Desperately Need Help Authenticating Jungle Carbine!

[Seaspriter]

we ALWAYS packed the space between the barrel and the fore-end with grease XG279. Why oh why do you all insist on removing it? It's there for a reason chaps!

I only wish I had known of this great advice years earlier. I have a collection of 18th and 19th century flintlocks and percussions that should have had this treatment. Wood attracts water/humidity, which rusts metal.

The biggest problem you will have in North America is trying to find XG279 Grease. After a lot of research and dead ends, here's what I think is the best alternative (chaps, please correct me if I'm off base on this one or you have a better solution):

In a 1931 Lee Enfield Armourer's repair manual, they made reference to a 50-50 concoction of Bees Wax (candle wax is a reasonable substitute) and Mineral Jelly (same thing as "Vaseline") to coat any metal that contacts wood.

Picking up on that theme, I found an easy way to duplicate this "wood salve/balm (the two ingredients can only be combined by melting) Here's what I found was the most convenient way:
- first, take a glass jar (like a pickle jar or tomato sauce jar).
- find a single hotplate used for keeping a single mug of coffee warm -- the temperature will be about 150-160 degrees F, 66 degrees C
- put the wax in the jar on the hot plate and wait an hour -- by then it will have melted
- add in the Vaseline (or equivalent) and wait a half hour for it all to melt, then mix with a stirring stick to be sure it's now a unified mixture
- pour into smaller tins (like an empty shoe polish tin)
Once it cools, the melting point is about 125F-52C (which is well above the highest temperature these old girls will see on the firing range unless you like to bake her in the hot tropical sun).

Then apply to metal where it might contact wood. This includes barrel, receiver, and all steel butt plate screws (which when rusted are sooo hard to remove without buggering the heads) and swivel mounting screws in the butt stock.

Then apply to the wood in all areas where gun oil can saturate the wood, especially around the drawers. (Oil rot in wood from the chemicals in gun oil is one reason why so many M-1 rifles and carbines need new wood). The wax in the wood salve helps repel oil , preventing oil saturation of the drawers (which makes them soft and prone to compression.)

Overall the results I've had with this formula has been good. I've gone back to other guns in my collection and applied the wood salve to every buttplate screw, and have been pleasantly surprised how well they can be removed a year or two later.

As an added benefit, I've used this same wood salve on the runners of my antique chests of drawers (I used to use soap or candle wax). Now the drawers on these old chests run smooth as silk and should keep running smooth for generations to come. I've also used it to hold a nut in place on my fingertip while mounting on a bolt head in a tight space.