Ballistol...Anyone?

[4-Screw]

Anyone ever use Ballistol?

http://www.ballistol.com/product_Firearms.htm

I heard that it penetrates, cleans, and lubes the whole gun....take the grips off, put it in a Ziploc bag, spray it down and leave it for awhile.

A 1911 collector told me about it...i do not know much else about it, but I guess it has been around forever and a day.

 

[Gunhacker]

I've used it and was not too impressed.

It smells... the odor is something like a mentholated Murphy's Oil soap.

The can says it emulsifies with water and list uses from cutting fluid to leaf shine for your potted plants, when mixed in the listed ratios.

My biggest gripe is I decided to use it on a revolver that I had recently sent to S&W to be re-blued, and since the can read like it was a good rust protection for gun storage, I applied a thin coat and tucked it away in my safe.

A few months later much to my horror, when I removed the gun from my safe I found that portions of the bluing had develop a milky white haze that I have not been able to remove.

At that point I abandoned it's use on firearms and used up what I had left as "general" lubricant on garden tools and other things that I was not too concerned about.

 

[HAGEN]

Ballistol & Holy Black

I shoot SASS Cowboy Action and use Ballistol as lube .
Use it on Stainless,Blue & Brass with Issues.
Several of us Cowboys Shooting The Holy Black use it.
Hagen

 

[4-Screw]

Thanks for the advice. I am going to take Lee up on his RIG recommendation.

 

[cal50]

I use it for cartridge black powder cleaning. Balistol + water = Moosemilk and is used by BP shooters, that is where I picked it up from. I swab my bore with it at the range then clean normally at home. I have never used it for rust prevention on surface metal. For that I still use break-free CLP. Balistol is a great cleaner of corrosive salts or chlorate residue.

 

[Sevenshooter]

I've had good luck with it. Been using it a long time.

Works good as a lube, cleans powder and lead fouling. It is good for wood, leather and metal. Grips, stocks, holsters and belts plus the gun itself. I like it 'cause I don't worry about what it gets on. It isn't going to damage anything.

I can't speak for the post where it left a stain on the bluing. I wipe everything down with it and put 'em away and I haven't seen anything bad when I get them out sometimes months later.

It does have a kind of loud smell to it... but I sorta like it.

Ss

 

[Doc Watson]

I have just started using it, and found no problems, I don't care how something smells if it does the job. I never understood the whole Hoppes #9 wonderful smell thing, all cleaners and lubes smell like what they are to me.

 

[M2MikeGolf]

The traditional German shooters and hunters swear by the stuff as it's "environmentally" friendly, and claim that strange odor will not scare off game to boot. My neighbor, the local forstmeister and my hunting partner, gave me a can but I have yet to use it. He says it's the best, sort of a German equivalent of WD-40, but better since it is also a protectant (says he).

 

[Harrison]

I have used it as a lubricant and protective coating on pistols I shoot frequently. I live on the coast, but have had no rust problems with Ballistol. If I am going to put a gun away for months and not touch it, I give the gun a wipe down with the the Rig pad first.
Overall it is probably as good a lubricant as 75% of the gun oils on the market, and a lot less expensive than most.

 

[HeloMt]

I have found it to be a pretty good cleaner/lubricant. I had very poor luck this year as a rust preventer/protectant. After season, I cleaned both a rifle and shotgun that I had used extensively. After cleaning, I rubbed down all the exterior surfaces with a thin coat of the stuff and put the in the safe. Now, I live in a dry climate and have never had ANY rust issues. Several months later, I look around in the safe and amazingly the two guns I wiped down both had a thin haze of surface rust, no other guns did. It shocked me!. Anyway, I would be very hesitant to use it for a protectant. It kind of concerns what may be going on inside of the gun, based on what happened outside. My 2-bits worth.

 

[Erich]

I like it a lot as a preservative, and use it on leather and on my BP bores. Don't think a whole lot of it as a cleaner or lube. Just my opinion.

 

[richief]

Ballistol

I have a positive story on Balistol from a month or so, ago.
I had an old rifle in my second safe, in the garage, that i havent used in 20 yrs well I inspected the bore and looked brown crud grew in the barrel, it was half the diameter, musta been corosive primers in ammo at last use.
I always run hoppies through after shooting anything, but this was crudded up from lack of cleaning for corrosives. I then cleaned as best I could with bronze brush and cleaners I usually use, like hoppes, breakfree, even pb blaster.
well opened it right up but still the barrel didnt look right, was gonna have it rebarreled, but a few weeks later I stop in to check out a new gun shop, get to talking with gunsmith guy about this, and he hands me a can of ballistol and a couple bronze brushes, and suggests I work the balistol and brushes.
I buy the can and brushes and couple nights later do the brush, let stand 5 or 10 min in between, brush few times more , let stand etc, while playing poker online one eve, and I get the bore shining new again, I mean I can't believe it, it realy softened the rust.
I havent put a bore scope in it but I can't see pitting or anything but shine all the way through.
well maybe I'm a lucky one, but I like this stuff, and will always pull some through after questionable ammo.
For lube in cold weather, and or long term storage, I will still use boeshield T9, this is good stuff for those who don't know.
I will continue to keep a can of this new found stuff around too.

