S2H winter class 2026 observations and lessons learned

[coya]

What color is everyone getting for the 1/4 zip? I’m not a huge fan of either.

I really wish they would offer it in green

 

[RockAndSage]

I’ve always used synthetic motor oil on my guns. I can’t say that they’ve been abused in sub-zero temps with snow in the action, but I’ve never had a problem. Has anyone at the S2H class reported using motor oil? Any issues?

Apocalypse gun lubes from a garage:

Motor oil works, and generally works a lot better in ARs than most gun oils. In cold, go with a 0W-something, as it'll have the best low-temp performance of motor oils, but will be thinner. In the most extreme cold, go with automatic transmission fluid, but just remember it's hygroscopic, and will "attract" moisture into it, adulterating its properties over time. In really high heat, especially suppressed, oil viscosity changes and gets a lot looser, causing them to thin out and flow away from your bearing surfaces more quickly. Because of this, you generally want the heaviest oil you can find for high heat usage - a 15w-, or a 20w-something motorcycle oil.

None of these will work as well for weapon reliability or durability in an AR as what @Ajsomp suggested with blending automotive grease and oil - generally, you want it to be the consistency of a lotion or cream, though you can go a bit heavier with less oil content in really hot/suppressed conditions. If you go too heavy though, a gun can have a harder time cycling if things like sand or brass shavings start clogging it. When a grease of any kind is properly weighted to a given machine, it'll actually start acting more like a kind of filter, pushing the bigger particulate to the front and back of travel and keeping it there, while keeping the grease at the bearing surfaces cleaner. The really fine powder will still discolor it, but it won't be interfering with the lubrication.

The single biggest limitation on homebrewing like this, is cold-temp performance. The colder things get, the more you want to be using the lighter oils to mix, and the more oil content you want. Don't plan on any of it working below around -30F, with -40F leaving most auto lubricants frozen solid in guns.

For my ARs I use a blend of grease and oil - does great and last for years. Bolt guns, I don’t honestly lube as much because I use tikkas and generally any lube just invites more shit to get attached. If it needs it, I’ve got some tw25b.

TW25b and the cherry balmz winter balm are the only complex greases I know of that will go below -40F reliably in guns - in reality, not what gun lube manufactures claim on their packaging. The geissele stuff will go those temps too, but it doesn't have the same kinds of complex additives in it as the TW or the cherry balmz stuff, which matters. In an AR, the only stuff I'll use in extreme cold is the winter balm, as the TW relies on teflon as part of its additive package, which decomposes into some pretty nasty stuff in DI and suppressed semi-autos, and starts getting sticky/gummy as it melts. But the TW is excellent on bolt guns or other manual actions, as well as unsuppressed piston guns, in all temps.

 

[24valve]

I’ve always used synthetic motor oil on my guns. I can’t say that they’ve been abused in sub-zero temps with snow in the action, but I’ve never had a problem. Has anyone at the S2H class reported using motor oil? Any issues?

@RockAndSage already gave a good detailed response, but here's some more anecdotal evidence:

At the 2025 class, a rifle had issues and it was found to have a greased firing pin from the factory. All the rifles there then had the bolt stripped, firing pin degreased, reassembled, and lubed the outside of the bolt with 0W motor oil. None of them had any issues during the subzero days last year, the coldest of which while we were outside was somewhere between -15 and -20 if I recall correctly.



I do use olive oil when possible due to the potential long-term health risks associated with most oils and greases that @RancherJohn and @Formidilosus have mentioned, but I switch my rifles from olive oil to either be dry or 0W motor oil if I anticipate cold weather and haven't had any issues shooting/hunting bolt guns in cold weather since.

I've dabbled in the grease/oil combo in handguns, and it works well in warm to moderate temps. But in cold temps, it can slow down the slide enough to cause problems with reliability as shown below. I recently got some TW25 to try as well, but haven't used it in the cold yet.

 

[RockAndSage]

I've dabbled in the grease/oil combo in handguns, and it works well in warm to moderate temps. But in cold temps, it can slow down the slide enough to cause problems with reliability

If you go cold enough, any wet lubricant turns into an adhesive. The molecules stick to the metal and to each other in very similar ways.

This is also why I'm also a big proponent of coatings that make surfaces slicker - things like DLC, titanium nitride, Nickle Boron, hard chrome, etc. Not that they should be relied on as a primary "lubricant", but because they reduce inherent and applied friction in general quite a bit - they make surfaces slicker, and also make it more difficult for friction contaminants like sand or brass shavings to grab or apply friction between those moving parts. All of this also gives you an edge if you ever do have to run a gun dry because there's not a proper cold-weather lubricant around.

If anyone ever wants to test their gun lube in the cold, be sure to leave it in those temps for at least 24hrs. Different oils can have identical pour-points (the low-temp threshold where they won't flow if turned upside down), but get there at very different rates. Some may freeze up in an hour or two, some may only get there after a day or so. They also have different rates at which they warm up, so do your cycling or firing test quickly, without letting your hands/gloves or even breath warm it up. If you're doing this with a freezer, you need to test within a couple of seconds of pulling it out before ambient temps start altering behavior.

 

[RockAndSage]

At the 2025 class, a rifle had issues and it was found to have a greased firing pin from the factory. All the rifles there then had the bolt stripped, firing pin degreased, reassembled, and lubed the outside of the bolt with 0W motor oil. None of them had any issues during the subzero days last year, the coldest of which while we were outside was somewhere between -15 and -20 if I recall correctly.

That really is a great example.

The first places cold lube will start shutting a gun down will be the firing pin, the trigger group, and mags - the tighter the tolerances and the more surface area for the wet lube to turn into an adhesive across, the faster and harder it'll shut the gun down.