Ballistol?

[jmort]

Some things never change. The battle about Ballistol. Most either love it or hate it.

Pretty much
Don't like it
Don't buy it
Simple deal

[Markopolo]

I live on an island with severe salt water weather.. everything rusts, and I mean everything.. I think even plastic parts rust here. But stuff I use straight balistol on, doesn’t rust. I go through bottles of it... it is Alaska tuff. And when folks get mad at me, I just spray a little on them, and it removes rusty crusty attitudes as well.. I just use it.

Marko

[JWFilips]

I can tell you an interesting story about Baillistol! I do a lot of 18th Century gun work. Not my favorite thing but I Slow Cold brown a lot of barrels in the past. There is always a problem of stopping the browning action ( something I am used to ) However one of the last browning jobs I did I decided to try Balistol after a caustic wash and Oiling proved it was unable to neutralize the acid browning solution....ballistol stopped it dead! Leading me to believe that it neutralizes acids!
Just my 2 cents

[John 242]

I can tell you an interesting story about Baillistol! I do a lot of 18th Century gun work. Not my favorite thing but I Slow Cold brown a lot of barrels in the past. There is always a problem of stopping the browning action ( something I am used to ) However one of the last browning jobs I did I decided to try Balistol after a caustic wash and Oiling proved it was unable to neutralize the acid browning solution....ballistol stopped it dead! Leading me to believe that it neutralizes acids!
Just my 2 cents

Ever try 1 table spoon of baking soda to 1 gallon of water to neutralize your browning solution?

[greenjoytj]

I use watered down Ballistol for a dry patch lube and for cleaning BP fouling.
I don’t like the odour, I wish the manufacturer would make a de-odourized version or at least don’t compound the odour problem by adding perfume scent.

[Big Wes]

Diesel exhaust is America's perfume!

[EDG]

You apparently do not get it that not everyone lives in southern Arizona. At the typical relative humidity in Arizona there is very little corrosion even when NO corrosion preventing product is used. The same thing happens in my house where the air conditioner keeps the relative humidity low. You could move to the Gulf Coast and your statements would not be accurate. They are certainly not accurate for people living in a more corrosive climate than Arizona. Attributing the lack of rust to Ballistol when you live in a low humidity environment is misleading. The US Government has long use the salt fog test as a way to determine corrosion resistance for military hardware including firearms, air craft and other military hardware.

I was a chemist in a previous life, so most smells don’t bother me.

I was also an experimental scientist, and had to design experiments to prove various things. I read that “exhaustive Internet test” of gun cleaner/lubricant/preservative offerings and found the test conditions were ridiculous. The only relation they would have to gun maintenance is if you’re worried about that gun on the foredeck of your WWII submarine.

My gun safe has no salt spray mister (I ordered the basic package; no frills ). Downgrading a cleaner/preservative whose function is to form an emulsion in water because one finds to one’s surprise and shock that it doesn’t stay on a surface under a constant spray of water is like saying a strike-out pitcher is no good because he only bats .150.

Here’s a “torture test” for a gun cleaner/preservative: a small-caliber muzzleloading rifle. There’s essentially only one outlet, and the internal volume is small. Any moisture left from cleaning will stay in there from lack of air circulation and wind up on the cleaned bore. I used to clean with dish soap and water, dry with acetone and swab the bore with whatever cleaner and preservative was touted, from Hoppe’s to RIG. Whatever I used, if I didn’t check in a day or two, there would be red on the surface of a cleaning patch; a bloom of fine, red rust.

I now clean all blackpowder firearms with Ballistol/water followed by Ballistol. In the case of the muzzleloader, no red ever shows up on patches any more. Nor on any other gun. After the normal cleaning of barrel and cylinder, I can spray the straight stuff into the mechanism of cap&ball revolvers and only take them completely apart for cleaning once a year, and the “mud” of Ballistol mixed with black powder fouling found inside doesn’t affect the springs, sears and surfaces at all.

So to me, the smell of Ballistol is the smell of a well-cleaned black powder gun that I don’t have to worry about, even if it stays in storage for a year before I get back to it. As Harry Pope said about his favorite cleaner, “There may be a better product on the market, but LET GEORGE USE IT!”

[EDG]

Why don't you just admit that you live in southern Arizona where there is almost no rust even when no Ballistol is used? You characterize the environmental tests as of no value when your own statements are of little value to people that live along the Gulf of Mexico or near any marine environment. You have no good way to predict the performance of Ballistol in a high humidity environment if you do not use it or test it in that environment. If you want a reasonable assessment of rust preventing properties don't ask someone that lives where there is low relative humidity.

Admittedly, the only environmental testing I remember doing with metal coupons involved standing them up half their height in solutions of corrosives and measuring the mils lost over time. But this was at least a reasonable model for what we were trying to determine—the extent to which the inside of partially-filled storage tanks would corrode, especially at the interface between air and liquid. A test comprising all of the most severe conditions we could think of inflicting upon the coupons would have proved nothing worthwhile to us.

Most of my environmental testing involved artificial aging of composite materials by various regimens of thermal cycling or holding at temperatures. These tests did little besides assure the military officers and civilian program managers in the audience that something was being done, but they knew as well as I did that life is infinitely stranger than anything anybody can cook up in a lab, particularly if it involves long periods of time. At best, such tests cull out mixtures which should have been suspect by the time they got to such testing, and at worst, they're like the guy who lost his car keys in the dark alley but looks for them under the street light because the light is better there.

