by Hap Rocketto
When Frankie Valli sang out ”Grease is the word…” in the title tune of the eponymously named musical movie I don’t suspect that he was thinking about the triumvirate of rifle lubricants and preservatives so well known to the older generation of shooting competitors, RIG, Lubriplate, and Plastilube.
The first of these iconic products to meet the public eye was RIG, which first hit the market in 1935. RIG, an acronym for Rust Inhibiting Grease, is primarily a preservative although it has been used a lubricant. A coated patch run through a barrel and a light swipe of it on the surface was as good as hermetically sealing the gun for long term storage.
RIG is much lighter, and more readily available, than Cosmoline, the sticky homogenous mixture of oily and waxy long-chain, non-polar hydrocarbons that was much favored by the military for long term preservation. A few swipes with a rag will remove RIG. The methods for removing Cosmoline run from the mundane; boiling water, mineral spirits, and elbow grease, to the bizarre, with my personal favorites being a car wash or the family dishwasher. The only thing they have in common is that none work too well.
A few years ago the shooting world was stunned when the Missouri based Jackson Safety Company announced that they were dropping the firearm maintenance icon from its product line. Many speculate that RIG’s demise was an example of a product that was done in by its low price and the fact that a little bit lasts forever. My brother has a pound tin he bought in the 60s which is still half full. There are reports of tubes still in use, bottoms partially rolled up, laying in gun cabinets since originally purchased in the 40s by the fathers and grandfathers of the present owners.
Birchwood Casey, a name long know in the firearms community for metal and wood finishing and firearm maintenance products came to rescue when they acquired RIG, which they continue to sell is under its original name as a Birchwood Casey product.
RIG products also included the ubiquitous RIG EZE-Scorer, the familiar “plug” found at rifle ranges all over the country and, in my day, sold in well made, snap closed, purple felt bags. That is no surprise when one remembers that the owners of RIG were the Wiles family of Chicago. Russell Wiles, father and son, were well known riflemen, founders of the Black Hawk Rifle Club, and their name adorns the trophy awarded to the Big Ten Rifle Team Champion.
Grease, Rifle, Lubriplate, manufactured by Fiske Brothers Refining Company, is the lubricant developed for the M1 Garand rifle during World War II. It is pale yellow in color and uses zinc oxide and calcium-based soap as its main ingredient. It is most familiarly found in a small clear plastic container with yellow screw-on cap. Commonly called a ‘pot’, the container neatly fits into the cleaning equipment compartment located in the butt end of the rifle’s stock under the folding metal butt plate.
The older pots’ screw on cap carries the embossed words, “GREASE, RIFLE, LUBRIPLATE, 130-A” in uppercase letters. The containers are about 7/8th of an inch in diameter and about the same height and hold approximately a quarter of an ounce Lubriplate.
Plastilube grease, Lubriplate’s successor, was introduced in January 1950 by Warren Refining & Chemical Company. Lubriplate is a dark reddish-brown in color and differs from Lubriplate in that it uses inorganic clay as its thickening agent. As a result it has a much thicker consistency than its predecessor. It was supplied in the same yellow topped container but without the labeling.
For many years both Lubriplate and Plastilube were in the supply system and were often found interchangeably in both the M1 and M14 rifles. The Military Qualified Products List for military specification rifle grease was last updated in March of 1992. The sole entry on the latest list is Lubriplate RG-62-A, which is the equivalent to Lubriplate 130-A, and it is made by, of course, Fiske Brothers Refining Company.
Other lubricants and preservatives have come along to supplant even these venerable products. In the mid 1960s there appeared GREASE, RIFLE, MIL-G46003(ORD) AMEND 2. It was packed in round green one pound cans with yellow lettering which were reminiscent of Planters Peanut cans. They were both opened with a detachable key that wound off a razor sharp band of wire that was fully capable of taking off a finger or two.
This product was swiftly followed by “LSA WEAPONS OIL MEDIUM” which was issued in a two ounce squeeze bottle in the traditional OD color replete with yellow printing. The answer to a little know trivia question is that LSA stands for “Lubricant, Semifluid, Automatic weapons.” Hard on LSA’s heels came “CLP CLEANER, LUBRICANT, PRESERVATIVE”, known commercially as “Breakfree”. This product broke free from military tradition as it was issued in commercial containers ranging from a half of an ounce squeeze bottle to a gallon jug.
Even as things change in lubrication and protection unguents for firearms it is good to see some of the old standbys are still hanging on. There may be newer cleaners than Hoppes #9 on the market but, after century of service, what shooter cannot peel a ripe banana and immediately be reminded of the smell of Hoppes #9. The pungent odor rushing him back to a firing line or hunting camp in the distant past full of old friends and happy memories? So it is with RIG and Lubriplate.
