Which Bolt Grease for a stainless rifle bolt?

Having spent over 20 years turning, milling, grinding and assembling stainless and other high grade steel components for the aircraft industry on a daily basis, i had never come across this galling of similar/disimilar steels i keep on hearing about within the gun trade, now steel/titanium thats a different matter.

Ian.

Blimey! You have never had a stainless nut seize? True I have only been using A2 / 304 and A4 / 316 rather than anything more aerospace exotic. But I have encountered it to my cost and frustration on a number of times.

I do remember being told about it by a lecturer when I was on a day release to Banbury tech. As a 17 year old in 1969 so I am surprised you were not taught about it when you trained.

Alan
 
Alan, it was most likely mentioned in workshop technology while i attended college in Northampton in the late 1970s but it most likely took no notice.
I only really started taking notice when reading about it being mentioned by the guntrade.
I can honestly say i have never had a stainless nut gall, and i have made an awful lot of them in my time together with rolled thread fitted SS bolts, i even tried to replicate galling but could not get happen however like i said titanium did it all the time!

Ian.
 
One just has to ask in a boatyard, very often bottle crews etc. galling up. A2/A4 is of course more prone to galling than some hardened stainless steels. The lugs on my Howa did not seem very hard and maybe they were not matching perfect with the action which is also not really hard. If the surfaces are not exactly matching you'll get quite high surface pressures when firing, in that case a 22-250. I have another stainless Howa in 243 of similar vintage which is perfect and never had any galling. She is always greased well though.
edi
 
!The red grease sounds like a good route to follow!

just ordered syringes with bent ends off ebay handy for putting red sticky grease in cheap as chips ;)

b.b
 
I never use grease on a bolt. Just a very thin film of light 'Electrolube' military grade small arms oil. I find that grease tends to collect dust and debris much easier and ends up more like grinding paste!
I use more in the winter or wet conditions, but if it's dry and dusty, hardy any.
MS
 
I've tried a very thin film of grease on the bolt, but it picks up way too much crud. Best thing I've found so far is a light application of Archoil AR4200 which leaves a very slippery nano ceramic coating which actually helps repel dust and dirt.
 
My take is to think about it for a bit: Are you looking to cure a problem that does not exist?
Do you use a fast moving bolt and multiple rounds, as in a semi or full auto? No. So galling is unlikely to ever happen.
Do you fire 100 to 200 rounds in a single shoot? No then the action is highly unlikely to seize due to heat or debris.
Do you encounter dry, very dusty, dirty conditions while hunting? No. Then how is the action going to seize?
Do you keep it clean? Yes. Then you don't need to do much more than that.
 
Instead of grease which picks up particles and can be a wee bit messy, or oil, try Silicone Dry Spray. Light coat all over the bolt and in the action. Wipe off any over spray.


Silicone.jpg
 
It always amazes me that such undemanding lubrication environments such as gun lubrication can polarise so many different opinions! My tuppenceworth FWIW is that with a little thought, it isn't exactly rocket science and that it's a shear action, high pressure environment so boundary lubrication rather than hydrodynamic (ie oil!) is needed, and must be corrosion resistant, not readily oxidise even over prolonged periods, provide good high pressure and shear resistance, and be safe to use. There may be some oils, thinly used such as automatic transmission fluids that'll do the job fine but these can often be toxic so best avoided.

My recommendation (and what was recommended to me by a lubrication "expert") was food safe, food industry aluminium based food machinery white grease compounds. These exhibit exactly the qualities needed for a rifle bolt and bolt receiver and only a thin coating is needed. As for all the "abrasive compound" comments with grease...poppycock if you regularly clean your rifle and ensure there's no build up. Remember that even with abrasive powder residues, they will not rapidly break through and remove the boundary grease layers on metal surfaces when viewed microscopically (or so I am assured), especially when most of us wont be stringing dozens of shots off at every outing. If target shooting, one can always remove the bolt after some strung out shooting, wipe down and thinly re-grease. You probably take all your kit to the range anyway. For those who treat their rifles like walking stocks, to be used and chucked in the cupboard after every outing like any other "tool", well don't complain when things start corroding or wearing prematurely. A rifle is not just "a tool", it is a precision instrument and really does need to be treated with appropriate care. That care applies as much to the cleaning of the rifle as anything else. But keeping a rifle in fine fettle is not that demanding.

Here's a relatively cheap example available off Ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FOOD-GRAD...791376?hash=item3d04846850:g:2icAAOSwIBBUayYG

Remember, that's for a whopping 400g,more than you'll need in years and it's basically the same as a lot of these hyped up "gun specific" white greases which cost considerably more...wake up and smell the coffee! Few gun lubrication products have ever been specifically developed purely for firearms use, the wheel was already invented elsewhere. Most are simply aluminium based grease compounds like this one. Its the same stuff used in kenwood chef gearboxes. We have one which is 50 years old, used regularly and still going strong.

Even better, and cheaper:

FINE GRADE SYNTHETIC WHITE GREASE WITH PTFE 50 GRAM TIN FOOD SAFE GREASE | eBay


Think about it: food processing industry is often in humid and corrosive environments, where excellent corrosion and chemical attack resistance is needed, where good boundary layer lubrication for high wear parts like gearbox cogs and other high pressure applications is needed and which has good migration properties and must be non-toxic.

When I buy a rifle, one of the first things I do is to strip it down, clean all the parts (remember the proof houses leave things like barrels with all sorts of crap in them), remove surface residues of metal parts using meths and a rag/Q-bud, then apply a thin coating of white food safe grease to bolt receivers and bolt surfaces, just a thin coat. After each outing, the rifle is cleaned and re-lubed. It's not hard.
 
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