Fire Clean Lubricant?

[Scharfschuetze]

I've never used the stuff, but apparently it's popular with the black rifle crowd. Anyone here use it?

A friend sent me this link that equates Fire Clean with Crisco canola oil. It seems pretty authentic and has a spectral analysis of it which looks just like the spectral analysis of canola oil.

Link: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/09/13/yes-its-true-fireclean-is-crisco/

If this is truly the case, then we can buy a pretty good light lubricant pretty cheap at the grocery store.

[goryshaw]

I already get AR lube cheaply at the auto parts store, Mobil One Synthetic ftw.

[hydraulic]

Never heard of Fire Clean, but it sounds a lot like Emmets lube which is used by some black powder cartridge rifle shooters, myself included. 50% beeswax, 40% Crisco, 10% canola cooking oil. Put all ingredients in a glass jar and melt them in the microwave, stir and pour into the sizer-lubricator. I use it for smokeless, too.

[Bzcraig]

I do use Fireclean and it works just as advertised.

[jmort]

I use it and paid a bundle for it. It do seem like it could be canola oil. I suppose there is a good news/bad news in there for me. It does make cleaning easy.

[DougGuy]

Fire Clean *IS* canola oil. Spectrograph proved it without a doubt..

[44man]

I did not understand the "more smoke" thing at all. Coat the bore and the oil burns away to be gone fast.

[willie_pete]

I know my was around an IR spectrograph. I don't see any peaks that would indicate any anti-oxidants or UV protectorants ( used to work in the additives business ). Canola oil will oxidize to shellac , for want of a better word, given enough exposure to oxygen and UV light; two things in abundance on the rifle range.


The "smoke takes away carbon" thing I think they came up with to explain the smokiness; overall pretty good marketing job. They sell their stuff for about $7.50 an ounce. You can buy bulk canola oil for $0.46 a pound or about $0.03 per ounce. No one ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of the American public.

wp

[whisler]

"Canola oil will oxidize to shellac , for want of a better word, given enough exposure to oxygen and UV light; two things in abundance on the rifle range."

The better word you were looking for is varnish. Vegetable oils will polymerize with enough heat. Shellac would at least be soluble in alcohol, unlike varnish.

[popper]

I've used straight canola oil in 308, 30/30 and even 40SW. Works great, a little messy and yes you do have to clean it out after a shoot. It is polar, i.e. sticks to the bore, takes pretty high temps, tends to get gummy after exposure for a LONG time. No smoke, just a visible mist. Didn't have any leading but seating boolits is a pain, and cases have to be wiped clean to prevent lubing the chamber. Much better than castor oil in function and taste.

[Bullwolf]

"Canola oil will oxidize to shellac , for want of a better word, given enough exposure to oxygen and UV light; two things in abundance on the rifle range."

The better word you were looking for is varnish. Vegetable oils will polymerize with enough heat. Shellac would at least be soluble in alcohol, unlike varnish.

Somewhat off topic, but this reminds me of an older bolt action single shot 22 rifle involved in a house fire that came to me from a relative.

The rifle suffered no water damage, and did not get hot enough to damage anything. Even the wood stock was still OK. (Yet it smelled strongly of smoke) The strangest thing though was that whatever oil had been used on the rifle, turned into a varnish from the heat during the fire.

The silver colored bolt in particular looked like someone had intentionally painted it with amber hard drying varnish/shellac. I had a heck of a time scrubbing the hard oil turned to varnish away. I'm pleased to report that afterwards, the rifle still functioned fine, and retained all of it's original accuracy.

Don't you just love a happy ending?


- Bullwolf

[bruce381]

the patent says "high" Oleic oils there are >80% high oleic veg oils safflower and canola are too but are NOT regular cooking oils. High oleic oils will NOT form varnish.
Are high dollar used in industry as frying oils.
But yeah if this stuff works use Safflower oil would be very close.

