AR Experts. Predictions?

[carbonbased]

Check my post out here about oil weights & temps:

Accuracy International Picture Thread

So. @Nik H was somewhat right about lube I guess. I used grease lightly on the bolt guide. Seemed to help a lot. But worried this general purpose grease will gum up again when it gets cold wet frozen etc. Looks like bolt guide is bare steel? Seems it should have been coated with Teflon or...

www.snipershide.com

And read down a little further about an oil pour test at -40°F.

@pmclaine which cherrybalmz product sucked? I got some free samples of Winter Balm and…some other names that I’ve forgotten. Haven’t used any yet.

 

[pmclaine]

Check my post out here about oil weights & temps:

Accuracy International Picture Thread

So. @Nik H was somewhat right about lube I guess. I used grease lightly on the bolt guide. Seemed to help a lot. But worried this general purpose grease will gum up again when it gets cold wet frozen etc. Looks like bolt guide is bare steel? Seems it should have been coated with Teflon or...

www.snipershide.com

And read down a little further about an oil pour test at -40°F.

@pmclaine which cherrybalmz product sucked? I got some free samples of Winter Balm and…some other names that I’ve forgotten. Haven’t used any yet.

It didn’t suck. It’s just more of a grease than a light oil and not suitable for winter probably sub 15 degree weather.

My rifle cold sumped on the roof of the cruiser all day, I think I had the desk.

Would have been a tough day for any lube.

I actually liked the stuff when used in better weather.

 

[mi650]

Must have details

Well, I guess it starts with the rifle, and the fact that I used to switch deer rifles regularly. I bought a LaRue FDE 6.5G that my wife claimed as soon as it arrived. Trying to decide what to take out for the 2nd day of the season, she suggested I take that rifle. It was in a safe in my garage, and got down to about 10 that night/morning.

About 5 minutes after 1st light, I saw this buck coming, got ready to shoot. Click!! I never chambered a round. He looked my way and carried on. I SLOWLY chambered a round and rode the c/h forward. Click!! The BCG hadn't gone into battery. He looked at me again. So I slowly chambered another round, this time using the F/A. Click! Guessing the firing pin was still stuck and/or frozen. He didn't bother with me after that one. Did it all again, finally got a bang!!

I'd been wanting a trail cam pic like this for years!! After all the shit that morning, I got one!

And if I ever hunt with 6.5G again, I'll be using a different bullet. The 123 gr SST turned his lungs and top of his heart into goo, but without an exit hole the blood trail really sucked. He went 75-80 yards, and thanks to the snow, it only took me 10 minutes to track him. There was just a speck of blood here and there. I like exit holes.

 

[carbonbased]

It didn’t suck. It’s just more of a grease than a light oil and not suitable for winter probably sub 15 degree weather.

My rifle cold sumped on the roof of the cruiser all day, I think I had the desk.

Would have been a tough day for any lube.

I actually liked the stuff when used in better weather.

Thanks for that. However, cherrybalmz makes a number of lubes. Do you know the name of the exact lube? For example:

• Black Rifle Balm (0°F)
• Black Rifle Field Balm
• Winter Balm (claimed -55°F with pistols, -65°F in carbine-gassed ARs)
• Rimfire Remedy
• Bolt Balm

I got the above numbers on their blog post here:

Cold Weather Shooting, Lubes, and Gun Preparation

Other than suppressed, full-auto fire, nothing tests a lubricant, a firearm, or a shooter's understanding of lubrication and weapon reliability more intensely - or less forgivingly - than cold weather operations.We're going to share with you here three key areas to help you maximize your cold...

www.cherrybalmz.com

Their “store” section doesn’t list the numbers, so I sorta find them sketchy. I’ll try the Winter Balm for kicks, I guess, as I got it free.

 

[308pirate]

And wind chill is “fake numbers”.

Go outside nekkid and report back on how fake it is.

 

[308pirate]

Had that cherry balmz shit on my issue AR that was mounted to the roof of a Ford Explorer.

Like outside? On a roof rack?

