Dear Bruce,

Quick question for the Technoid. What is the best lubricant to use on my O/U shotgun in the moving parts? I have been told you can use grease or oil…which is best? Browning recommends to oil or grease your O/U in about five places to prevent galling, in your experience what works best without getting gummy and collecting dirt?

Thanks

Michael

Dear Michael,

I think that I have about every gun oil and grease ever made. The manufacturers send them to me by the quart, gallon and pound.

As to lubing an O/U, there are two schools of thought. Giacomo Arrighini, the MASTER Perazzi gunsmith, doesn’t like grease on the hinges of guns. He likes Tri-Flow, Slip 2000 or BreakFree CLP. He feels that grease gets squeezed out of the high pressure areas and piles up in the nooks and crannies where it collects grit. This sentiment was echoed by Nicola DiGualielmo, the best fine-gun gunsmith I’ve ever met, though I would never claim to have met even a small percentage of the good smiths.

On the other side, both the Perazzi and Krieghoff factories ship their guns with grease, not oil. If the factory thinks that grease is the way to go, that carries some weight. Krieghoff used to market spray oil too, so I guess they cover their bets. The old can of Krieghoff gun oil I have also says that it is also a good spray for ticks on your dog. No kidding.

I don’t think that anyone would argue that a good gun oil is the best thing to use on the interior mechanism. During my annual disassembly and cleaning, my approach is to slobber the insides of my O/Us and SxS with oil, let it sit for a while and then blow it out with compressed air. If the gun needs to be cleaned inside, I spray it with any one of the gun cleaning sprays or paint it with mineral spirits, blow all that out, then apply the oil, blow that out and reassemble. That works for me, but you may have a better way. There are many paths to the truth.

On the hinges and heavy bearing surfaces, I’m bi-polar. For more years than I care to remember I’ve used Lubriplate, a thinnish white grease, on the hinges of my guns. I’ve never had galling or any other grease related problem. Recently, on a new Perazzi and some other guns, I’ve tried using Slip 2000 on the hinges, shoulders and other bearing surfaces. I like the Slip 2000 because it is a thick oil and doesn’t seem to migrate as much as Tri-Flow. I’m always concerned about having a migratory oil soak into the head of my stock and turn it punky. I store my guns muzzle down in the safe to attempt to prevent this. I also make a point of never over-oiling. Giacomo likes the Tri-Flow and uses it freely. He says he’s never had a problem and he ought to know. As I said, “many paths”.

The bottom line to all this is that I don’t really think that it’s what you use, but how you use it. I’ve tried all sorts of different stuff and have my personal favorites, but that doesn’t mean that they are the best. The key to protecting any bearing surface isn’t what you put on it, it’s what you take off it. Before you reassemble your O/U or SxS you must be absolutely certain that the bearing surfaces are surgically clean. Any slight bit of trapped grit can cause a galling mark. Once the hinge and bearing areas are really, really clean, then put on whatever you like and you’ll be fine. That said, I’m not a fan of WD-40 as a lubricant or protectant for guns, but I won’t get into that here.

As an aside, the above lubrication applies to O/U and SxS hinge and bearing areas. On the gas operated semi-automatics, I exclusively use BreakFree CLP and I use it liberally. The BreakFree CLP has a solvent that keeps the carbon in solution longer than other products. There’s many the choked to death gas gun that I resuscitated with a healthy dose of BreakFree CLP. The stuff is amazing. It’s also a surprisingly effective rust preventative, outlasting Sheath in the experiments I’ve read. It’s a great product for the internal action parts of the O/U and SxS as well as the gas gun.

So there it is. Slippery talk from yet another slippery gun writer.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
The Technoid writing for Shotgun Report, LLC
(Often in error. Never in doubt.)