By Jeremy
This spring, I was able to get ahold of a bottle of Frog Lube gun cleaner, and a tube of Frog Lube CLP along with directions on how to properly prep my gun for a first-time application and lubrication. It was easy enough…apply the solvent to all areas and vigorously scrub clean. Then wipe down and apply the Frog Lube CLP, preferably after the gun has been sitting in the sun for a little while or after a heatgun has been used to warm it. As you use the gun and let the lube become conditioned into it, it will get easier to clean . . .
The gun I used for this test was a Windham Weaponry WW15. My WW-15 had an estimated 1,000-1,200 rounds through it without a single gun-related incident, so I was pretty confident in the gun’s ability and was secure in knowing as long as the lube held up it’s end, the rifle would have no problem with operation.
Ok, I’ve got my WW15 lubed up and ready to start my own test. First, I simply lubed it and tossed it in a locker for a month. People do this all the time, and I wanted to see if after a month, it would still be covering all areas equally and not have evaporated, if there was any run-off or had hardened up. After the month was up, it was looking alright. It was a little thicker than your average CLP, almost like it has a touch of gun grease mixed in with it. I figure this was intended to keep the product on the gun with a decent thickness, and increase its ability to catch and hold carbon build up. The heat created by my gun from shooting should have no problem loosening it up.
Next was a simple performance test. I took it to the range and I ran 90 rounds of Federal M183. It wasn’t anything like a mag dump — I was actually just doing normal range day fun while watching for any issues in performance. At the end of the day, there were no issues.
When I got home, I took it apart to do a quick inspection of the parts I could see without doing a BCG tear-down, then I ran a Bore Snake through the barrel a few times. I knew that my gun group had a meet coming up in about a month, and a lot of people let their rifles go with far more rounds fired before they clean them, so I just put it away to simulate someone with the mindset of cleaning every 500-1000 rounds.
Another month passed and I pulled my WW15 out of the locker and did another inspection of the lube. Sure enough, it was kind of tacky, but it ran pretty well last time so I wasn’t too worried about it. I brought along some PMC X-TAC, PMC X-TAC GREEN TIP, Federal M-183, and put out an open invite to everyone in the group that they could run whatever they wanted through it.
The morning started out with me grabbing a few mags and dumping them on the Mustang that we had brought out to shoot and then blow up at the end of the day. After playing around with it a little bit, I was offered a chance of a lifetime. One of the members brought along a very nice sized stack of loaded mags. A total of 840 rounds after all the mags were dug out. He offered, I double checked to make sure it wasn’t a joke and that I was understanding him clearly, and then it was on!
At that point, this test went from being a Frog Lube test to a Frog Lube torture test. We were firing the rifle non-stop as fast as we could feed mags into it. There’s smoke drifting into my eyes from the oil on the barrel burning off and we have a nice brass pile building up. At one point we even had to stop momentarily to swap out foregrips.
Apparently, the angled foregrip doesn’t hold off heat so well. Since I happened to have gloves, I was able to swap it out for a traditional vertical foregrip, took off the gloves and then we kept going. In hindsight….ehhh, maybe wasn’t the best move to just go non-stop like we did on that barrel, but DAMN it was a blast! I actually had to keep swapping out with the guy who provided the ammo to give our hands a break.
At one point, most people broke off for lunch, so a handful of us stepped up to the 30 yd line to unleash on the Mustang from a closer distance. I took a break after that, and placed my AR on my portable AR workbench so it could cool off.
About an hour later, I came back and ran a few more shots through it to make sure everything was still functioning properly. That entire day, I only had two issues with it and both were mag-related failures to feed. I think both times it was just a round not seated properly in the mag. For as many mags as we went through, that’s almost expected, so it was no big deal. Once I got home, I learned one thing DID fail on my rifle. I wore out my gas rings. Not that I’m really upset – if that’s the only problem I had mechanically after all that we put the gun through, then I’m doing pretty good.
As far as the lube goes, here’s where it impressed me: I had very minimal Frog Lube burnoff and the carbon buildup was pretty much non-existant. There was one small patch that may have been ⅛ inch wide by about ¼ inch long stuck on the rear end of the bolt, and a small ring around the firing pin, but that’s it. Even the little bit around the firing pin wasn’t as bad as I’ve seen with Break-Free CLP and far fewer rounds. After the 90 rounds from the first outing, then another 120 rounds I ran myself, and finally the 840 rounds added to the mix, I wound up firing 1,050 rounds for this test.
I’m very impressed. In my opinion, Frog Lube CLP performs above and beyond my expectations and I will be a continued user as long as it keeps up it’s outstanding performance.