I think doing an independent test on typical preservatives is a great idea, what you find may be very different than what is advertised by the makers.
I have a great deal of lab technician experience in analyzing lubricants for the various nuclear industries. We built a multi million dollar independent testing lab because some of the technical information being supplied was bogus.
One of the main reasons that preservatives and lubricating oils fail to preserve is that they are hygroscopic (they attract water). Overtime the water reacts with the various chemicals and impurities and forms acids which attack the metals forming rust and at times pitting. This reaction may take quite some time to setup and is dependent on temperature, humidity and the surface composition youâ??re using it on. For example many collectible guns have a light rust coating almost a browning, some are salt bath blued and of course some are rust blued; each of these surfaces has a different chemical composition or way of bonding and will form rust and pitting differently.
With that said, synthetic oils are rarely good long term preservatives (notice I said long term). The reason is that they absorb water at an alarming rate, most fail water absorption testing if left out in the open air for more than a few hours. Many of your more common over the counter synthetic oils fail in 30 minutes or less!
Now imagine coating your gun in synthetic oil and placing it in storage!
Everyone has an opinion on what is best; after 3 years of controlled lab testing, I clean the guns I regularly touch, frequently and use good quality old fashion gun oil and feel pretty confident.
I hope this information will be useful to some of you
I talk too much and will close now
Vern
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