Kerosene?
I didn't know that... just seems strange. Thanks for the info. Quoted:
Quoted:
For what it's worth the Ed's Red was a 50/50 mix of kerosene and synthetic ATF with a dollup of liquid lanolin in it. It failed pretty quickly in the test which I found surprising. The motor oil test was synthetic oil but it was 100%, no mix. Quoted:
If anyone else does a similar test with other lubes, I'd like to see a test of synthetic motor oil mixed with synthetic ATF at about 75%-25% ratio. Kerosene?
I didn't know that... just seems strange. Thanks for the info. back when i made the stuff, i used Kroil instead of Kerosene.. which kinda defeated the purpose, but was a damn good cleaner! |
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Kinganuthin:
back when i made the stuff, i used Kroil instead of Kerosene.. which kinda defeated the purpose, but was a damn good cleaner! There is no problem with using Kroil at all, I just think it would replace the Mineral Spirit portion and the Acetone of the mix. Because Kroil creeps and the Acetone promotes the creep factor and drying agent of Ed's Red. I personally only used Acetone once with the mix, and every batch after omitted it. I only use Ed's Red as a cleaning agent, and always oil / lube after.
Kroil is great! and you could also substitute Marvel Mystery Oil as well..... But we are getting off topic from the Original Rust Test. Good Job again OP - I hope to see more testing from you soon! I enjoyed it! 
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Quoted:
There is no problem with using Kroil at all, I just think it would replace the Mineral Spirit portion and the Acetone of the mix. Because Kroil creeps and the Acetone promotes the creep factor and drying agent of Ed's Red. I personally only used Acetone once with the mix, and every batch after omitted it. I only use Ed's Red as a cleaning agent, and always oil / lube after.
Kroil is great! and you could also substitute Marvel Mystery Oil as well..... But we are getting off topic from the Original Rust Test. Good Job again OP - I hope to see more testing from you soon! I enjoyed it!
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Kinganuthin:
back when i made the stuff, i used Kroil instead of Kerosene.. which kinda defeated the purpose, but was a damn good cleaner! There is no problem with using Kroil at all, I just think it would replace the Mineral Spirit portion and the Acetone of the mix. Because Kroil creeps and the Acetone promotes the creep factor and drying agent of Ed's Red. I personally only used Acetone once with the mix, and every batch after omitted it. I only use Ed's Red as a cleaning agent, and always oil / lube after.
Kroil is great! and you could also substitute Marvel Mystery Oil as well..... But we are getting off topic from the Original Rust Test. Good Job again OP - I hope to see more testing from you soon! I enjoyed it!
. oh yeah, good stuff. i was referring to the price over keyro. Eds is suppose to be the cheap mans juice, and using Kroil... |
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