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that have a finish, not on nails that rust all the time anyway," Logan said, when asked about the Gun Zone test. "Soldiers have had no trouble finding out how to use it"
Giordani added that the oil needs three applications to "peak" at full strength. He said the hot desert sun can serve to heat the gun metal.
Still, Firriolo defended his findings, stating in an e-mail that "several individuals addressed MiliTec's criticism of my test by heating the metal after application. No improvement in corrosion protection was observed in any of these tests. The inescapable conclusions seem to be that MiliTec-1 is a good to very good lubricant but a very poor... preservative."

Revenge?

So the rust stigma persists, and MiliTec said that DoD officials have seized upon the issue in order to disrupt distribution of its product and exact revenge after eight years of unchallenged MiliTec-1 purchases.
According to e-mail records supplied by MiliTec on its Web site, a tentative order for $120,000 worth of MiliTec-1 was suddenly canceled in March by DoD. MiliTec demanded an explanation and learned that its product had failed a corrosion resistance test - similar to Gun Zone's test - at the Army's Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. MiliTec assumed that the

Defense Logistics Agency's Commodity Services Section was responsible for canceling MiliTec's approval, just like MiliTec said they tried to do in the mid-1990s, before Congress stepped in.
DLA referred a phone call seeking comment to Army Material Command spokesman Lt. Col. Virginia Ezell.
In a prepared statement, Lt. Col. Ezell wrote that MiliTec "did not meet the Army's corrosion protection requirements" and "in March 2003, DLA ceased filling requisitions from MiliTec."
MiliTec maintains that the corrosion test is a Vietnam-era relic that has no bearing on the arid, dusty conditions of the Iraqi desert. In a June letter to the Army's Tank automotive and Armaments Command, Giordani stated that his company "never claimed" that MiliTec-1 would meet Army specifications for corrosion protection.
"It is our position that laboratory tests have little correlation or relevance to live-fire battlefield conditions, and that your standards should be revised," he wrote.
By August, after much wrangling between MiliTec and the government, DLA relented and allowed the product to be distributed only in small amounts that Logan said prevents military units from stocking up on MiliTec-1 at a better price.
Ezell's statement states that MiliTec-1 "was being used by some soldiers in the field based

on individual preference. The Army wanted to ensure the product would continue to be available to those soldiers who wanted to use it."
"The Army Material Command will reevaluate this [current arrangement] upon completion of the evaluation of small arms lubricants in desert conditions," the statement continues. "The Army has received mixed reports on the performance of small arms lubricants during Operation Iraqi Freedom."

'Trying to do our part'

With or without DOD's blessing, Logan said that troops are continuing to seek MiliTec-1 by the thousands. He estimates that the company has shipped 5,000 to 10,000 bottles of MiliTec-1 to Iraq-bound and in-country soldiers since the war began (note from Militec - these were free samples).
Enthusiasm for MiliTec-1 is found in a May U.S. Army report called "Operation Iraqi Freedom PEO Soldier Lessons Learned."
"Soldiers provided consistent comments that CLP was not a good choice for weapons maintenance in this environment," the report reads. "The sand is as fine as talcum powder here. The CLP attracted the sand to the weapon. Soldiers considered a product called MiliTec to be a much better solution for lubricating individual and crew-served weapons."

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