Felix, I studied the viscosity of room-temperature mixed and polymerized castor/baby oil vs. Bullplate, 500 SUS air conditioning ester oil, and this Redline two-stroke ester. The castor/mineral is very similar in viscosity to the thinner oils, a little more thin than Dexron III atf. A lightbulb sort of went on at that point, and I quit messing with gear oils and greases with heavy oil. I think castor may be too thick by itself, I assume that's the reason for the mineral oil addition.
No, I haven't subbed Ester for the mineral oil in Felix lube, but that might be worth a go. I'm not sure why we'd need the castor at all though, the ester oil is doing the same thing only with a much higher VI and no gummy stuff. I'm not sure we "need" the soap either, if not using castor, except to make a light sodium grease out of the lube oil and maybe add some control to how it's dispensed to the bore. Oh, and raise the overall melt point a titch.
Lanolin concerns me too at low temps, but I've never truly isolated it as a problem, it always seemed to be the carnauba and overall higher viscosity of the basic lube in cold weather that caused problems, easily fixed with a little ATF or vaseline and deleting the carnauba. Deleting the carnauba alone wasn't enough for the first couple of shots.
Gear