A failure of oil or logic?

Got this in the email tonight.

From: Joe M.
Date: Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Subject: I was afraid you’d say that

The background is, I bought my XDm 9mm N.I.B. on September 1st of this year. I only used Slipstream on the slide rails. I’ve fired 660 absolutely flawless rounds through it and the factory fired 1 that I assume was also fine.  Then I decided to use Slipstream to lubricate almost everything in the slide. I used less than a drop and I applied it with an artists paint brush that is very small.  It leaves a line the size of a fine point pen, so Slipstream was not over applied.

The next day I loaded up a 19 round magazine and went out to shoot. I fired 7 rounds and before I pulled the trigger again I noticed the slide hadn’t moved to battery.  There was a round jammed in the chamber and the slide was locked up tight.  No clearing procedure worked.  After an hour I was able to free the slide and get the round out.  The attached pictures are of the jammed round.

I scrubbed every atom of Slipstream out of my weapon that was humanly possible to remove.  I applied M-Pro 7 LPX which, with the exception of the slide rails, was the only form of lubrication on the weapon for the flawless 660 rounds.  I have subsequently fired 75 rounds, using only M-Pro 7 LPX, without any further problems at all.

The facts of my experience indicate your product is crap.  I bought your oil and grease combo. I considered using them on a rusty old lawnmower I have, but I decided the best use for your products is to put them in the trash.

Have you got anything to say for yourself?

Joe M.

What do I have to say for myself?  I think you didn’t use enough Slipstream.  Here’s the deal… you used a very tiny amount of Slipstream… one applied in such a way as to almost insure that none of the Slipstream Particles really got into your gun and you only had a tiny bit of the carrier oil, which is of a similar composition to your beloved MPRO7.   To say that Slipstream is what caused this jam is a complete failure of logic.  You didn’t use enough to be either good or bad.  You had a bad round.  Simple as that.  To get what you described we would have to use Super Glue as our carrier oil, and other folks – pretty much everyone that used it – would have the same results.  Not a really good way to promote a lubricant, eh?  Go get your Slipstream, and apply it the way we suggested.  Shake it up, and pour it on generously.   Sorry you had a bad round of Ammunition, but we don’t make Ammunition.  I suggest you take this issue up with whoever did.

Slipstream is being used by US Forces all around the world.  Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan… Army Infantry, Marine Infantry, Airforce EOD, Navy mechanics…   and thousands of shooters around the country.   And you think oil is what caused your NIB XD 9mm to lock up like it was glued.  Uh huh.

Guys, is it at all possible in any way shape or form that a tiny amount of oil, any oil, applied in the manner indicated, could have caused this?  Or do you think it could possibly be a bad round of ammunition?  Which is more likely?

59 thoughts on “A failure of oil or logic?”

  1. Looks like it could have had a ding in the case mouth, that hung while feeding into the chamber.
    Slide momentum and recoil spring pressure would have done the rest.
    Of course I was not there.
    I have used slipstream on my firearms.
    I use it fairly liberally, not slopping it all on at once… but applying, working it in, applying, working it in, etc.
    When “dry”, my firearms are smoother than they have been while wet with other products.
    I like to use grease on rails, oil on all other parts.

    Jim

  2. I could see where a gun being run bone dry, or the next thing to it (as this one appears to have been) could tend to impede the slide a bit, slowing it by just a fraction, in such a manner as to make the damage done to an ALREADY chipped/bent/torn case mouth WORSE……but not to CAUSE it.

    I’ve got an XD in .45. I’ll put a BIG drop on each slide rail and let it run down. Then I’ll put another BIG drop on the barrel, and spread it over the entire surface of the barrel with my finger. Put the pistol together, and work the slide back and forth about a kajillion times. Wipe off the excess. Works like a charm.

    Artist’s paint brush? Line the size of a fine ball point pen? Really?

    You know why I’m here, dude. Just hand over the Man Card, and nobody needs to get hurt.

  3. The only time that my rounds look like that is when I use M-Pro 7 LPX. I switched to straight chlorine bleach and haven’t looked back since. It lubes the gun up great, and keeps my holsters sparkling white.

