Favorite Lube?

[Duck-o-holic]

Just picked up a can of Hoppe's Dri-Lube yesterday at Gander. I'm always looking for a superior product to lube the action of my auto during those sub-zero days in the blind. Curious if anyone's tried this, or a graphite-type lubricant? What's everyone's favorite for those cold November and December days afield? I know that a lot of people have high opinions of Break-Free. Any others worth testing?? Or is using a pump the best option on those days... you know the ones... where when any water hits your gun, it's instantly encased in ice?

[lawdog]

I use LPS-1 greaseless lube. Its worked for me in all kinds of weather. Don't usually see it in the gun areas, only in the better hardware areas...

[fishermann222]

I live in northwestern alaska and we hunt in some really cold situations. Hunt with a shotgun for ptarmigan down to 30 below, and hunt caribou with rifles down to about 20 below. I have found that when it gets that cold, If I do nto clean out all the lubrication from the gun, and firing pin mechanism it will freeze up. of course when I get back home every day I hvae to strip it down adn clean it perfectly or I would have problems down the road. If it is going to be a super cold day, the only thing I have found that works, and the eskimos up here agree, is to strip out all the lub out of your gun. Now if you are just talking about 0 degrees then it is not so bad and some kinds of lube will still work.

[Crusher]

Hey Duck!

When I was living in Alaska the guy at Mountain View Sports turned me onto a Teflon based lube. I'm looking for the bottle but can't seem to find it right now. It works great! I've never had a problem with it. Used it on numerous winter hunts snowshoeing for Backtail Deer on the islands out of Cordova. Snowy, Cold, Snowy-Rainy Cold, works great. Have also used it back here on very cold Whitetail hunts. When I had Polar Bear watch duties while working on the North Slope of Alaska I stripped down Our Bear guns and lubed them with this product. We had several target/training sessions where the temps were around -20F. I'll find it here sooner or later. When I do I'll post it's name. Shot me a call when you get a chance, like to hear how your Turkey hunt went.

Catch ya later,

Crusher

P.S. Greetings fishermann222! Always good to hear from a fellow Alaskan. What part of NW Alaska are you from? I have spent time on the Kobuck River in NW with my native buddy.

[set the drag]

g-96 its the best stuff i've ever used had my choke stuck and used some of that stuff and it soaked in and let me take it out this stuff is amazing if the conditions are wet its like my gun is never wet anymore makes water bed up like turtle wax

[fishermann222]

Hey Crusher,

I live in a village around Bethel right now. Moving to Nunivak Island next year. I am jealous about living on the Kobuk. I Have been watching for openings in the kobuk and ambler schools to try and move there, but it seems teachers up there STAY.

I will have to talk to the guys at mountain view when I am in anchorage If I find out what kind it is that works so well I will post it on here so you can all see. Crusher, did it work even after being in the sub zero weather for 20+ hours?

If I knew how to post photos on here I would send a photo of a subsistance hunt I was on last weekend. I imagine you partook in subsistance lifestyle while you lived up here right?

[Duck-o-holic]

Good to hear from you Crusher! Now I'm dying to know the name of that product. I'll try to get ahold of you sometime this week. We'll have to hook up and do some fishing this summer. Maybe even on that "gem" of a lake you like to fish around here!

[wackyduck]

i use tetra , a gun dealer had some here where i live on black alke in new york,it suppose to not freeze.........

[Jackpine Rob]

I used to have problems with my 1100 in subzero weather during deer season. Then I switched to Breakfree CLP and haven't had any sort of freeze problem. I was so impressed that I now use the stuff on the inner workings (including firing mechanism) of my predator rifles, which are often toted around in temps of -20 and worse.

During hunts in extreme cold, the guns are left outside even at night, and I have yet to experience a freeze-up problem with the Breakfree.

[fishermann222]

Jackpine, Where are you doing your predator hunting where it is commonly 20 below? Temps in minnesota rarely get to 20 below and stay that way for long.

