I know there are a few of you out there that want to make this an arguement about oil vs. grease, but I don't care, you're not gonna change my mind. I've worked on a couple thousand Sig pistols in my 5 years as a Smith with GGI and I know what works and what doesn't. If you want to argue about grease vs. oil, do it somewhere else.

This article is about what I personally recommend for lubricating Sig Sauer Pistols. I have different methods for lubricating other guns, but for now the main focus is on Sigs.

Philosophy: If metal rubs metal, it needs grease between the parts.

Purpose: Why do we lubricate guns? Simple, to allow the parts that rub on one another to move smoothly. Modern Combat Handguns are not intended to be run without lubrication. One of our customers made this mistake recently and is now spending a lot of additional money to get his gun back in working order after completely degreasing his gun and dry firing 1000 times after it came back from GGI.

Application: I had an empty "Shooter's Choice" syrinige sitting around so I filled it with my favorite grease. Any method of application will work just fine. I use about half an ounce of grease a day while working on guns. I was in need of a way to keep grease reaadily available without having to unscrew the top of a jar or bottle and I found the syringe to work perfectly for me. What I like best about the syringe is that I can put the grease directly where I want it, such as inside certain springs and inside corners of frame rails.

Products: Any gun grade grease will do the trick. I personally prefer to use Brian Enos Slide Glide(brianenos.com), Shooter's Choice grease (http://www.shooters-choice.com/ and you get a cool syringe to use later) or Lubriplate (brownells.com). The grease in the following pictures is a Lithium/Moly based grease that I'm experimenting with, details available soon.

I've applied most of the grease to the underside of the frame rail completely filling the top inside corner. This is critical along the length of the rails because most of the force of recoil lifts the slideand applies force backward and upward against the underside of the frame rails. Also notice how there is a greater amount of grease near the muzzle end of the gun than there is at the rear. This is intentional. There is only so much space in the tolerance of the pistol for lubrication to reside. Since the slide goes on back to front it'll push the remaining grease to the back of the frame and bunch it up on the back of the slide when the slide it closed.


You can see that I didn't use as much grease on the siede of the rails as I did on the underside, this is purely because it's not generally necessary.


The top also gets a layer of grease to protect against galling and excess friction.


I'll post more pics in a few days. I'll det detailed shots of the way I grease the internals too.

That looks like a Lot of grease, I totally agree that grease is the lube of choice whenever 2 metal parts touch. Oil is made when it needs to be pumped into moving parts. Grease when used properly can almost eliminate wear.

Thank you, this is very helpful indeed.

As always, excellent info.

Wow. Apparently I am not using enough.

Thanks for the info Flork! Is this the normal amount of grease you use? When you fit the slide on the frame do you find you get a lot of excess coming out?

Thanks for the good info and the pics.

I have a question Flork!
Do you lube your CCW and Range guns the same way?
I tend to use a little less lube for my CCW Sigs.

Thanks in Advance

quote:

Originally posted by xstarmorgan:
Thanks for the info Flork! Is this the normal amount of grease you use? When you fit the slide on the frame do you find you get a lot of excess coming out?

Yes, when you put the slide on the gun, some will come out of the end. This is how you know how much lube to use; put it on like Scott showed and whatever comes out when you put the slide on is extra.

The gun will hold exactly as much lube as it needs, and it needs as much as it will hold.
There is no real mystery here...

While this is how I grease my pistols all the time, many people will prefer to use oil for carry and this method for range practice sessions.

Flork, thanks a million for the info. I will follow your recommendations and hopefully my sigs will last a few lifetimes.

I'm not nearly using enough by the look of the pictures. I tend to take too long daintily placing the grease with a Q-tip. I think Brownell's sells syringes for grease.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
Flork, do you recommend lubing alloy framed SIGs the same as the stainless steel framed ones? (same lube, same ammount, same locations?)

Yes, same for alloy Sigs, they are much more prone to wear...

quote:

Originally posted by P220forever:
I'm not nearly using enough by the look of the pictures. I tend to take too long daintily placing the grease with a Q-tip. I think Brownell's sells syringes for grease.

