Grease test, first results

After posting on this grease, I did some thinking about what might be the fastest way to test for some result I could actually identify, as opposed to "It feels slippery" or something, and had an idea: use this
This being my Ciener .22 conversion for my compact 1911. I picked this up a few years back and it’s been great. Does have its quirks, main one being that the only ammo I’ve used that will always(barring a light load) cycle the action has been the Remington Golden Bullet bulk-pack. Federal 36-grain HP bulk-pack will feed perfectly, so will Centurion 40-grain solids, but- especially the first round or two, when magazine spring pressure is highest- it wasn’t unusual to have the slide only partially cycle; sometimes ejecting the empty but not going far enough back to pick up the next round, sometimes not ejecting the empty. Did this consistently, whatever lube I used not seeming to make any difference(I’ve been using Tetra grease on the .45 rails, and tried it and Strike Hold and Corrosion X on the conversion slide rails) So, I thought, I’ll thoroughly clean all the previous lube off the thing and lube it with this SFL-0 grease, then try it with some different ammo and see if any difference in operation.

So I wiped all the lube off I could, then used brake cleaner to flush the slide as clean as possible, then(starting with clean rails on the 1911 frame) put a dab of Lubriplate in each slide rail and on the disconnecter and hammer-cocking areas, then worked the slide back & forth to distribute it evenly.

Second idea: the Hi Standard Sport King .22
Same problem, the Federal consistently failed to fully cycle the slide(not every round by any means, but almost always a couple of times in each magazine, sometimes more)*. So prepped it the same way. And this morning hit the range.

Results:
With the conversion, surprisingly good. I put eight magazines through it of Federal(ten rounds each) and three of Centurion; no failures to cycle with Centurion and a grand total of two with the Federal 36-grain: one when it failed to chamber the second round(first mag), one midway through the fourth magazine. I was very pleasantly surprised.

With the Hi Standard, similar results: fewer failures to cycle with these two brands.

Looked the rails over after got home, and it appears the grease stayed right where it was supposed to, no sign of it traveling anywhere it shouldn't. This is a very light grease so I'd wondered about that, but so far no problem. I'll note had lubed the .45 rails with it and it's been carried some in this upper 90's-100's weather, and no sign of the stuff flowing out of place. And it didn't appear any dirtier than the other stuff I've tried.

The .38 revolver I lubed with it functioned very smoothly, but it always has. The only way I can think to test this would be to have some kind of scale to register how many pounds to cycle the action: test it with oil or Tetra or whatever, then scrub and relube with this stuff and try it again. Maybe someday I'll get ambitious enough to build a test rig for this.

The results on the .22's are promising. I'll try them again over time, see if get similar results.

I mentioned in the first post that you can only get the small(14oz.) can of the SFL-0 from Lubriplate. If you live in a area that stays pretty hot you might want a somewhat thicker stuff; I found the SFL-1 grease in 14oz cartridges at Amazon, cost + shipping is slightly less than the can of -0.



*I've tried some other brands/loads over time in both. A few had a different-enough bullet shape that the Hi Standard mags- as-is- wouldn't feed them properly; others had the same 'not enough oomph' problem. And no, can't remember all of them offhand. I'll note that the HS is pretty picky about what it feeds, and since had some that did work reliably didn't want to screw with the magazine lips.