Canadian Airgun Forum

There has been a lot of discussion in the last while about lubes. Members have been suggesting alternative lubes when the "gold standard" lubes were unavailable or too expensive. I have used the cheap "off the shelf" greases at CTC and they worked. Like others on this site, I was (still am) in a fairly steep learning curve regarding lube-tunes and I thought I would re-lube when I was happy with the results of my tuning.

I re-lubed with Loctite 65% moly paste. Holy cow what a difference. The gun feels like it is on ball bearings compared to the cheap greases. Has to be less wear and tear on parts when it's this smooth. I used to think "grease is grease, the expensive stuff can't be that much better".

I stand corrected.

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Theory is when you know how something works, but it doesn't.
Practice is when something works, but you don't know why.
In my shop, Theory and Practice are combined!
Nothing works and I don't know why.

Two lathes and too many projects

There are few different lubricants used on airguns.
Here's my opinion;
Crosman Pellgun oil is used on the tips of CO2 cartridges as you load them.
It lubricates seals and valves within the gun.
Silicone oil is sparingly used in the chambers of springers. Too much and you'll get dieseling.
And moly cote to grease the moving parts.
Don't use gun solvents. They're corrosive and meant for powder burners.
I use GooBGone to clean my gun barrels and miscellaneous parts.

I find half the fun of air gunning is the maintenance and modding.

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I think that paste is dampening the internals too, which may taper off some if/when it's pushed around and out of the way. If you have a coil spring gun you can use spring tar for that effect on the spring itself. I think it's technically a grease, but unlike any I've seen before and has the look and consistency of warm tar so it dampens the spring amazingly well. And being sticky like tar most if it stays put on the spring. The main drawback with paste and tar is it slows the parts down, if that matters to you.

If it's of any interest to somebody, I use these two products with good success.

The Symquip spray lube is excellent as a spring tar, it's designed to stay on moving parts (gears, sprockets, chains, etc). It does an amazing job at dampening spring vibrations, virtually eliminating the ''twang'' in springer air guns, and also provides rust protection. I got it at my local Case tractors dealer (about 15$ a 20 oz can). I must add though that it makes your gun loose some FPS.

I use the Permatex synthetic grease on all other moving parts of my air guns. It's a high pressure grease, rated NLGI grade 2, designed to not harm O-ring, seals and such parts. Working temp. range -20 to +400 degrees F. I find it real good on trigger parts, piston sides and barrel block pivot. I usually apply only a thin film with a small paint brush. Available at Canadian Tire stores for about 10$ a 85 grams tube.

Those two products made my guns really smooth and consistent.

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If everything's so lovely yeah, then why don't I, why don't I, why don't I, why don't I feel lovely?

If you look at the MSDS for CTC Moly grease you'll find that it has 3% moly (if my memory serves). No wonder it makes a difference when you use 65% moly grease.
Red.