 

[Frank237]

I've used Ballistol mixed with water to clean AK's after corrosive ammo for several years. Same concoction the BP Shooters have been using for some time.

It also seems to clean and protect leather quite well.

FN in MT

 

[Gasman1972]

I love FliudFilm myself.

I saw a test where a guy put 4 knives in their own bucket of salt water for 30 days. One was coated with WD-40, one with X7 something, One with some popular gun oil and one with fluid film. In the end the FluidFilm knife looked almost new, the other three were horrible.

I've used it for a while now to clean and lube.

 

[blujax01]

I was advised to use it on hard chrome guns instead of anything that has copper sulfate in it, which will raise Hell with the finish.
It's a little slower, but works well. I have to clean the Cosmoline and crud out of a hundred-year-old Mosin-Nagant. We'll see if it's up to that.

And if you believe the label, you will never need to buy Pledge, Formula 409 or WD40 again!

 

[cal50]

I like lacquer thinner or the cheap walmart carb/brake cleaner for cosmoline removal. Cheaper and save your balistol!

 

[Noah Zark]

The odor of Ballistol comes from one of the active ingredients, butyl alcohol, a.k.a. isobutyl alcohol, butanol, butoxyethanol, or simply "butyl." It has a funky odor like a damp gym locker room. It can also promote an asthma attack.

Butyl acts as a wetter/surfactant which reduces the surface tension of water and allows it to wet out on the surface to which it is applied. It also acts as an emulsifier, which allows oil and water to mix into an emulsion. The other ingredient in Ballistol is light mineral oil, and the butyl in Ballistol allows the product to be readily diluted with water, forming a dilute emulsion.

"Butyl" was once used widely as an ingredient in commercial water-based cleaners such as Fantastik, Formula 409, and other products. It is directly responsible for those cleaner products being such good degreasers. However, due to environmental concerns and a national germophobic hysteria in the US, the manufacturers of these commercial cleaner products dropped the use of butyl and added benzoalkumchloride, a bactericide, and some commercial surfactants. The result is the new "ANTIBACTERIAL! KILLS GERMS!" versions of 409 and Fantastic are not as efficient at cutting oil and grease as they once were. I use Simple Green for cutting grease now, it still has butyl alcohol, but uses a commercial odorant to mask the odor of butyl with the attractive odor of sassafras.

Noah

 

[M2MikeGolf]

I've got a Ballistol story that might be of interest.

I live in Germany, and some of the old-timer hunters I know are crazy about this stuff. They claim you can use it on anything, wood, metal, guns, etc. They make claims that are almost outrageous, and also claim that it is environmentally friendly. The Germans (and their government) take this environmental friendly concept to an extreme, so I have to believe this claim since they sell a lot of this stuff; no German's garage is complete without a can of this stuff, kind of like the German equivalent of WD-40.

I went to buy a can of it last week, and the (young) gunsmith substantiated all of the stories I had been told, and also informed me that the German Army used this stuff in WWII as medication on bandages (!). He said that medics and hospitals used it, especially for problems with teeth and gums; to demonstrate, he took a can and sprayed his throat with it!!! I would have to say "don't try this at home" to that. It really doesn't smell that great. I think he threw up after I left the shop, but I can't swear by that. He also said it's good for your stock, but not for metal. So far, I am trying a cleaning of bores on my very old Drilling to see what effect it has. I will say that it seems to have a good effect on the old stock on my Drilling, so we'll see.

The smell immediately reminded me of an enamel paint I used as a kid for scale models, I beleive it was made by Pactra, but am not sure. Like everything, I think I'll get used to the smell, but I'm still a big Hoppes No. 9 lover, and Ballistol is just not going to beat that out for a good smellin' solvent!

I thought everyone might get a kick out of this throat spray story, I laughed about it all the way home.

 

[Erich]

Awesome!

I love all the patent-medicine-like claims (hey, some of the claims are actually true) about the stuff and had heard about the bandages, but this is the first time I heard of someone gargling with it.

You know I'm going to want to try this the next time I get a sore throat, don't you?

 

[M2MikeGolf]

Erich, you can let me know how that sore throat remedy works out for you, I think I'll stick to chicken soup and German beer!

Seriously, that young gunsmith took about fifteen minutes to recover, his eyes were watering and he gagged some too; he covered up by popping Tic-Tacs 'till I left. But he made his point, it didn't kill him, but I don't think I'm trading in my chloraseptic just yet. It does work great on the rough looking bore on my old Drilling, and like someone had mentioned, I like the idea that you can put it on wood and metal too. I will say it works great on wood. It rains quite a bit here, and I'm in it with some of my weapons often, so it seems a good option for stock protection. I guess I can take a can of it in the woods with me, and if I get a cut I can spray it on that and then clean my gun at the same time. What more could you ask for in a cleaning agent?!?!