  4. I have pulled .45 ACP rounds out of a Remmy Bulk Pack that look exactly like the round you have pictured here. The entire side of the case looked like the bullet hung up on a burr and pulled the case down with it as it was seated. I strongly suspect you’ve come across a bad round and are pointing to a lubricant as the cause of the malfunction. To be completely clear, I’ve not slipstreamed any of my firearms. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but to answer George’s question, no. An oil cannot do this. I’m coming from 8 years as a Navy Machinist Mate and another 8 as a machinist in an oilfield services company. I know how lubricants work. The only way I can think of your XDm doing this is with a tremendous burr in the chamber and a crazy heavy set of springs. As you’ve said you have 660 rounds though it with no issues….

    I would bet money you’re using a cheaper ammo from a bulk pack and didn’t catch the defective round when loading. Also, oil has to be in contact with two moving metal layers in order to create an oil film or oil wedge. Your miniscule application with an artist’s brush (Seriously? You didn’t spill your merlot, did you?) undoubtedly created neither. In the future, use a fistfull of Q-tips, sop the bearing surfaces up real good, wipe off the excess and roll with it. And start inspecting your ammo for crap like this, split cases, obvious issues like .40SW in a bag of 9mm, etc.

  5. Joe, you’re a tosser. That slipstream stuff reduces friction when you actually put some on the weapon instead of drawing on tiny lines of it like you’re an anal retentive old lady who’s into glass painting. Man up and do it right. You sound like you don’t know how to lube a weapon, but are a ninja at being bitchy. Pull the stick out.
    You seem like those pencil-necked entitled dorks who hold up the line at Burger King complaining to the manager that his bun wasn’t fresh and won’t simply accept a new burger.

    The fact of my experience indicate your attitude is crap. I’ve tried slipstream on a variety of things with excellent results. Have you got anything to say for yourself?

  6. Wow. So somebody who does not check the ammo they use is angry at a lube for a bad case or a burr somewhere?

    As a Wolff and other cheap Ruskie/bulk ammo shooter, a piece of advice: check your ammo out when you get it, and again before you load it up. Once in a while a bad case happens, or a bad seating, or a bad primer…

    That’s good advice for all ammunition, not just the cheap stuff, btw, and you got it FREE.

    I’m not a Crusader employee, or even a friend of anyone who is, but the product they sell is a good one in my experience (extensive with all but the newest Styx as I have had each lubrication product they make since they began selling it – and I both shoot a good deal as well as clean firearms nearly daily at work, so I am also not inexperienced with a wide variety of oils/greases/magical dusts), and blaming a case failure on poorly applied good lube is just a little silly and a lot illogical.

  7. There is a lot I could have said here, looks like all the commentors have said it already. To emphasize: lube wont mangle brass. Defective rounds getting caught on moving parts does. Inspect your ammo.

  8. Wow! Our friend there is proposing one of the stranger post hoc (post hoc ergo propter hoc) fallacies I’ve heard. “After I fired 666 flawless rounds I had a malfunction at which point I changed the lube (though you can’t really strip out nano particles with Brakleen so there is still some slipstream in there). With the new lube it continued to work flawlessly. Therefore Slipstream is crap fit only for the trash.” If he thought that Slipstream might be the problem he would need to continue using it and then see if the malfunction continued.

    Frankly it would be just as logical that Satan possessed his weapon, just like he possessed Judas, after he fired his 666th round and made it jam.

    It looks most likely to be an issue of how metal is shaped and considering it’s history of a presumed 667 flawless rounds (including the one shot from the factory) I would agree with the poster above that it was most likely an ill formed case that caused the jam. Additionally, there are no points to lubricate on the bullet’s path into the chamber so this is strictly a problem with the gun, the ammo, or how those two get along with each other.

      1. George, you might want to remove the guy’s e-mail address and just make him “Joe M”. If he’s already considering going after Springfield what you don’t want is someone from here sending him an e-mail and hurting his feelings and then coming after you for emotional distress or something along those lines.

