If you have read past articles on this blog, you know that I like Shooters Choice FP-10 as a lubricant for the AR-15. I have been using it for years and am consistently impressed with its performance. I generally just call it FP-10 because I was unaware that it was available from multiple companies.
FP-10 was developed by George Fennell, who later developed a product called WeaponShield. I had never heard of WeaponShield until about six weeks ago. In researching WeaponShield, I discovered Mr. Fennell’s connection to FP-10 and saw several posts by him on various forums which I took to be him disparaging the quality of FP-10 in favor of WeaponShield.
In conversations with him since, he told me that he was not criticizing Shooters Choice FP-10, made by people he sold the formula to, but rather MPC FP-10, which is his old company that has apparently allowed quality control to slip. In any case, he says that WeaponShield is better than either FP-10 formulation.
Confused yet?
Given recent…revelations…about other products in the gun lube industry, I wondered if Mr. Fennell had simply repackaged FP-10, or added something simple such as an eye of newt, and called it WeaponShield. No one else seemed to be wondering this, but I was.
So among other samples of oils I sent off for testing recently, I included two examples of Shooters Choice FP-10 – one new and one purchased approximately seven years ago – as well as a sample of WeaponShield.
Here are the results, and also what Everett (who conducted the testing, click the link to read more about the science) had to say.
“Based purely on IR it looks like #2 and #9 are extremely similar, #7 is not at all.”
Samples 2 and 9 were the new and old FP-10, and Sample 7 was Weaponshield. It is easy even for the layman (such as myself) to see how different WeaponShield is from FP-10. For those who wondered if all oils looked alike on IR (such as those who didn’t want to believe that FireClean was similar to canola oil), this should give you a good frame of reference for such things.
Does WeaponShield work better than FP-10? It would take me years to answer that question. I have been thoroughly satisfied with Shooters Choice FP-10, going so far as to fire over 2700 rounds through a 5.45 AR lubricated with a minimal amount of FP-10 – and no further lubrication – before encountering a malfunction. One drop of FP-10 was added to the most critical lubrication point on an AR, and the weapon continued to function for another 150 rounds without malfunctioning, at which time I ran out of ammunition.
In comparison, I have about 100 rounds downrange with WeaponShield since receiving some free samples from Mr. Fennell a few weeks back.
I can’t say if WeaponShield is better, but I can say definitively that FP-10 and WeaponShield are not the same, or even similar – answering a question no one seemed to be asking.
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Everett (who conducted the testing and is linked above) wished me to thank:
I’ve been using Weaponshield for 2-3 years now with fairly good results. I’ve used FP-10 in the past (c. 2005-08) and found it adequate, but not great for cleaning or preventing carbon from sticking. The Weaponshield is somewhat better at both, but not the best I’ve used (Froglube seems the best for keeping carbon from sticking, although it has other issues that caused me to stop using it). I have also used SLIP2000 for several years and FL for a couple of years.
My biggest observation and complaint about Weaponshield is that while it’s really slick when applied and for the first couple of shots, in an AR15 it seems to lose some of its lubricating ability as carbon fouling builds up, even after just 100-200 rounds. All lubes eventually are less slick, but FL and Lucas Gun Oil seem to stay slick longer than Weaponshield in AR15 use.
I’ve also observed that when applied for the first time Weaponshield feels only as good as generic household oil, but if you come back 12-24 hours later the action feels much slicker. This seems consistent with the claims that the oil builds up micro electric charges that reduce friction, which presumably takes some time to occur.
Weaponshield also seems to stay in place very well – better than most other oils I’ve tried, but not as good as Lucas Gun Oil (the basic red stuff, not the dark green “extreme” stuff that I haven’t had a chance to try yet).
My takeaway is that Weaponshield is excellent for most firearms, but not for AR15 style weapons due to the heavy carbon fouling seeming to sap its performance relatively quickly.