Your putting grease on a handgun, not applying fingernail polish or lipstick; theres no room for "dainty" here.

I have really been wanting for good information on grease for slide rails. My P220 ST has been over lubed with so much Hoppes oil, I have to keep it hidden in a plastic bag. Yuck! Last week I removed top round from mag as it was quite exposed to oil for several weeks. What do you think of white lithium which had been used forever on Garands for friction areas? Please keep us informed about your lithium/moly grease. Thank you..

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:
Thanks for the good info and the pics.

I have a question Flork!
Do you lube your CCW and Range guns the same way?
I tend to use a little less lube for my CCW Sigs.

Thanks in Advance

The answer is yes and no.

For my EDC I grease the rails, put the slide on, run the action a couple of times, remove the slide then wipe the rails off to remove the large amount of bulk. I leave the grease on the under side of the rails alone when I wipe them off, the slide normally holds enough grease to keep things running.

For an EDC, you have to remember that your gun goes everywhere you do and is exposed to everything you are, hot, cold, humidity, dust, taco shells from that ill advised taco you ate while trying to talk on your cell phone while driving last week....everything. So if you have grease squirting out of every crevase on the gun, you'll be attracting the general detritusof every day life into your gun, however that crap doesn't generally make it in far enough to do any kind of damage unless youre irresponsible enough to never clean your carry gun.

For Open Carry EDC like cops do, you gotta start thinking a bit more. I've had a couple of cops bring me their Duty Sigs for work and I've been astonished at what I've found. When I cocked the hammer of one of them, I found 3 pieces off bitten of finger nail and a corner of plastic from a plastic ketchup packet....I mean WTF MAN!!! Clean your freakin gun. I asked how long it thad been since he last cleaned it and he told me it had been a couple years, "I hardly ever use it, I figured it was still pretty clean" was his excuse. His gun was absolutely bone dry, I actually found dust on the frame rails as opposed to lube.

That brings me to another subject....cleaning. Here's what I recommend.

Competition: Clean it after every 2-400 rounds. Most of the time a big match or a day of shooting will be enough of a work out that your gun will need cleaning.

EDC with frequent use(Open Carry included): Clean it after every time you use it. If you're going to depend on that gun to save your life, you want it to work the first time you pull the trigger, so keep it clean and lubed.

EDC with little to no use: Clean your gun at least once a month. More of the same of your gun being needed to save your life. Even without use, your gun needs to be cleaned and relubricated, so give it a quick bath and make sure it's ready when you need it. There are 720 hours in a 30 day month, I think you can afford to spend 1/720 of a month cleaning your gun every month...it's cheap insurance.

Love the White Lithim greases, they work great. That's what Lubriplate is.

As for Stainless vs. Alloy, I personally lube them the same. If you run an Alloy Sig dry for a couple of rounds, you might not do too much damage, but if you did the same with a Stainless gun, you could gall the frame and slide so badly that you could cause a friction weld or destroy your slide to frame fit.

When I'm fitting a barrel or refitting a slide to frame fit, I lubricate the area with oil, but I keep it wet while I'm workign on it, I never let the surfaces rub on each other without some lube in there, especially with Stainless on Stainless.

So, yea I grease Alloy and Stainless the same

quote:

Originally posted by Flork:
Love the White Lithim greases, they work great.

Sweet! I use it on all of my guns. CLP pretty much all over, and White Lithium on the rails/barrel/ect. My application on the rails is similar to what you have there, although far less neat as it is done with a nitrile gloved finger. Could you post a picture of how you lube other areas like the barrel?

This is great information. As the owner of a new 226R, I've been wondering what to lube and how muuch to lube it. Are the frame rails the only surfaces to get the lube? What do recommend for the trigger and other moving parts?

Thanks again.

As I said at the end of my original post, I'll be posting pics and info on lubrication of the rest of the guns as I have time.

WOW. Apparently I have not been using enough grease.

Lubriplate is good stuff. Good enough for my Garand good enough for my other guns.