  9. Wait… if he doesn’t want his Slipstream, can I have it? Ogre, put me in contact with this guy, ASAP! Maybe there’s still time before the trash man comes to his house!

    1. will you split it with me. I spilled my new bottle the other day- cursed and cried at the same time!

  10. I am going to say that despite the guy not properly lubricating his firearm (that’s exactly what he did…improper lubrication and not following the manufacturer’s instructions on how to do so) no one should sink to name calling. All that does is make a person more defensive and then reinforces their attitude towards the product. I have also read another account about Slipstream “failing” but in that case the person actually knows what they are doing and is also a respected member of a gun forum. My personal experience is the complete opposite, the stuff works great for me and not just on firearms but all kinds of other household items. To each their own and you can’t please everyone…if you try to then you will just about always lose in the end.

  11. he’s a turd…commented over at the Crusader site before I saw this actual email….seriously, they guy must be an idiot…even following manufacturers directions to apply “one drop” implies applying more lube than that required to fill a line as thin as a ball point pen…

    Slipstream has been nothing but liquid awesome in my experience…but you know…walk up to 100 people and give them $100, 99 will be happy and 1 will complain he didn’t get enough….wanker

  12. oh and yeah, after applying slipstream and leaving a pistol in the safe with the dehumidifier gel right next to it and forgetting about it I can take it out after the carrier oil has dried up and still have that black particle film on my gun and it remains lubricated…

  13. Dude. I just gave him a detailed answer and his reply is “ok, fuck you”.

    Really? That’s all you’ve got? I don’t think he even read it.

    1. Joe, you better watch out…you might be next in line for a lawsuit for permanantly contaminating his gun with your nanolubes. Chances are he paid a visit here for his reading pleasure instead of your e-mail.

      1. He is going to sue anybody because that would legally prove he doesn’t know what he is talking about. If he did, none of this would have happened…. And he us still not looking at the obvious source of the problem – a bad round. There is no design problem, because this isn’t happening to other people all the time… Just to him. If I put fiddle in my Explorer, it is going to kill it… Not because its a design flaw… But because I put in the wrong fuel/bad fuel. This guy is seriously too emotional about this… He shouldnt own any firearms.

    2. Yep. Entitled, unthinking, intellectually lazy, and unreasonable. The type of guy who’s hobby is being a dick to store clerks and waiters. I’d forget about him and refuse to respond to any other communication from him.
      Slipstream before swine and all that. Cheers.

  14. I’m done now. I got a rather lengthy reply from him telling me how he’s better than I am and that I’m crap. He got a detailed answer to his question that didn’t involve admitting any guilt. He didn’t like that and wanted to be the bigger dick. He succeeded. He thinks everything that happened to his gun can happen because of an oil failure. He’s wrong. There has to be an obstruction to jam the gun that badly. A shaved piece of copper jacket. Excessive carbon build up from dirty powder. I’ve seen both. He just wanted admission of guilt that I wasn’t going to give him.

    1. Fuck him. Let him sue and we will bring a parade of witnesses that can all prove he is a moron…. And counter sue for our wasted time, money, and emotional stress… Really, I can’t sleep over this… I only got like 7.5 hours last night and I woke up bald!

  15. A libel suit for making gross accusations about your product that he cannot back up with scientific proof….hmmmmm…..too bad you can’t bleed a stone though…or just sue him for his XD!

    1. I would have to include the XD in the suit… Liberate it. Then we would have a contest and give it away to someone worthy.

  16. As has been said- what a GIANT leap from slipstream to bad round. George, I LOVE SLIPSTREAM and even cried when I spilled my newly opened bottle. Will order more as soon as I have time.

  17. Ditto what everyone’s said about how good Slipstream really is. And I don’t think personally that this happened in his gun, as others have said. I had one like that once that caught wrong somehow — burr, ding, don’t know — in a loading die and came out looking a bit like the second picture. Can’t tell from the angle of that photo, but if it’s all pressed flat that’d be my guess.

    Good reminder to Mr. Dipdediddledesquat to check his ammo.

  18. Its not a lubrication issue, clearly.

    Why go to the trouble of citing SlipStream, or MPR07, or even some old USGI mil-spec gun oil
    as the cause? That’s a weak and mis-guided accusation.

