Alternative Firearms Lube
Mon, 10/31/2005, 21:57
I've been experimenting for a while now, and think I can now definitively give my recommendation. I've found Mobil1 Synthetic ATF to be an excellent replacement for Breakfree CLP (Cleaner-Lubricant-Protectant; the standard US military arms care product).
-It's persistent, unlike Breakfree CLP, which tends to evaporate quickly.
-It's very aggressive on buildup, a quality that manifests itself in much longer runtimes with dirty ammo (i.e. Wolf and its ilk), and in residue cleanup on exterior surfaces (cosmetic, I know, but it shows you the cleaning power)
-It's homogeneous; unlike CLP, where the PTFE tends to precipitate out of solution (or fall out of suspension), the Mobil1 doesn't leave lubricant clumps that get pushed out of the way, rendering them useless.
-It's very slick. Applying it to the carrier rails, I can feel a difference compared to Breakfree CLP. (related to the above point)
The use of transmission fluid is relatively well-documented as a good general-purpose cleaner product (e.g. the
Armalite Tech Note, but I feel that Mobil1's synthetic variety is also excellent on the lubrication and protection aspects. Its use as a firearms lube was discussed a bit on a
thread over at 10-8 forums.
At $6/quart, I don't feel there's a better product on the market in terms of effectiveness or value. As always, though, YMMV.
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Canon dies, news at 9.
Wed, 10/19/2005, 01:04
I'm going to bloody shoot somebody. Yesterday afternoon, my brand spankin' new Canon Powershot A510 arrived at my doorstep, heralding a new era in my photography semi-hobby; my ceremonious ascent from the dungeons of 1.3 MP to the slightly less dank dungeons of 3.2 MP. Yet here I am now, a scant 24 hours later, with a tremendously worthless and expensive brick. Mind you, in all of its compact plastic splendor, it's not going to do the brick job that well, either.
What really shocks me about this whole bit, though, is that I didn't do anything wrong!! There I was, taking pictures, when all of a sudden, it craps the bed. No death throes of any kind; no beeps, earth-shaking motor vibrations, distorted display, or magic smoke. I really am quite disappointed, given the scale and drama of my other machinery failures. All you can tell here is that the lens is still extended/locked, and it is 150% dead.
Canon tech support's going to get a call in the morning, but I'm not expecting much. Who wants to bet they ask if the batteries are new? At least I can count on Dell (who I bought it from) to be swift with the RMA process.
My trusty 1.3 MP Olympus has a new (temporary) lease on life, and my (already) low impression of Canon is reaffirmed.
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I hate web work.
Thu, 10/06/2005, 14:26
Not that it should be at all surprising, but fussing with HTML, Perl, CGI, and blogging software isn't how I get my jollies. From time to time, though, it's completely necessary. In this case, this site's growing content (gasp) made it a bloody pain to maintain. Also, various pages had remnants of about 5 previous incarnations of this website. A structural and visual nightmare.
So now, I've entirely designed the website to be path-independant, which helps resolve some long-standing issues people have had accessing data, and will (hopefully) help me make more content faster. Also, I finally figured out stylesheets, which is such an improvement. The layout is much cleaner now, especially with the blog. Comments are appreciated!
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