“A formulation made from corn sweeteners may soon be the U.S. military’s bio-renewable solution for gun lubrication and protection,” agweb.com reports. “The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has teamed up with QMaxx Products Group in Fenton, MO to submit a new corn-based gun oil to the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC). According to NCGA, the new oil would ‘reduce soldiers’ exposure to some harmful components.'” Wait. Is QMaxx saying . . .

that their rust-proofing oil has ‘harmful components’? No sir, they’re not. But I reckon they’re hungry for a big fat government contract; adding corn syrup to their formulation gives them political juice in Washington. Or is that me just being cynical?

“It’s exciting to think a product I used almost daily in the Army, soon may contain the corn I produce every year on the farm.” Said Larry Hoffmann, chairman of NCGA’s Corn Productivity and Action Team and a former U.S. Army officer. “While we project only a modest increase in additional corn demand from QMaxx’s CLP product there are other potential applications of this same corn-derived chemical that have significant market potential.”

Given that existing gun lubes aren’t making soldiers sick, the advantages here are [perhaps] environmental and economic. Is that enough to justify a switch? Big Corn, big con? We report, you deride.

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57 COMMENTS

  3. Corn has its uses, but I don’t like corn in my gasoline, and I’m not sure that I will like it in my gun oil.

    • I’ve never seen gasoline with corn in it.

      Ethanol is often blended with gasoline, and corn is used to produce it, but that’s only because it’s an economical source of food for the yeast. You can make ethanol with sugar or any number of other sources.

      Then there is biodiesel which is made from vegetable oil, but that’s kind of a different conversation.

        • Ethanol gets a tax break, regardless what you feed the yeast. Corn is (still) the most economical feed for the yeast.

        • Either way it’s a shit additive for gasoline engines. If an engine is designed to run exclusively on 100% ethanol you can run very high compression ratios and it’s a decent fuel. Otherwise the energy density of ethanol is something like 20% less than gasoline. Using ethanol at pump gas compression ratios is wasteful, it’s just a cheap octane booster that can be made up for in the refining process.

          Oh and if you have a car more than 25 years old, it can ruin your fuel system.

      • ok, gas and subsidies are covered.
        what about tito’s? i have a mild corn sensitivity, but distillation of corn fed yeast excretion doesn’t trigger any.
        i say feed the corn to the hogs and render gun lube while makin’ bacon. every bullet from a freshly oiled bore (call it boar bore?) a gift from allah.
        besides, bacon. you’d think corporate pig farms would be all over it.

        • Brighetened my day with a great chuckle and and a deep belly laugh…and also true…lower cost =lower preformance with higher cost to produce all other ag products…you are just being fooled if you think it is a net gain…

      • Curits in IL:
        “I’ve never seen gasoline with corn in it.

        Ethanol is often blended with gasoline, and corn is used to produce it, but that’s only because it’s an economical source of food for the yeast. You can make ethanol with sugar or any number of other sources.”

        I know, but thanks for the info anyway 😉

        My comment would not have had the right “ring” to it if I went into detail about how corn is utilized in the gasoline industry.

  5. If they add the scent of butter and salt I might be interested… rattle off a couple of mags and I might start craving popcorn.

    • I use peanut oils when stir-fry cooking in my old cast-iron skillet, and it doesn’t have a peanut smell to it…

        • Pan-fried steak just doesn’t do it for me.

          It’s fast, but has *none* of the flavor of meat over lump charcoal.

          My stir-fry is simplistic, strips of meat, diced veggies, garlic, flaked salt and ground black pepper….

        • Best steak I’ve ever made was a stovetop/oven process in a cast iron pan. Put the pan in the oven at like 500 degrees and let it get up to temp, pull the pan and put on the stovetop and get it as screaming hot as you can get it. Sear for like 45 seconds-1 minute a side and put it back in the 500 degree oven.

          You’ll get a great sear that locks in the juice and the high, dry heat in the oven will cook it through perfectly.

          Cooking tips on a gun blog😉

          • When I was in college and my friend was in town working on a scaffolding crew, we used a leaf blower on a charcoal grill to get going real quick. The grill got to about 750 degrees, if the thermometer was to be trusted. Those steaks were done in less than a minute. Cooked perfectly.

        • I got some “natural” charcoal once, stuff just looked like actual anthracite coal but was shaped like firewood. I could have really used a leaf blower to get that stuff rolling, had to improvise a bike pump as a bellows. Damn if that stuff didn’t get waaaaay freaking hotter than your standard Kingsford briquettes.

        • always finish on the grill. but you get your sear from the red hot pan, 15sec oughta do it then run it outside.
          unless it’s skirt- flash that on the grill, then pan finish w/ chop veg.

  7. The corn growers need to justify keeping their gibmedats from the government as the public more and more realize that corn is a stable and profitable crop that doesn’t need their money to prop it up. What better way to keep some senators on their side than appealing to the military industrial complex?