 

[308pirate]

Thanks for that. However, cherrybalmz makes a number of lubes. Do you know the name of the exact lube? For example:

• Black Rifle Balm (0°F)
• Black Rifle Field Balm
• Winter Balm (claimed -55°F with pistols, -65°F in carbine-gassed ARs)
• Rimfire Remedy
• Bolt Balm

I got the above numbers on their blog post here:

Cold Weather Shooting, Lubes, and Gun Preparation

Other than suppressed, full-auto fire, nothing tests a lubricant, a firearm, or a shooter's understanding of lubrication and weapon reliability more intensely - or less forgivingly - than cold weather operations.We're going to share with you here three key areas to help you maximize your cold...

www.cherrybalmz.com

Their “store” section doesn’t list the numbers, so I sorta find them sketchy. I’ll try the Winter Balm for kicks, I guess, as I got it free.

Do they make this too?

 

[JBoomhauer]

Go outside nekkid and report back on how fake it is.

Aluminum, steel, and lube don’t GAF about wind speed or the feels.

 

[JBoomhauer]

Well, I guess it starts with the rifle, and the fact that I used to switch deer rifles regularly. I bought a LaRue FDE 6.5G that my wife claimed as soon as it arrived. Trying to decide what to take out for the 2nd day of the season, she suggested I take that rifle. It was in a safe in my garage, and got down to about 10 that night/morning.

About 5 minutes after 1st light, I saw this buck coming, got ready to shoot. Click!! I never chambered a round. He looked my way and carried on. I SLOWLY chambered a round and rode the c/h forward. Click!! The BCG hadn't gone into battery. He looked at me again. So I slowly chambered another round, this time using the F/A. Click! Guessing the firing pin was still stuck and/or frozen. He didn't bother with me after that one. Did it all again, finally got a bang!!

I'd been wanting a trail cam pic like this for years!! After all the shit that morning, I got one!

And if I ever hunt with 6.5G again, I'll be using a different bullet. The 123 gr SST turned his lungs and top of his heart into goo, but without an exit hole the blood trail really sucked. He went 75-80 yards, and thanks to the snow, it only took me 10 minutes to track him. There was just a speck of blood here and there. I like exit holes.

I have had similar results with the 6.5g and 123 eldm bullets. No exit, short run, no blood trail. Luckily the deer have been dead nearby.

 

[mi650]

I have had similar results with the 6.5g and 123 eldm bullets. No exit, short run, no blood trail. Luckily the deer have been dead nearby.

I switched to .30-30 a couple years ago and plan on sticking with it. Haven't had to track a deer since.

If I use 6.5G again, I'll try Fed Fusions.

 

[pmclaine]

Like outside? On a roof rack?

Inside silly, on the headliner. Supported by two pieces of steel from the cage.

 

[pmclaine]

Thanks for that. However, cherrybalmz makes a number of lubes. Do you know the name of the exact lube? For example:

• Black Rifle Balm (0°F)
• Black Rifle Field Balm
• Winter Balm (claimed -55°F with pistols, -65°F in carbine-gassed ARs)
• Rimfire Remedy
• Bolt Balm

I got the above numbers on their blog post here:

Cold Weather Shooting, Lubes, and Gun Preparation

Other than suppressed, full-auto fire, nothing tests a lubricant, a firearm, or a shooter's understanding of lubrication and weapon reliability more intensely - or less forgivingly - than cold weather operations.We're going to share with you here three key areas to help you maximize your cold...

www.cherrybalmz.com

Their “store” section doesn’t list the numbers, so I sorta find them sketchy. I’ll try the Winter Balm for kicks, I guess, as I got it free.

Think it's black rifle balm.

Thing is oil doesn't really matter when it comes to all the vudoo in its composition.

I'm of the mindset a diesel oil with a big detergent package would probably be as good as anything and buying a quart is a lifetime supply at pennies compared to the little ounce of "special" stuff bought at big money. Keep in mind I spent $100 for a few ounces of sperm whale oil - so despite my beliefs I'm still a jackoff.

I used to work for a construction company and we had bags and bags of sample bottles we would use to draw oil from machines and send to Caterpillar for analysis.

My 96 Road King began getting tested and what the wear numbers showed me was using a standard 20W-50 and changing it regularly was better than the expensive Mobil 1 synthetic......and using either I changed oil at the same intervals 3000 miles often less.

Wear numbers on the metals where higher with Mobil 1. Some other numbers would be high too, who knows maybe it was the ingredients in the formulation. Maybe a difference would be seen between an air cooled Harley and something with supplemental cooling.

