When we set out to engineer an arctic lubricant, our target
was creating something that would have kept American guns running reliably in
the coldest battle our armed forces have ever fought in: Chosin Reservoir, in
Korea, at -37F.
Frankly, it's easy to find an oil that will accomplish this
- the problem is that such oils are so thin they just don't stay put. Most are
as thin as water. They provide minimal lubrication, and they are nearly useless
in warmer temps.
Our Winter Balm is a grease - and it's one of truly
astounding properties.
After nearly a year of intense R&D, we smashed our
target: this lightweight grease provides stone cold reliability to ARs down to
roughly -65F, and for 9mm handguns at -55F. These numbers are conservative.
The difficulty in engineering a grease to work in guns in
these temperatures is hard to overstate. An engineer has to create something
that will act almost like a solid at rest (so that it stays put) in both warm,
indoor temperatures, and external arctic temperatures...but also be light
enough to instantly lubricate like liquid with zero 'warm-up' time, under what
are the surprisingly low levels of energy guns cycle under.
The properties of this grease are hard to explain in
writing. At first glance it looks thick - you turn it on its side at room
temperature, and it is not going to move or flow. But when touching it, our
Winter Balm is uniquely 'light', almost kind of fluffy, even though there is no
air trapped in it...it is a uniquely strange thing to feel between your
fingers. Yet at -50F, it still doesn't have the 'thickness' or viscosity of our
other lubricants at room temperature.
When preparing a firearm for low-temperature operations, it
is IMPERATIVE that you break it down to the smallest of parts and clean with
acetone to bare metal. Other lubricants will turn into a glue at low
temperatures, and the slightest speck can shut a gun down, especially triggers
and firing pins.
