Lithium Grease in Barrel?

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44 AMP

Staff
Do note that the "old timey" instructions to leave a thin coat of oil (never grease) in your bore for STORAGE, also told you to run dry patches through the bore until they came out clean, BEFORE shooting.

Grease in the barrel, ok, put cosmoline on the rest of it, and store it for 30+ years. Otherwise, no...
 
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Scorch

New member
Weren't there some old (turn of last century) military rifles that actually required greased bullets?
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Absolutely! But the grease was there to lubricate the bullets and the bore of the rifle and to keep the black powder from fouling the bore immediately. The grease was put into grooves in the bullets that were called (ready for this??) "grease grooves". They did not grease the bore, they lubricated the bullets, and called them "externally lubricated" bullets (modern jacketed bullets are called "internally lubricated").

But that has nothing at all to do with what the OP is talking about, if I understand his post correctly.
 
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mete

New member
My experience is that shooters use too much lube , whether it be oil or grease !! I've used RIG for years but lightly .Storage ? Light coating of RIG , inside rust preventative paper .It's ready to fire !
 
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Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
In quite a few decades of messing with centerfire rifles, all I do as the last step in a cleaning operation is to spray some gun oil on a patch and run it through the barrel. All I want is a thin anti-rust film. So far so good. :)

Never know what you'll find on the Internet...
 
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BeeShooter

New member
Barrel break-in - I use a light-weight synthetic motor oil and Hobbs 9 mix to clean and finish it with hobbs and a dry patch. I won't use grease while shooting. I guess you could but only if you clean it out with a dry patch.
 
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Dufus

New member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dufus View Post
Sounds like horse hockey to me.

Lithium grease is not hygroscopic.

Sure is. Do your research Dufus.
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I have done my research on it.....many years ago, Sonny Boy. You are taking one compound's characteristics and applying them to a completely different compound.

If everyone took your word on it, we would all be in deep dodo.

It is time for you to hit the books as natman has suggested.

natman: thank you.
 
6

603Country

New member
I’ll leave a light wipe of Shooter’s Choice in a barrel after cleaning, and that’s all it gets till I clean again, which might be months or longer.

When my Dad passed, I brought his old tang safety Ruger home to give it a good cleaning. I guess he had it for maybe 20 years, and if it got cleaned, I did it. I remember cleaning the rifle and bore maybe 3or 4 times over the 20 years. He was a hard core hunter -rain, sleet, snow, fog, whatever. I expected the worst when I cleaned the bore, but it wasn’t bad at all. I worked up some moderate 270 reloads, and it shot great groups.

So maybe it doesn’t matter too much whether or not you oil the bore lightly or not. But I wouldn’t grease it unless I planned to degrease before shooting or unless I was going to store it for a decade.
 
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MarkCO

New member
Dufus said:
I have done my research on it.....many years ago, Sonny Boy. You are taking one compound's characteristics and applying them to a completely different compound.

If everyone took your word on it, we would all be in deep dodo.

It is time for you to hit the books as natman has suggested.

natman: thank you.
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That is humorous for sure. Pretty common knowledge amongst tribologists.

http://sciencemadness.wikia.com/wiki/Lithium_hydroxide
 
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Dufus

New member
Just what I said before. You are comparing the properties of one compound and saying a completely different compound has the same properties.

One more time: lithium grease is not hydroscopic.

Lithium hydroxide is not Lithium grease.
 
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MarkCO

New member
Just because you selectively trimmed my post in your quote.

Lithium Hydroxide is in many Lithium Grease formulations.
 
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Scorch

New member
Lithium hydroxide!!!! :eek: Lithium hydroxide is EXTREMELY corrosive!! It is used to etch glass and remove dried concrete from cement mixer trucks. Not in my machinery, thank you!

Lithium soap (aka lithium grease) contains lithium stearate and lithium hydroxystearate, according to the label and MSDS. Lithium hydroxide may be used to make lithium soap, but it is not, in fact, lithium soap. Lithium soap/grease, like all soaps, is slightly hygroscopic. This is desirable as the grease will scavenge any moisture from the areas it is used to lubricate in order to prevent rust inside the machinery.

In post #9, the statement was made that old timers used to put lithium grease on their barrels and set them outside to rust. There are a few twisted facts there: black powder shooters will rust a worn barrel in order to make a worn/polished bore shoot better. If they used lithium grease for this, they would probably put it on the outside of hte barrel, not the inside.
 
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Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
A lot of us race engine builders wiped piston rings, cranks and cams with "outboard grease" (Lithium) to prevent rust on spare engines that would be stored until needed. Prevented rust. Learned that over a half-century ago.
 
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RC20

New member
The Following Is Sarcasm:

Actually the stuff to use is Anti Seize.

Not the copper type, that would promote sever copper fouling.

The Nickel Based stuff, its good to 1800 deg.

Its prime property is increasing velocity while protecting the barrel from rust and keeping bullets from stopping mid bore.

If its good for Tubo Bolts its good for barrels!
 
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DMK

New member
Lubricated cases, not the bullets, as I recall. They needed the cases lubed in order to function in the gun at the rate of fire.
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You guys are right. I mis-remembered that. Thanks.
 
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Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
The intent for use of powdered graphite is to reduce friction on moving parts. Being dry, it won't collect dust.

Back around 1950, my uncle had sheets of wax paper with a thin layer of waxy graphite. He would press it onto a case mouth after putting in the powder charge. The presumed advantage was unclear. In my own loading, I never saw any difference in group size of in point of impact, with or without the graphite.
 
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