[willie_pete]

I'm not sure I want this stuff on my guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6YP5RViaAE

wp

[popper]

Uhh, lube is supposed to be in the grooves, not exposed to air or IR/UV. Now if you want to dump 20# of boolits in a tub of Mazzola, LOL picking them out.

[Hawks Feather]

Personally, I like it.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?282497-FIREClean-%96-Review

[willie_pete]

Uhh, lube is supposed to be in the grooves, not exposed to air or IR/UV. Now if you want to dump 20# of boolits in a tub of Mazzola, LOL picking them out.

FireClean is not a bullet lube; it is a gun cleaner.

wp

[country gent]

Canola oils, safflower oils and a couple others were used years ago for steam cylinder oils where heat and moisture were heavy to the envrioment they were used in. Steam traction tractors locomotives factory power plants all used steam to produce the power and the cylinders seals and pistons needed a light lube that would take the moisture and heat. I use emmerts with canola oil ( vegetable oil, olive oil and others also do work) with very good repeatable results. My recipe is 50% beeswax, 40% crisco unnsalted shortening, 5% canola oil, 5% anhydrous lanolin .

[popper]

Fireclean lubricant - read the article, don't just guess. Rapeseed oil is Mazolla, stuff used in AC, mine drilling, etc. stout loaded RD from a Marlin @ ~ 35 yds, lubed with Mazzola, sitting with elbow on a cooler. The deer hunting load I was using.
149438 And from a range session, both ~ 3-4 yrs ago.149439 with peanut butter as a lube. Basic ingredient is ground peanuts and Canola (rapeseed) oil. Clean bore with both. Both are cheap and messy to load. Most synthetic motor oils are chemically based on rapeseed oil molecules.

[dondiego]

It is not a boolit lube.

[Boolit_Head]

My son in law showed me this stuff recently. Very interesting, you can use your fingers to scrub a gun part clean and they will not turn black. The carbon just seems to disappear.

[popper]

It is not a boolit lube Don't really care what they sell it as, if it is indeed canola (rapeseed) oil, it is a boolit lube! Never seen such a dirty pistol as on their website (only closeup they show). CLP does fine on my MarkIII, I'd use Ben's Red for cleaning but don't have it in aeorsol form (oily soap & kerosene). My XD40 has 1000s of rounds through it, I usually clean the slide/lug (#9) and re-oil. AR insides get wiped with #9 and re-lubed with moly grease/ATF/mobile one. Think I cleaned the BCG twice, scraped the carbon off the bolt. Got some CFE to try, maybe I won't have to clean at all? Just MHO.

[dondiego]

Don't really care what they sell it as, if it is indeed canola (rapeseed) oil, it is a boolit lube! Never seen such a dirty pistol as on their website (only closeup they show). CLP does fine on my MarkIII, I'd use Ben's Red for cleaning but don't have it in aeorsol form (oily soap & kerosene). My XD40 has 1000s of rounds through it, I usually clean the slide/lug (#9) and re-oil. AR insides get wiped with #9 and re-lubed with moly grease/ATF/mobile one. Think I cleaned the BCG twice, scraped the carbon off the bolt. Got some CFE to try, maybe I won't have to clean at all? Just MHO.

I don't consider canola by itself as a suitable boolit lube either. Fire Clean is used by the black rifle crowd.

[popper]

149506 165GC from a 30/30 with Mazolla oil as lube, 50 yds, should be ~ 2k fps - no chrony then. I do need to clean my XD today, I'll try the Mazolla & see how it works. Their ad doesn't allow closeup of ARs. cleaned, so I can't tell. Not knocking their product, just normal skeptical me. If it works, fine.
Cleaned the XD & AR 308 carbine upper with Mazzola oil - just a good as if I'd used #9 & just as dirty rags. I did follow up with CLP on the striker part of the XD. Run-off was pretty clean. I'm NOT recommending this, just wanted to try.