A little piece of advice on the 20 below temps, if you are hunting when it is 20 below alot and leaving stuff outside I would highly suggest leaving your bullets in a warmer place. Once you get that cold and colder, the powder does not burn as hot anymore and it affects the bullets accuracy. More and more people are coming to realize this is a problem up here in alaska. Their dead on weapons are no longer dead on when the bullets get that cold. The pilots and shooters who spend alot of time ariel wolf hunting have really noticed it. In their case they are using shotguns with buck shot. The killing power of the buckshot was nill in temps of 30 below. The guys that have gotten really good at killing wolves from a plane have started to head up their shells, and bullets next to thier body until they are about ready to shoot.

If you talk to people who hunt extreme extreme colds, by this I mean arctic areas, most will strip their weapons of all oils and lubes for the hunt. Then do a major cleaning after every use.

[Jackpine Rob]

F222:

Been in Minnesota long have you? Other than the last couple of wimpy winters, -20 temps are not uncommon. Cold snaps happen up in northern Minnesota where the HIGH for the day might hit -20.

Some of the nastiest cold though seems to be out on the prairies - probably because you don't have a lot of trees blocking that wind. If you were around for the infamous Halloween blizzard, you probably remember the intense cold that followed, just in time for the deer opener. I was living in West Central Minnesota at the time, and the temp on my thermometer opening morning was -33. Climbing into the deer stand was no picnic, and for the first time ever I actually used a sleeping bag to stay warm on the stand.

Thankfully, several deer came by shortly after sunup, so I popped a plump young buck and headed home. I didn't notice any performance problems with the slug - the deer dropped like a rock.

Predator hunting is one of those sports that tends to put a guy out there in some extreme conditions. If my schedule allows, I particularly like to target the high pressure periods following a good snowstorm. After the critters have been holed up for a day or more, it seems like they respond better to my pathetic efforts at calling. Those high pressure periods also tend to be fairly chilly, so a little Vaseline for the nose and a good pair of choppers over the shooting gloves are a must.

My partner and I had a particularly excellent 2 days 4 years ago out in South Dakota in temps that never got over -10. The ranchers thought we were nuts (and we probably were!) but the cold snap really had the coyotes moving and hungry. The wind came up on the 3rd day and we had to bail out, but it was sure fun while it lasted. I was shooting a .17 and my partner was shooting a .223, at ranges from about 15 yards all the way out to 300, and I don't recall we had any real problems with downrange performance.

You do have me curious now, and I'm going to have to chronograph a few rounds next winter at various temps to see what the effects are.

[fishermann222]

Jackpine, I grew up in minnesota and went to college up in Grand Forks. I know cold. and you are right cold snaps do happen but they are not all that common. If you are talking praire of ND then yes it does get a little colder out there. But alot of that chill has to do with the wind chill. I lived in minnesota for 24 years before moving up to Alaska. When you do some chronographing, I will be interested to see the results as well.

When you do that next winter, please post the results on here for the rest of us. I think the results will be ver interesting.

P.S. Yes I do remember the Halloween Blizzard. It was great, snowmobile right down the highways

[fishermann222]

Just out of curiosity I am checking all the temp climate reports for minnesota since it has been recorded to get accurate data on temps throughout the state. What city was that in where it was -33 below?

[Evenflow]

Look up International Falls, Hibbing, Tower, Embarass and Ely. They all get VERY cold quite often in the winter. Especially Tower and Embarass.

[fishermann222]

yes I am familiar with those areas, but I am curious as to west central parts of the state. those are north

Even in Ifalls, the lowest temp ever recorded for November was -32. and that was in '75 not after the halloween blizzard

In 1896 Tower reached 39 below in November. Remember these are the extreme areas, not the norm

[fishermann222]

http://sisyphus.sws.uiuc.edu/climate_midwest/mwclimate_data_summaries.htm

visit that site for midwest climate summaries

[Jackpine Rob]

Funny, but I remember talking to my buddy in Shoreview (north of 694) on the phone shortly after hunting that morning, and him telling me it was something like -10 on his back porch. I was roughly 20 miles westerly from Alexandria.

As for the November temps cited, I wouldn't put a whole lot of faith in those figures, other than for comparison and trending purposes. You can get some pretty dramatic fluctuations in just a couple of miles, depending on elevation, buildings nearby, etc.