    It would have been better to state what make of ammo it was~~~obviously it is FMJ, maybe
    some milsurp that’s been around awhile. What was it?

    One of the fun things about a 9mm is the availability of cheap ammo that lets you hammer away
    all day long~~~but you get what you pay for. There will be some damaged and/or faulty rounds.
    I have nothing against milsurp, but that picture of a FMJ sort of screams low quality ammo.

    I think this fellow needs to apologize for slamming a product that had nothing to do with
    his problem. It was coincidence. I can understand his concern, but that tear in the casing
    just isn’t caused by a lubricant.

    ps) I use SlipStream and think its great stuff. I can’t say its the very best~~~that’s something time will tell~~~but its definitely at the very top of the premium lubricants,
    and I won’t use anything less than the top tier group.

  19. I have only used slipstream on a couple of my revolvers. It worked OK but it wasn’t stellar. I think the fact the oil drys to a film does make for less of powder residue buildup. OTOH, a revolver action have the anything like the violent movement of a slide slamming back and forth so maybe it is not a fair comparison.

  20. The thing that I noticed with Slipstream is that the real benefits come with cumulitive use because it is a nano dry lube based lubricant. The more it is used, the better it performs. You can’t completely remove the “nanos” with regular cleaning, which is a good thing so that the dry lube builds up and stays put. A single use an application so small as to be described as a line of ink from a pen is just plain dumb and a setup for failure. Even though this particular case the failure has nothing to do the Slipstream, there is such a thing as under-lubrication. For anyone who hasn’t used Slipstream and is wanting to…before you formulate an opinion you need to first off shake it up a lot before applying and then give it a few applications to allow it to penetrate the pores in the metal. Once that happens then you will experience the true performance and then FINALLY understand why it is the best stuff on the market.

  21. I had a friend clean his carry gun well with MPro7, then apply Slipstream grease and rack the slide a few times before we started a meeting. After the meeting, had him rack the slide a few more times. He was quite impressed, and this is a guy who shoots Master in NRA Bullseye and has shot competitively at the World Olympics. It takes a lot to impress him.

    Regarding the ammo being the problem, that would be my guess as well. The one Bullseye match I shot, I had a WWB .45 ACP not go bang. Ejected the round, and the primer had been put in upside down! Since it was the slowfire portion, I simply replaced it and carried on, but it was really weird seeing that in a factory round.

  22. Back to CLP for me. I am NOT going to have a round jam up one of my HKs because of SlipShit. A round with a defect??? A burr??? Y’all are real pieces of work.

    Matter of fact, I am going to get with this guy and we are going to start “Occupy Crusader”. I can’t wait to crap in the lobby and do graffiti with my artist’s paintbrush.

    1. Justin –

      First – turn your brain back on.
      Second – pay attention. Close attention. I’ll use easy to understand words.

      Joe’s jam was caused by defective ammo. And only by defective ammo. Not by any lubrication he did, or did not, apply. Or claimed to have applied, but did so without actually using enough to do anything. Which means he didn’t read the directions, so he didn’t shake well first, so all he really applied was a miniscule amount of the carrier oil. But that doesn’t matter, since it was a defective ammo issue, not a lubrication issue. See how it comes back to the ammo?

      Got it? I won’t wait for an answer. You are now dismissed.

      ___________________________

      Oh, and I can’t wait for you to try and “Occupy Crusader”. It’s a private business, and no namby-pamby city government is involved. That attempt will not end well for you. Not well, at all.

      1. You tell them I’m comin, and tell them I’m going to stop in NY first to contract Ringworm, TB, and Scabies so that I can spread them around their fancy little company. And tell them not to try and spread Slipstream in the parking lot as a oil slick to deter me. I don’t want my shoes to stick to the F’ing blacktop should I walk through that mess.

        <—–forgot that little ditty in the post above.

        Seriously now, I love me some Slip!

        1. Right before the “<———–forgot that little ditty…" was supposed to be (sarcasm font off). Don't know why that didn't print in the reply, LOL.

