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Sorry Jon, but with all due respect, that's bullshit. WD-40 is an oil, as you stated, not a solvent that evaporates. It does have solvent characteristics, but it is not evaporative. I have a can of WD-40 that quit spraying so I released the gas with a nail and kept the oil. Been using it for 4-5 years.
JR

Call it what you want. Wd40 is a poor choice for long lasting protection for guns. It is water displacing formula 40, hence wd40 as a name. Not a long lasting oil for metal protection. I tried in on a table saw surface and it did not last long. It is a blend of very light machine oils.

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Joe Webster
Chief Technical Officer at Stabilization Technologies LLC (2000–present)Author has 1.9K answers and 1.2M answer views1y

WD-40 is composed of many different chemicals, and only about 10-20% of these are lubricants. Even then this small amount is only a very light mineral lubricant. Most of the other components are intended to help penetration, but are volatile and are intended to evaporate. Its defined as a petroleum-based solvent that evaporates, leaving behind a non-volatile lubricant. So, 15 minutes is the lenght of time for the solvent to evaporate, leaving of course a nice finish. The recommended shelf-life is 5 years after buying the item

Best youtube video that compared many different type of protection. WD-40 was near the bottom. You can find a lot of videos on youtube that do a good job or real testing of different products.




It is your gun, do what you want. I used WD-40 for years but have not used it for a gun for 20 years or more. I do you it if I have to cut and clean rust off a table saw or joiner cast iron surface. Then a good paste wax to follow. WD-40 will not protect them for long. I learned that lesson the hard way.

I suppose you would have to define “long-lasting protection”. If we’re talking a year or more storage, no I wouldn’t recommend WD40, but I can assure you, a shotgun bore sprayed until dripping wet with WD-40 and stored for 6 months will not rust if stored inside a controlled atmosphere. CorrosionX HD or LPS #2.is probably the best for long term and rough service storage.

I know this: I’ve been using WD-40 for 50 years for cleaning and lubricating firearms and I’ve never had it fail to do the job intended. Lots of other choices out there for sure, and I use them as well. The best “gun oil” I’ve found is a high performance transmission fluid:
https://www.swepcolube.com/products/swepco-714-heavy-duty-4c4-transmission-fluid/

If you can’t rust a gun in Mississippi where can you. Take care.

I never cared to use WD-40 around a gun. They make too many good gun oils to use WD-40. Mainly because it is so thin it could run down into the wood easier than a good thick gun oil. I'm a Clenzoil user. Have been for years. But I don't see any harm in using a cotton snap cap. You should be taking your guns out of the safe about once a week or so to wipe them off, check them and dry fire them, anyway. And if you shoot your gun a lot, cotton snap caps shouldn't do any harm. As someone said, I wouldn't leave them in for months without removing them. That would only be asking for trouble. Plastic snap caps or A-ZOOMS are what I use......................... I had a buddy who used to fill old empty plastic hulls with lead shot and seal the end with JB Weld and use them for a snap cap. Then one day we were all sitting inside the clubhouse after we had got done shooting and he came in and said that he had just shot a hole in the side if his van. He got confused I guess and put a live round in his gun before he dry fired it and put it in his van.. So if you are going to use an empty hull for a snap cap be careful.

With all due respect, Jon, the next time that you want to spray something on a table saw top- use a silicone spray. The wood will glide right across it. And I wouldn't call WD-40 a machine oil. Machine oil used for drill presses for the drill bits when you are drilling through metal is a lot thicker. And for lubricating- you couldn't use it for gearwork. It is too thin. About the only use that I have ever found for WD-40 is if I can't reach something that I wanted lubricated, and the can has the long spray tube. After that I would wipe the WD-40 off and use something better, like a thick oil or grease. I might use WD-40 to soak rusty threads on a screw or bolt. But that's about it. And as I said, I wouldn't use it near a gun because it is so thin and could run down into the wood. Thre are too many good gun oils on the market to use WD-40. Just my .02 cents worth. Good luck.

This thread is getting interesting and thank you all for the information.

I'll get my little gun out later and see if the cotton mop is still impregnated with the oil. I think it is and the chamber will be fine.

WD-40 is the oil I use for my guns (I find it here easily) and a great gunsmith told me it is good for steel and even wood.

Regards!

Regardless of what product you use, NEVER go to the excess of applying so much it can run. Plenty of good products for firearms that are thin enough to run into the wood. Another good example of "less is more". I didn't think this needed to be mentioned on a forum as knowledgeable as this one. Another example of the Great American Tradition of over-oiling firearms.
JR

Jimmy, I bought a used cabinet table saw that had boxes stored on it in an unheated garage for many years after the man died. It was rusted and pitted so badly I had to sand the top down to get most of the worst rust and pits. It had grooves from rust. Then I had to get it flat again and then I used Johnson paste wax as a protection. Wood slides well over this wax as well. I did use about a gallon of WD-40 as lubricant during the sanding and to clean the rust and metal. I spent a full day getting the top back into shape. That saw never rusted for about a decade, until I sold it and replaced it with a SawStop table saw. Those old Powermatic table saws were built like battleships. Heavy, with a 5 HP motor, it cut through stuff like a hot knife through butter.

Some time has passed...

The cotton mop is slightly wet from the oil and the chamber is in perfect condition.