Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Kroil

Is it a suitable lubricant for cold weather rifle (bolt, firing pin and spring) applications? If not, what else works better when the mercury drops?

Thanks, Dinny

Kroil has a large following in Alaska as a super penetrating oil, especially in the aviation industry.
But it's not highly regarded as either a lubricant nor rust preventative.

Kroil is NOT in any shape or form a lubricant. Poor some on a patch and see how hard it is to get down the barrel.
For cold you're better off with something that dries, Prolix for example.

0W20 motor oil works fine.

Hot Shot for rust prevention good. A test was posted some time back showing different products used for rust prevention and it came out on top. Might can Google it and see.

Have used Lock Eze for years on the firing pins and springs on cold weather guns. Works great! -Al

Eez-Ox or Tetra-Gun spray lube on bolt-action internals and semi-auto shotguns here in ND.

And not just in Alaska. Love Kroil for its' intended purpose.

Hornady One Shot CL for trigger assembly and Eezox for everything else. One Shot dries to a dry film that does not attract dust/moisture. Great for extremely hot and extremely cold environments, plus it is one of the best rust preventatives on the market.

Thanks for all the input. I'll keep Kroil around for penetrating work. I have some Eez-Ox and will give it a try.

Thanks, Dinny

Kroil's stink would alert every critter in the woods to your presence, it would be the last thing I'd ever think of using.

Dinny, a product called Free All Penetrating oil is much more advanced than Kroil and I have used Kroil for 30+ years. To say that it is impressive in the use of rusted on bolts, truck and car front ends, old cars with rusted on bolts...you just have to see it to believe it. Free All also works well in penetrating hard caked on Carbon in barrels.

Postage if real inexpensive from the company, and use the arrow in the drop down box to get the 14 oz non aerosol can:

https://fedpro.com/products/free-all%C2%AE-deep-penetrating-oil
I am in no way associated with the Free All company or any representative that works for the company. My brother owns a huge tire store and an old mechanic told him about the Free All. Since they are involved in re building front ends on vehicles, they learn in a hurry what works on rusted on bolts.

As far as a lubricating oil and something to use in protecting blued finishes on guns, there was a test done a while back with most if not all of the oils on steel left exposed over time to the elements. This extensive test really put to shame MOST of the claims made by companies and reduced their advertising to nothing more than Snake Oil salesmanship.

My own personal favorite did not fare so well, and I have been buying eexox in the quart metal cans.

Two winners of the rust prevention were clear:

A. Hornady one shot
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1014743671?pid=170954

B. Frog Lube
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/3225314758?pid=314758


https://www.midwayusa.com/product/3225134961?pid=660304

These two lubes far exceeded ALL other brands of oil when it came to preventing rust.

So, I bought 4 cans of the Hornady. Being a Doubting Thomas, I sprayed down a 12ga single barrel Rossi shot gun, left if for 30 days in my hay barn that has large open doors on it, here in the South with all of it's humidity. 30 days later, no rust, 60 and 90 days later, still no rust. 6 months later, still no rust and I brought the gun back in the house.

Good info on the one shot. Now just don't mistake that with their case lube.

Kroll's is great to loosen rust on any metal that's about all its good for....you want to help prevent rust and lub parts use BrakeFree CLP....been using it since the mid-80's when I picked up a gallon....

Eezox is great for cold temps and as a corrosion inhibitor. I like dry lubes for the inside of my bolts.

One of the rust preventatives I've used with great success here in Montana is Dyna-Tek Gun Shield--a dry, clear coating from the same company that developed Dyna-Tek Bore Coat, often called DBC. Gun Shield is a similar silica-based formula, and when applied to warmed metal results in an extremely thin coating that both lubes moving parts but also protects blued steel from rusting for at least a year or two before needing to be reapplied.

Before Gun Shield I used oils like Frog Lube and Break-Free, and they worked, but needed reapplying pretty frequently. It's available from MidwayUSA.

An old gunsmith living in our north states cold weather used ATF on everything. His point? "How many automatic transmissions have you heard freezing up." I've used it in cold weather rather than removing all lubricants for a cold weather hunt and it works.

My go- to for many years of hunting seriously wet climates like Kodiak and the Alaskan peninsula has been Corrosion X. I have yet to find anything better .

I just started using Clenzoil products on my shotguns, oil and grease. The attraction is that they claim it won’t harm wood, similar to Ballistol. We shall see. It is pretty thin compared to other CLPs. I need to put some in the freezer to see how it fares there.

We used Kroil as a cutting lubricant in The Machine Shop I worked in.