Author Topic: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative  (Read 9754 times)

Offline Eric Krewson

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #50 on: April 08, 2019, 04:25:47 PM »
This is a barrel thoroughly cleaned and left with a Rem-Oil coated barrel for 6 months, no more Rem Oil for me. This remaining pitting is after a good scrubbing with JB bore paste.

Now I use water followed by alcohol, followed by WD40 and followed by a patch soaked in Barricade, no rust ever.

 


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« Last Edit: April 08, 2019, 04:28:57 PM by Eric Krewson »

Turtle

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #51 on: April 08, 2019, 07:52:31 PM »
 I tell people to at least run a patch through the barrel every so often to play it safe. better to clean several times imperfectly, than try to clean once perfectly for long term.

Offline Mike from OK

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #52 on: April 10, 2019, 05:10:34 AM »
Since Ballistol has been brought up here's my experience with it. After reading a few different forums I got some to try. It didn't seem to make a difference in my rifle as far as shooting. I clean a bit the range and then a though cleaning at home with plenty of water as I have for many years. Soon I found that disconcerting red on my patches. No amount of oiling or scrubbing would get it to stop. Having quit using it for over a year I still get color but reading this tread I thought I'd give it a chance to lift the mystery deposits out of the bore. Several wiping and oiling with Ballistol over two days these are my last two tight patches. Can I expect the color to decrease?
IMG_0411 by Oliver Sudden, on Flickr
I doubt it but I DO NOT think its rust, not sure what causes it but if I had that much rust in my barrel I believe I would see evidence in the bore and I don't. Also see it using original Lehigh Valley lube and I don't believe its rust either.
Dennis

Do you suppose there is something in the Ballistol residue that is oxidizing and changing color?

Way back before I knew any better I used Bore Butter on my caplock. I pulled the gun out after an extended hiatus and ran a patch down the bore... To my horror I pulled back a patch streaked with a ruddy light brownish orange stain. I was devastated and just knew the gun was ruined... But it wasn't rust. The barrel was fine.

Only thing I can figure (and this is just my own opinion) there is something in BB (perhaps the yellow dye) that darkens with age and oxidation. I know that TC used to sell the precut ticking patches treated with BB and they would darken to a brownish orange color after the package sat on a shelf for a while.

Just a thought.

Mike

Offline Daryl

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #53 on: April 10, 2019, 11:55:30 PM »
I have seen suggested right here at ALR, that perhaps a water soluable oil is not the best to prevent rust, as it will absorb moisture from the air.

Both Ron and Taylor were in an environment of high humidity (raining for days) when their guns actually rusted after using Ballistol as an after cleaning
and drying their guns, oil.

Taylor was living him his lodge and in hunting camp. He thought at that time, that perhaps the ballistol he got from a friend, might have been contaminated
 and thus was not a 'fair' test of the product.
Ron, on the other hand, used a brand new previously unopened can of Ballistol - yet rusted his bore and barrel - overnight while camping out of doors.
Seems to me, he left the cleaned and oiled rifle in the bed of his pickup, inside the canopy.

As to the LHV - I used it for patch lube, never for storing- never had any orange. Taylor loaded a charge and lubed a patch with LHV, left it outside for a week. Upon
pulling the load and patched ball the patch, was slightly damp, the powder was still dry and the patch was not orange, nor was there orange on a through patch afterwards.
From that test, he thought LHV might do as a hunting lube, but for no longer than perhaps a week.
Daryl

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Offline OldMtnMan

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #54 on: April 11, 2019, 02:32:42 AM »
I still don't think it's rust.

Offline Jerry

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #55 on: April 11, 2019, 03:46:50 AM »
For whatever it抯 worth. What ever happened to basics. I like reading the mixed views, but I personally have kept to traditional cleaning methods. Water soaked tow, dry tow, and mink oil or some type of commercial bore butter. Our colonial counterparts didn抰 have bore butter, but I would bet they had a favorite lube or rust prevention.

Offline Daryl

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #56 on: April 11, 2019, 08:20:59 AM »
For whatever it抯 worth. What ever happened to basics. I like reading the mixed views, but I personally have kept to traditional cleaning methods. Water soaked tow, dry tow, and mink oil or some type of commercial bore butter. Our colonial counterparts didn抰 have bore butter, but I would bet they had a favorite lube or rust prevention.

They had to get their bores freshed out every few years - due to what? wear?- I do not believe that was the cause.  Shooting, then reloading and leaving it loaded and dirty would have
caused grief/rust/pitting and the need for 'freshing'.

Lip balm with camphor oil, (bore butter) is a new invention - if edible, they'd likely have eaten it or used it as a salve.
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V

Offline OldMtnMan

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #57 on: April 11, 2019, 04:53:12 PM »
They were pretty hard on their guns back in the day. I can't imagine using my gun for a club but that was common back then.

Offline JW

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #58 on: April 12, 2019, 08:03:20 PM »
Methinks that folks who live in low humidity might be able to get by with ballistol or WD-40 as rust preventatives. The other thing that amazes me is that some people clean with boiling water and report no claims of flash rust. No idea why that is.  Either way, I know that I have to use cool or tepid water to clean and a good non-water-soluble oil for rust preventative or I get rust.

Turtle

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #59 on: April 12, 2019, 09:27:46 PM »
  My Idea in my cleaning method is that if you put no water which encourages rust into the barrel ect, you don't have to work to dry it out. Drying a gun and bore in the field after putting water on it is difficult. Some Lehigh valley residue only helps inhibit corrosion.