The key is to use lube. It's probably better to keep them "at the ready" with enough lube to get you through whatever you are immediately ready for than lube more if your ready goes beyond what you expected.

For most of us a dry gun, or one only lubed to prevent corrosion, should be our ready. I would add lube before the first shot at the bench on the range than wipe it down when done. My gun will probably never fail that test.

A hunter, how many rounds you going to fire? A good hog hunt you should probably get wet before setting up. Deer you could stay dry and not worry about hurting you gun or the oil gumming up. Your rifle will work for that one shot.

A cop....Statistics say your biggest problem is long periods of storage in an environment of extremes with a lot of powdered sugar in the atmosphere. You don't need to store the gun wet and the oil will probably be mud when you figure out the tricks necessary to get it out of your mount to deploy it in standing there. I'm pretty confident that if you only lubed for corrosion and the gun was clean you would make it through the twenty round mag you were issued and its thirty round backup. If you shoot Even close to that - well, you got in a tail end of the bell curve.

Military - depends.

 

[carbonbased]

A cop....Statistics say your biggest problem is long periods of storage in an environment of extremes with a lot of powdered sugar in the atmosphere.

 

[MontanaMan]

I used to work for a construction company and we had bags and bags of sample bottles we would use to draw oil from machines and send to Caterpillar for analysis.

My 96 Road King began getting tested and what the wear numbers showed me was using a standard 20W-50 and changing it regularly was better than the expensive Mobil 1 synthetic......and using either I changed oil at the same intervals 3000 miles often less.

Wear numbers on the metals where higher with Mobil 1. Some other numbers would be high too, who knows maybe it was the ingredients in the formulation. Maybe a difference would be seen between an air cooled Harley and something with supplemental cooling.

Were the "wear" numbers you are referring to above, determined by metal content in the oil analysis or by wear measurements made on disassembled parts?

I have to assume the former.............which I'd be a little skeptical of as reflective of true "wear" on critical parts, like bores, rings, bearing cams & cranks.

But that's interesting at any rate.................what metals showed increases? By what magnitude?

MM

 

[pmclaine]

Were the "wear" numbers you are referring to above, determined by metal content in the oil analysis or by wear measurements made on disassembled parts?

I have to assume the former.............which I'd be a little skeptical of as reflective of true "wear" on critical parts, like bores, rings, bearing cams & cranks.

But that's interesting at any rate.................what metals showed increases? By what magnitude?

MM

Here is a sample summary of my Merch 120 CI looks like it was run on Harley 20/50 since rebuild…Also some reports that include Mobil 1 being used thing that really stood out was how much soot was generated by Mobil 1 but the HD dinosaur oil ran soot free. Also note the oxidation numbers.

Anyone with real experience would read this much better than I can. I just thought it was cool data.

 

[pmclaine]

Wear elements

 

[wadebrown]

Over the course of a year I shot every Saturday that I was in town, I live in Minneapolis MN so the temperatures we enjoy span a wide range. I did this as an exercise to see how my equipment and me operated over the full temp range we have, maybe not the full since I did not shoot in the extremes unless they occurred on Saturday, but the temperature range was -25° F to 98°F. I went out rain or shine also.

My AR's I brought an AR-15 and a AR-308 to each session and a random bolt action in centerfire caliber. Before I went out at -25° I did a pretty complete cleaning to reduce gumming due to congealing grease. The AR's would not run dry at -25° but ran fine with a light application of light oil, I forget what oil I used and the bolts worked at all temps. Accuracy was not great at -25° F but I was probably the reason for that and not the firearms or ammunition.

It was an interesting exercise to see how the equipment worked and how I operated over the temperature and precipitation range that year. I heartily recommend everyone doing it, but I have to admit I only did it for a one year period and now choose nicer days to go to the range.

 

[pmclaine]

Over the course of a year I shot every Saturday that I was in town, I live in Minneapolis MN so the temperatures we enjoy span a wide range. I did this as an exercise to see how my equipment and me operated over the full temp range we have, maybe not the full since I did not shoot in the extremes unless they occurred on Saturday, but the temperature range was -25° F to 98°F. I went out rain or shine also.