      2. Steve – please read

        Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.
        The majority of people are able to experience humour, i.e., to be amused, to laugh or smile at something funny, and thus they are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational.

        1. Glen –

          Humor I understand. If Justin was poking fun at Joe M., his post didn’t have enough evident to recognize it as less than serious. It reminded me of this online discussion between Gecko45 and SPECOPS boosting each other’s egos: http://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/

          If he was using humor, it was too subtle and I missed it. If he is serious, he’s an idiot.

      1. Me? No. I’ll give up comedy now though. Fail on my part. I thought the occupy crusader, crap on the floor, and graffiti with my “artist’s paintbrush” would have given away my intent to be funny internet guy.

  23. I’ve had exactly this sort of jam on two different occasions. The first was with a Sig SP2022 9mm. The second was with an FNP-40 and happen with two rounds in a row.

    The problem in each instance? Ammo. Both time they were factory reloads and there was a burr on the case lip. (I had been using MPro7 at the time BTW.)

    I ended up going through the lot I had by hand (they all came from the same 1000 round box) and found a few more with burrs.

    The complainant didn’t specify what type/brand of ammo he was using. I suspect he was using factory reloads he pick up at a gun show or something.

    No lubrication product can cause this sort of jam. It’s just not physically possible. (I don’t even think Superglue would do it.)

    1. CORRECTION: That SP2022 was .40 as well. My mistake. I once had one in 9mm, but it got gifted long ago. I get confused on them all the time.

  24. If he is blamming his lube for his probs, I have a case of Indian Army surplus .308 I’ll sell him cheap.

    I won’t fire the stuff … it scares me.

  25. My shoes dont fit my feet all that well, never mind that they are too small for my feet. Damn Thorlo socks.

  26. This last weekend I went to the range with 500 rounds of .40 to break in a new Sig P226. Two bulk boxes of Remington UMC from Walmart. Had a failure that was pretty much word for word exactly what that guy said. Round jammed in the chamber, about 1/4″ out of battery, took about 15 minutes to get it un-jammed. As I remember it, the round that came out looked pretty much identical to the one in the second picture. Side of the case crunched when the bullet was seated. Do that some time when reloading, insufficient flare on the case mouth mainly, burr on bullet or case sometimes. Wish I would have kept it instead of tossing it at the range (fingers kept trying to put it back in magazines). Learned my lesson, check even factory loads before feeding them to your gun.

    Regardless, pretty sure the recoil spring isn’t strong enough to do that to a case. Not sure how to test that, but I’ve done some work in the past trying to make a spring for a reloading die, it’s amazing how much force is available when you seat the bullet. Like my whole (non-insignificant) body weight couldn’t get the spring to bend, but in a press it collapses like a feather.

  27. I agree with this guy, I lubed the door hinges of my Jeep with Slipstream grease and now there is a tree shaped dent in my rear quarter panel… Crusaders Weaponry owes me a new Jeep!

    What do you have to say for yourselves!?!

  28. After years of happily neglecting my wife, I took your relationship advice and took her out to dinner yesterday evening. The shrimp platter at Denny’s looked good. We went home in within a matter of hours, my stomach felt odd. Soon I was obliged to empty the contents of my bowels in a most violent manner.

    The facts of my experience proves your methods are crap.

    Have you got anything to say for yourself, Paul Newman!?

  29. Lube problem my ass. That’s a defective round. Poor QC during the cartridge assembly process.

    1. You DON’T lubricate the actual chamber or feed ramp.
    2. Ironically,had he actually lubricated either of the above, the round just might have made it through the Load, Fire and Eject sequence.

  30. Defective round, defective shooter, professional whiner.

    I’ve lubed all sorts of guns all sorts of ways and it never occurred to me to use a fine tipped paint brush to apply miserly amounts of oil. I mean hell, Ebenezer… I’ve used 1″ and 2″ trim paint brushes to get dust and leaf litter out of weapons but a fine tip brush to lube them? Who teaches that or was it just Spontaneous Geniuosity ™.

    (trade mark 1997, The Good Idea Fairy)

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