Offline Scota4570

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #60 on: April 21, 2019, 10:32:18 PM »
  My Idea in my cleaning method is that if you put no water which encourages rust into the barrel ect, you don't have to work to dry it out. Drying a gun and bore in the field after putting water on it is difficult. Some Lehigh valley residue only helps inhibit corrosion.

Unfortunately the residue that causes rust is water soluble.  Oil will not remove it fully.  The residues are hydroscopic and draw water from the air and cause rusting even if slathered in oil. 

I have been pouring 95% rubbing alcohol down the bore to dilute the water residue, pour it out, swab until dry, then oil with "fluid film" or ATF and lanolin.  .  No rust at all.  But then again,  I live in the west where the air is dry.   

Offline Clark Badgett

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #61 on: May 09, 2019, 12:09:12 AM »
I had some around for the chain saw.  It抯 green but seems to work great in the damp Midwest. I know it抯 probably better to buy something more specific.  I like the handiness of the little containers too.

Really anything oil is good enough unless you're talking very long term storage.  2cycle oil ought to be reasonable viscosity (some motor oils are a bit too thick).  I suspect we would be surprised to find ought how many of the gun specific formulas are just repackaged automotive products.  I'm thinking the newer synthetic low viscosity ATFs might be ideal for firearms care.  Growing up, we maintained firearms with everything from 3n1 to Castrol GTX 20-50 :).

Not surprised the cult of ballistol made an appearance--rarely does such an unremarkable product inspire religious zeal!

Can't say I'm in any Ballistol Cult, but after 12 years of trying to clean 50 years of junk out of an old .22 rifle I bought cheap, one wet patch of the stuff and one bore brush pass removed lots of leading and black crud and now the barrel looks quite new. I tried everything on this barrel over the past decade, Hoppes, CLP (USGI kind), ATF, motor oil, Froglube, even dawn dish soap. Nothing helped it, it continued to look like a sewer pipe, so I bought some Ballistol a couple of weeks ago and it just worked.
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Offline OldMtnMan

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #62 on: May 09, 2019, 12:32:13 AM »
Could you get a clean white patch after using Ballistol?

Offline Clark Badgett

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #63 on: May 09, 2019, 03:36:14 AM »
Could you get a clean white patch after using Ballistol?

I can't honestly recall getting a clean white patch with much of any kind of leaching oil. USGI CLP is one of those. A light gray patch is good, and after a day or two of sitting with oil in the bore, you will get more carbon out with the next patch though. By the time I was done cleaning that old .22 I was getting light gray. I'll rod it again in a day or so to see what I get after oil has been in it for a couple of days. This is my first time tying the Ballistol, but so far it has made short work of cleaning 3 of my modern rifles.

Back in my youth, when I had my P-53 Enfield, I would flush well with water, then oil it with CLP that had followed me home from my military service days. A few days later, I would rod the bore and get a grayish brown stain on the patch. I think it was leaching out the ball lube that had cooked into/onto the steel. I used to use one of those fiber optic extensions that go on a mag light and never saw anything that looked like rust in that rifle-musket bore.
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Offline OldMtnMan

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #64 on: May 09, 2019, 03:21:22 PM »
I used to think that too. I've used Ballistol for years. However, I used it on a new GPR I have that's never been shot. In used Ballistol to help get out the factory gunk they put in the bore.  I first used carb cleaner to get most of it out. Then used Ballistol and kept getting a reddish brown patch. No matter how many patches I used I couldn't get a white patch. So, I ran carb cleaner again and then got a snow white patch. Out of curiosity, I ran another wet patch with Ballistol and got a red brown patch. I then ran dry patches and continued to get a red brown patch no matter how many patches I used.

I don't get it. It can't be rust. I finally gave up and ran carb cleaner and dry patches and they were snow white again. I called it good and then used my rust preventative in the bore. I check the bore eveery now and then and it's still snow white patches.

So, no way Ballistol was bringing up fouling in a gun that hasn't ever been shot.

Offline Clark Badgett

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #65 on: May 09, 2019, 07:32:17 PM »
There's no telling what those Spaniards or Italians used for cutting fluid or steal treatment during the GPR's manufacture. Quite a good deal of the raw steel we get off the truck daily looks like it was cooked in used diesel oil.
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Offline OldMtnMan

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #66 on: May 10, 2019, 12:33:02 AM »
Yes, but when I use the carb cleaner the patches come out white. Wouldn't you think at that point I have the bore clean? It stays that way until using Ballistol.

I still don't think the red brown patches we get is rust but what is it?

Offline Clark Badgett

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #67 on: May 10, 2019, 12:43:56 AM »
That is a good question. Like you, I don't think its rust. I'll keep playing around with this stuff on various steels I have access to, and see if I see anything wonky. Now I need to go shoot BP through something.
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Offline OldMtnMan

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #68 on: May 10, 2019, 01:04:19 AM »
I'd like to do that too but we got 8" of snow last night. I thought it was spring?

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Re: Using synthetic 2 cycle oil as rust preventative
« Reply #69 on: May 10, 2019, 02:56:41 AM »
Has anyone tried Frog Lube? :o
I would not recommend frog lube. Fell for the hype when it first came out. Followed the instructions heating metal up etc. for my AR rifles and 1911抯.
Took one of my pistols to the range after it had not been fired for a few months, pulled the trigger and the hammer came down slower than a snail. Got all gummed up. After I finally got it to fire a few times the lube liquified again. If my life depended on that first shot I would not be on this forum today.