    As for the lube itself, Battlefield Vegas’s maintence data determined that all serious lubes were about equal in effectiveness for round count when used in clean, climate controlled conditions. The real test is how it protects the metal and how it preforms in extreme conditions like freezing cold (German lubes did not preform well in the frozen wastes of the eastern front).

  9. What if we take oil that’s been around for thousands of years and used all over the world and we spin the wording on it to seem like its a new “super lubricant” but its really just oil?
    Things like “water displacement” and “lubrication”, or “produced naturally”.

  10. I repair commercial restaurant equipment. Kitchen workers are always spraying or lubing the equipment with vegetable oils. And it just gums everything up like a glue. It destroys slicers. Not for me. I’ll stick with traditional petroleum based products, thank you.

  11. Big Corn, big con. Reading the article I was already thinking [profanity] corn subsidies. We don’t need corn in everything. Get rid of corn subsidies and change import policies so I can have real sugar in everything. Let the farmers grow and sell opium, or heaven forbid marijuana, if your that worried about them.

    • As a small farmer I could not possibly agree with you more. I would very much like my government to take its fat fingers off the scale.

      • They’ve got their fingers on both sides of every scale.

        Fed: That small pond entirely on your property that doesn’t impact the way water runs on neighboring properties you dug, did you do an environmental impact study on it? No? Well you better get rid of it or there will be crippling fines.

        Bastards.

        • How about a small farm with 160 animals total that gets audited every other year by HOMELAND FING SECURITY for every birth, sale, transfer or death of every single animal. It’s an in-person audit that takes days of work, shutting everything down. We have about 100 live births a year, almost all of which are surplus and are either given away or sold, we better damn well have a record of every single one, as well as receipts from every animal out there. Literally, if a goat gets through a fence and disappears somewhere, I had better either find it or file a report with the ag extension office that it is missing.
          Because, you know, ISIS.
          Again, this is an IN Person audit. A large farm must simply submit receipts. No in-person audit, no review, no work stoppage.

          • That’s it. I running for president. Campaign slogan’s gonna be “corn subsidies are for faggots.” Just piss everyone off right off the bat. It worked for Trump when he said the Mexican government is sending over a bunch of rapists and what not. And besides, if you can’t be offensive, what’s the point?

            But on a more serious note, this is not only why people cheat/lie on government paperwork, but it is also why people should cheat/lie on government paperwork. What? Nope. No births this year. That kid on the spit? Bought that from some Mexicans.

            Or maybe just start shooting the bastards like they did the tax men after prohibition.

          • From Vol. 5, Issue 12: Always blame a minority. The authorities will believe you because, as the news tells us, they are all racists.

            A farmer being required to do a bunch of paperwork is like a lawyer being required to at least have a vegetable garden. Is there even a pretend point to all the paperwork? I get that butchering “needs” to be inspected for food safety. What difference does it make what you do with a live animal or that a coyote ate one?

  12. Great. Another fake use for corn, as though ethanol for blended gasoline wasn’t enough.

    Sure, I’m enjoying the lower gas mileage and higher fuel prices, but is there a way we can wastefully divert even more corn crops from food production and raise food prices, exacerbate water scarcity, erode biodiversity, actually increase green house gas emissions through indirect emissions across the corn lifecycle, AND expand nitrogen pollution through excessive use of fertilizers?

    There is, you say? Wow! By producing some lame eco bandwagon corn-based gun lube? Hot damn! Sign me up!

    The only thing better would be if I get to pay for this boondoggle through tax subsidies.

    • “The only thing better would be if I get to pay for this boondoggle through tax subsidies.” Good news …

    • Actually corn ethanol in gas brings the price down, as without using tetraethyl lead as an additive you have to bring the octane up the old fashioned way, which is expensive. Of course, it probably wouldn’t be cheaper without all the corn subsidies, because that’s how we got leaded gas in the first place. The rest of your points stand of course, and if you factor in your taxes that are paying for the corn subsidies and the impacts on fuel economy and engine wear, you most likely really are paying more in the long run, just not at the pump (which is all most people can manage to think about.)

  14. Why should I use this over Ballistol, which has been around for over 100 years, and has been proven in use on guns over that time?

    After all, Ballistol was developed for use on guns, horse tack, you name it – for the German military.

    • Oh, man… One of my favorite smells in the world, PLUS one of my favorite activities? Corn on the cob and cordite…yes, please.

  18. Corn growers may be trying to adapt to a market increasingly unfriendly to ‘high fructose corn syrup’ by finding new markets to tap.

  23. I installed a Geissele trigger in my AR, and it came with a sample of ALG’s bio-synth gun oil named Go-Juice. I was really impressed with the performance of the sample of Go-Juice, so I bought a container of it. It’s now my go to. Much slicker than CLP, stays where you put it, and I don’t think it ever gets gummy or sticky. As a rust preventive, time will tell, but most of my hardware is stainless so I might not be a good source for that metric. It’s allegedly non-toxic, but I haven’t tested that extensively.

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