Rate Your Handguns Maintenance Products and Win the Most Popular Product!

We all know and accept the critical importance of maintaining our firearms. But what is the “best” product[s] to use for this? Is there a single “without a doubt” absolutely a holy-grail product to use. Several have volunteered to me the names of the products they use to maintain their firearms, as a response to my previous related articles. Well, I discovered quite a few believe strongly that the product they use now is without any doubt whatsoever THE optimal one. Some are highly emotional and insistent about their product as a user or as a vendor/manufacturer and are not open to another  product, would definitely NOT switch, let alone discuss a particular criterion or a possible product criticism. There are a myriad of products out there now and most really are very good for what they do in my opinion. I mean there are hundreds of maintenance products claiming to be the latest and greatest, with supporting testimonials and their own “objective” and “independent” research and studies. There are too many justification reasons to list and I wonder if one can honestly be totally “objective.” I found it to be very subjective and this should be considered. Price seemed to be a bottom line for a lot of folks. I know “facts” and statistics can be created to support about anything. I admire that they are solidly behind their “better-than-sliced-bread” cleaner or lubricant, or CLP, etc., but what do most shooters prefer? What should be suggested to new shooters to help them as a starting point to weed through many products and save some time. So, I recently sent a brief and unscientific survey to a few hundred of my students, fellow instructors, some readers that responded to me, gun club members, and shooting friends asking them to tell me what handgun maintenance products i.e. cleaner, solvent, lubricant, oil, grease, preservative, protectant, CLP, etc. they currently use. I asked them to rank their top 3 products. I clarified that their products listed should be ones that they regularly use after going to the range to shoot, not for long-term storage, not ones they heard are good, and just for handguns.

With the hundreds of product possibilities, there were 40 or more write-ins listed on my survey that I have not heard of and/or used. Most had just one or two tallied for use, so I did not list all of the write-ins, just a few below for this new readers survey. Some prefer an all-purpose, multi-use CLP product and others a separate solvent and separate lube, etc. Below are just a few of the product options I listed as possibilities, but I did suggest that they could write-in another product if they wanted in their top 3. Some only gave one product, some listed two, and some wrote-in only one. Several did not list 3, but gave only one. There were ties for the top 3 rankings. With that in mind, below on the left are the sample product options I provided. On the right, I listed the final ranking of my small sample responses. Keep in mind that this is not an adequate sample size,  is not nationally valid as a representative sample, nor is it statistically valid and reliable. I decided to ask you the readers for your top 3 to supplement what I found. I hope you take the time and respond, so we can have a good representative response to help other shooters, especially new shooters, looking for gun maintenance products.

Click here vote for your favorite handgun maintenance products for a chance to win the most popular product.

Handgun Maintenance Product      Initial Survey Rank [Based on Regular Use (#1-#2-#3)] 

• Break Free CLP                                            2
• Ballistol                                                          2
• Rem Oil                                                          1
• Birchwood-Casey Gun Scrubber                     –
• Hoppes #9                                                     1
• Gunzilla                                                          3
• Frog Lube                                                      3
• Seal 1                                                              –
• Rand CLP                                                        –
• NanoLube                                                        –
• Plaster PB50                                                   –
• Eezox                                                               –
• Mobile 1 or Synthetic Motor Oil                  3
• M Pro- 7                                                          –
• WD-40                                                            –

Write-Ins (Just Some Received): (most with only 1 or a few responses)

• Slip 2000 EWL
• Gibbs Lubricant
• TriFlo Lube
• G96 Synthetic CLP
• Kleen Bore Formula 3
• Old Bullseye Shooters
• Hornady One-Shot CLP
• 3-in-1 Sewing Machine Oil
• Simple Green Cleaner
• Tetra Gun Grease
• GunSlick
• Kroil
• Shooter’s Choice FP-10
• Mil-Comm TW25 Grease
• Gun Butter

Thank you for your input to help our fellow shooters.

Continued success!

Photo by author.

* This personal opinion article is meant for general information & educational purposes only and the author strongly recommends that you seek counsel from an attorney in your state or jurisdiction for legal advice and your own personal certified weapons trainer for proper guidance about shooting & using YOUR firearms, self-defense, stand your ground law, and concealed carry. This is not legal advice and not legal opinions. It should not be relied upon as accurate for all shooters & the author assumes no responsibility for anyone’s use of the information and shall not be liable for any improper or incorrect use of the information or any damages or injuries incurred whatsoever. 

© 2014 Col Benjamin Findley. All Rights Reserved. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced in whole or in part by mechanical means, photocopying, electronic reproduction, scanning, or any other means without prior written permission. For copyright information, contact Col Ben Findley at [email protected].