At any rate, you are probably right F222 - it just doesn't get really cold in Minnesota. ;-)

[fishermann222]

Jackpine, if you ever do get out to do some tests with ammo and guns on the chronograph in 20 below temps please do share the info. I am interested to see if it is as true as people are saying up here.

And I never meant to imply it does not get really cold in minnesota, when I posted i stated that they rarely get that low AND stay there for a long time.

I did not mean to start a major debate, was just being inquisitive.

[Jackpine Rob]

No problems here F222 - I've got a pretty thick hide, and a most inquisitive nature myself.

I called my partner up last night, and we conferenced in our expert - the guy who does custom loading for him, and consults for several gun magazine authors. This guy did a similar experiment several years back on handgun loads, and has promised to dig out that data. The upshot was that there are now 3 of us poring over old data and fashioning a reasonable test regimen with several different weapons.

Depending on schedules, we will probably shoot our control groups later on this summer. In the interests of keeping this thing simple, chrono readings will be taken at the muzzle, but we will be comparing for groups at both 100 and 200 yards. Assuming little or no appreciable change in the efficiency of the loads at various temperatures, our groups should print nearly identically whether its comfortable or bitter out.

The one variable that we were discussing last night was the reaction of the gun itself in the cold. Will the cold stiffen the barrel to the point that POI shifts in a predictable manner? Both my rifle and my buddy's are free-floated, so stocks should not be an issue. All of us had experienced slight shifts in POI from warm weather to cold weather, but by and large those shifts have been so minor as to not cause us to re-zero.

These other 2 guys are real fiends on data, so it promises to be an interesting exercise. They have been playing around with a new 22-250 for the last few weeks, so my question last night really got them interested. Now if we can all get together on a calm couple of days!

[fishermann222]

Sounds like it will be very interesting and fun to say the least. I am jealous. Sounds like you have some great resources to bounce info off of.

Keep us all posted, shoot me an email as you gather info

[email protected]

[Crusher]

Hey Duck!

Sorry it took so long to respond back, but I just found that bottle of gun oil. It's called "Birchwood Casey Synthetic Gun Oil w/ Teflon. The original reson I starting using this stuff was because of all the rust I was getting on my gun while hunting in Southeast Alaska. There my gun would rust just being near that salt water still in the case. Operating temperture range was a secondary consideration, but this stuff kicks butt!! As per the back of the bottle "Won't gum-up or lose viscosity from -55 F to +300F. Steel panels protected with this oil successfully resisted 24 hours of continuous salt spray and nearly 72 hours of 100% reative humidity tests without rusting."

Kind of funny...I bought this stuff at Mountain View Sports in Anchorage, Alaska and it's made right hear in Minnesota by Birchwood Laboratories, Inc. in Eden Praire, MN. It comes in a white tin bottle with blue and red highlights.

How'd you guys do on the Muskie opener? Give me a call.

Crusher

[Duck-o-holic]

Sounds like some great stuff! I don't think I've seen it before.

We ended up with three follows on Saturday, and one follow on Sunday... no strikes though!

How'd you guys do??

[lunker651]

I use Remington" Rem Oil w/ Teflon lubricant". Never had a problem with my guns functions in cold weather and when it gets rain on, the water just slide off and best of all it protects rust from forming. I also use browning Gun oil it works great too. The browning oil's penatrates into the metals and lubes it from there, so it looks like it's gone but it's there. They are also great oils too even in -0 degree temps. I 've hunted whitetail for a while now in Minnesota and some year the winchills gets below -0 degrees, but these couple of years it's been about average temperatures here.

[tweedlap]

Followed up on Crushers info about the Birchwood Lube:

Go To: birchwoodcasey.com

Click on maintainance

Scroll down to Sheath Rust Preventative

They give the same description as Crusher.

It looks like they have some other fine products, as well.

Tweedlap

[kc0myy]

Well last year I didn't go out hunting when it was really cold. But early in the hunting season I just use rem oil. I love the stuff. Last year on opener for duck I fell and got the screw for my mag wet. When I cleaned my gun the screw was rusty just a little bit. So I scubbed with a rag a lot and got all the rust off and never rusted again. I was using a benille Nova so it really does not matter if it get rusty it will still work. I love rem oil. I will get a better oil for sub-zero hunting. Just my 2 cents.