Yes, slide-glide will freeze

[DarthMuffin]

I went to a match last month. It was about 30 degrees out and we carpooled in a friends truck. The guns went in the back under the tonneau cover so they were nice and cold when we got there.

On the first stage my run went something like "click, bang, click, bang, click, click, bang, bang, click, bang, bang, click, click". No doubt with assorted colorful metaphors interspersed :-)

Boy am I glad I kept the DA on my gun (a USP Expert). I wiped off as much slide-glide as I could and put on a few drops of CLP and was good for the rest of the match. I also stuffed my chemical hand warmer in the mag well to try to warm up the gun before the next stage.

What happened was that I have two nearly identical guns, my main shooter and a spare/loaner (because I found one of those "too good of a deal to pass up" things). The previous weekend I shot the spare when introducing a friend to pistols. I cleaned it and put on SG Lite. When leaving for the match I grabbed my main gun, which hadn't been used since last fall and still had a very healthy amount of normal SG on it. Doh! I had SG Lite on the brain and was somehow thinking that pistol had the Lite (I should clarify here that I know it's not a SG problem, I love SG, it's my bad using the wrong stuff for conditions). The regular SG slowed something down enough that I was getting light strikes. Probably the hammer, although it's possible there was some non-SG lube causing firing pin problems, as I CLP'd that too when I enacted the fix.

Edited March 15, 2009 by DarthMuffin

[Z32MadMan]

A few tips. If its cold, you can place a few drops of oil over the slide glide and it will thin it out nicely. Also during your LAMR, rack the slide a few times and that will help to loosen things up a bit.

[Seth]

I use the LAMR RACK! RACK! RACK! RACK! method.

I've only had it slow down below freezing. One shot and its fine again.

[steel1212]

make sure you use lite also. I've tried the medium and it just ends up being to heavy for my taste. Lite does the trick for all my Major PF guns pretty much all year long. For my minor guns I switch to oil in the winter though and oil it up right before the match.

[HSMITH]

I love the stuff too. Once the gun gets dirty it doesn't slow it down as much. A fresh load of SG in a clean gun can really slow down in the cold. My open gun turns into a bolt action below about 50' with even lite in it and I can't wait for it to warm up so I can switch back to it. Best gun lube I have found other than cold weather.

[Jack Suber]

Years ago, my gun with SG Lite went bolt-action on a cold morning match. I emailed Brian and asked him what to do about it. He told me to cut the SG with synthetic oil (motor oil). Thats what I do and have not had a problem since.

[quade]

i shot the 2 tap with SG lite on my open pistol this past weekend. 25-30 degrees with 30-45 mph winds. 1st stage --- load and make ready it almost stuck closed. however it did run all weekend without a hitch.