People have heard for so many years that petroleum products are bad with BP we simply repeat it not realizing there are differences in the products of base petroleum. For instance most people don’t realize that crude oil actually contains thousands of compounds. But even with those thousands of compounds the hydrocarbons in crude can be divided into three main groups: paraffinic, naphthenic and aromatic. To jump ahead, motor oil, machine oils and most modern firearms lubricants and greases are naphthenic and many modern lubricants also contain other aromatic compounds which make the lubricity better especially through different temperature ranges.
Crude oil after removing the lighter constituents and fuels like gasoline, diesel and kerosene is relatively high in paraffinics. These are actually considered to be less desirable, the remaining oil is further refined to remove or separate most of them. Mineral oil, paraffin and things like petroleum jelly are the byproducts of continued refining crude oil to get the more “desirable” (meaning worth more) naphthenic and aromatic based compounds.
Paraffinic oils are straight chain or simple branched aliphatic hydrocarbons. One characteristic of these open chains is that they are capable of being emulsified without the addition of a secondary agent like a soap, etc. Naphthenic or alicyclic oils have the characteristics of naphthenes, which are saturated hydrocarbons of which the molecules contain at least one closed ring of carbon atoms. These closed rings make them extremely hydrophilic and you can’t emulsify them without a secondary emulsifying agent. In addition, paraffins are also saturated with respect to hydrogen, the rich hydrogen chains easily bond to oxygen if exposed to the heat of Black Powder ignition and form water and compounds incorporating water in the resulting residue.
The above paragraph in a nutshell is the difference between the petroleum oils and lubricants we warn people about and the “good” petroleum (this includes coal oil based products) like Ballistol, paraffin and the petrolatum based toilet bowl rings that people like Noz , Dick Dastardly and many others use.
We all talk about soft fouling and moister fouling being created by certain types of powders (like Swiss) and some shooters will use blow tubes to pass moist air through a barrel to allow it to be infused and keep the fouling soft. What we don’t talk about is that naphthenic lubricants don’t incorporate water or water based compounds because it has a closed ring. The results are hard tarry deposits. This is why when you submerge a gun part fouled in those hard tarry deposits it doesn’t soften in water.
As weird as it sounds, the way to determine if you can or should use a lube in contact with burning Black Powder comes down to whether or not you can eat it, or I should say ingest it (not always a good idea, but it won’t poison you). If the product has a medicinal use like paraffin, petroleum Jelly, mineral oil, etc. You can probably use it with BP. The reason is that it is going to be low in naphthenic compounds. The body will react to naphthenic compounds and they will basically poison you. If Mineral oil was poisonous many of us would be dead and our mothers would still be in prison.
That’s enough for a start, I’ll talk about fatty acids next. That’s another key to what makes a superior BP lubricant.
Regards,
Mako
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