So I still don’t see the applicability of that salt spray test in firearm maintenance. (Given, that I am not in a state of War at this time.) Even if I dropped a gun out of a duck boat into a salt marsh, after fishing it out, the cleaning regimen would be fresh water, then water/Ballistol, then pure Ballistol, same as ever. With the same results as ever, as expected.

But hey; I’m an easygoing guy. Just because I don’t insist that everybody else use something that has endured the worst test conditions I can look up in a book doesn’t mean such preservatives aren’t applicable in certain cases. Everybody can decide for themselves, and report what works best for them, as I have. Certainly somebody who loses their gun overboard and decides to leave it in the drink until next hunting season needs the added protection. And some time in the future, if I have need to store my firearms on a beach between low and high tide marks, I will certainly revisit the test and see what is best for those conditions. Until then, Ballistol uber alles, for Black Powder guns, anyway.

[GunGuy2756]

I use it on anything made of metal and as a personal lubricant.

[Dieter]

Love the stuff! When I got my new Ruger SRH .44, talk about gritty trigger pull. Yanked it all apart, like you’re supposed to do with a new gun. Cleaned it and sprayed trigger group down real nice with Ballistol. Let it soak for a while and wiped away excess. I added a smidge of Mil-Comm grease to the sear and put it back together. Night and day difference. I use it on about everything.

[enfield]

I cant imagine how the smell of Balistol is offensive to someone. It doesn't smell like fresh baked bread sure , but to actually be concerned about the smell of it seems a bit dramatic doesn't it ?

[Rug480]

Like hot sauce I put that stuff on everything but I’m Greek and love the licorice smell, reminds me of ouzo opa

[gumbo333]

The smell reminds me more of my grandkids puke! But Ballistol is good stuff.

[Hickok]

It could keep an MG 42 running @ about 1200 rounds per minute so it has to be good stuff!

I like it.

[Conditor22]

I read somewhere that you shouldn't mix Balistol with oil products, anyone else see this?

[Drydock]

Been using it for 30 years on BP cartridge and smokeless firearms. (Clean BP with plain water, follow with Ballistol) Most of that in the Tidewater VA area until I retired from the USN. It works. 10 years on a MAS 1873, no rust. Might not be the best, probably not the worst. But it works, and does not eat my leather slings. If you like black licorice, the smell won't bother you.

There's enough stuff out there that everyone can have their favorites. Never can understand the rancor.

[Dvdmacdaddy]

I used Frog Lube until I found out it gums up and renders your gun useless. Ballistol cleaned up the Frog Lube with ease and is now my go to cleaner and lube. I have a can in each vehicle, range bag, garage, house, tool box, gun tool box. It has replaced WD40 in my house.

[Lance Boyle]

Perhaps you do not read the labels of every prescription med you consume. Almost everything has some effect on you if you touch it, drink or breathe it. Got an allergy? Wash you clothes with soap? Handle fired brass with primer residue? Have a case tumbler? Breathe the essence of gun powder?
Expose your skin to the sun? Get X rays? Smoke cigarettes? Drink alcohol?

Witches brew? Come on read the definition of mineral oil.
Mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of higher alkanes from a mineral source, particularly a distillate of petroleum.

Perhaps you have not read the MSDS of many products including Ballistol.

Ballistol contains medicinal grade mineral oil, alkaline salts of oleic acid, several alcohols, Benzyl Acetate and an oil from vegetal seeds. The mineral oil is unchlorinated and conforms to the specifications of US Pharmacopeia XX.

Ballistol aerosols contain A-70 (a Butane, Propane blend ) as propellants. The pressure inside the full can is 7-7.5 bars. Ballistol aerosols contain 14% Isohexane as a thinner.

I am pretty sure the mineral oil in and isobutyl alcohol is also absorbed through your skin.
You might want to stop at Harbor Freight and invest in several boxes of nitrile rubber gloves.

Hexane is another readily absorbed by the body. I used a ton of it when I worked in the lab.

Back when RCBS made their first pump spray case lube they cut the lanolin with hexane. I knew it the instant I sprayed it on the casings. I got the demo bottle before it was on the market when I called for parts when I screwed up resizing 7.62 NATO machine gun brass.

I think they almost immediately changed the product to an alcohol carrier. Much safer.

I try to wear the nitrile gloves but old habits are what they are. I am consistently inconsistent..

[Lance Boyle]

I cant imagine how the smell of Balistol is offensive to someone. It doesn't smell like fresh baked bread sure , but to actually be concerned about the smell of it seems a bit dramatic doesn't it ?

I love fresh baked bread but really don’t like when the whole house smells of it. Yes I bake my own bread now and again.

I do not like the taste of black licorice so it doesn’t smell good to me either. Browning had a canned gun lube back in the nineties. I bought a couple cans in a blow out bin. It smelled horrible. I gave it away.

[lefty o]

I love fresh baked bread but really don’t like when the whole house smells of it. Yes I bake my own bread now and again.

I do not like the taste of black licorice so it doesn’t smell good to me either. Browning had a canned gun lube back in the nineties. I bought a couple cans in a blow out bin. It smelled horrible. I gave it away.

i wouldnt mind ballistol so bad if it smelled like black licorice instead of month old dirty socks.