My AR's I brought an AR-15 and a AR-308 to each session and a random bolt action in centerfire caliber. Before I went out at -25° I did a pretty complete cleaning to reduce gumming due to congealing grease. The AR's would not run dry at -25° but ran fine with a light application of light oil, I forget what oil I used and the bolts worked at all temps. Accuracy was not great at -25° F but I was probably the reason for that and not the firearms or ammunition.

It was an interesting exercise to see how the equipment worked and how I operated over the temperature and precipitation range that year. I heartily recommend everyone doing it, but I have to admit I only did it for a one year period and now choose nicer days to go to the range.

Interesting they did not run dry when cold.

Extremely tight rifles?

The one I had fail with my grease lube was an M&P-15.

My own rifle is an LMT.

Did some searching guess I have shot my Garand in cold weather….

Hector Cafferata Shoot

It is good we remember Hector Cafferata especially now when his enemy is the current enemy.... https://noliinsipientiuminiuriaspati.blogspot.com/2018/04/medal-of-honor-winner-hector-cafferata.html Well it aint the Chosin Reservoir but it is winter.... Hector Cafferata fought the Chinese...

www.snipershide.com

Looks like I have shot some cold M40 too but photobucket has taken the photos or it was back on the Scout server.

Hopefully the last cold day of shooting (this winter)...

Low 20s with some miserable wind. Still though, its the range......

www.snipershide.com

 

[MontanaMan]

Wear elements

Very interesting info as I work in a business that produces ICE parts, for both Cat & HD & I also have 2 HD's.

I'm not an oil or lube specialist but I do know a fair bit about wear mechanisms of ICE parts & we run 12 dynos for testing.

W/o doing baseline chemistries (which CAT may have on file) it's hard to compare or make sense of some of what they are calling "Wear Elements" as I'm pretty sure much of that chemistry is additives in the Mobil 1.

The most telling to me would likely be Fe..............which could be related to lot of components in the engine but since ring & liner friction is the highest in the engine, it might be an indicator of potential liner wear. The rings are coated so you would likely not see much ring wear impact from iron, at least on the face.

I don't see any big swings in Fe........................w/o understanding all their history of this kind of analysis in relating the oil content of various things, it's hard to know what they are looking for either.

The only real way to determine parts wear is post test disassembly of pre-measured parts IMO, which we do of course; oil consumption is measured as the test is running, or sometimes just with drain & weigh.

I use Mobil 1 for V-Twins in my HD's & whatever version of full synthetic is on sale in my other vehicles; also have a Mercedes diesel in an RV & that oil spec is for Mobil 1.

I change the bike oil at 3K intervals, auto interval is 4K.

For AR's mostly 5-20 or 0-20 synthetic motor oil, usually M-1 or Pennzoil, no need for me to worry too much about -20 or lower, as I'm going to avoid those temps all that I can.

MM

 

[hlee]

Very interesting info as I work in a business that produces ICE parts, for both Cat & HD & I also have 2 HD's.

I'm not an oil or lube specialist but I do know a fair bit about wear mechanisms of ICE parts & we run 12 dynos for testing.

W/o doing baseline chemistries (which CAT may have on file) it's hard to compare make sense of some of what they are calling "Wear Elements" as I'm pretty sure much of that chemistry is additives in the Mobil 1.

The most telling to me would likely be Fe..............which could be related to lot of components in the engine but since ring & liner friction is the highest in the engine, it might be an indicator of potential liner wear. The rings are coated so you would likely see much ring wear impact from iron, at least on the face.

I don't see any big swings in Fe........................w/o understanding all their history of this kind of analysis in relating the oil content of various things, it's hard to know what they are looking for either.

The only real way to determine parts wear is post test disassembly of pre-measured parts IMO, which we do of course; oil consumption is measured as the test is running, or sometimes just with drain & weigh.

I use Mobil 1 in my HD's & whatever version of full synthetic is on sale in my other vehicles; also have a Mercedes diesel in an RV & that oil spec is for Mobil 1.

i change the bike oil at 3K intervals, auto interval is 4K.

MM

I’m a chemist, but not an oil/additive chemist. The biggest take away (for a layman) from the reports provided by @pmclaine is that none of the oil tests resulted in a remedial action. They were all eithe no action required or monitor.

Use lube.
Use enough lube.
Don’t use too much lube.
Understand that weather affects lube which affects rifle function.
Change the lube regularly.

If you do all of the above, “what lube?” is the least important question…