Ballistol is a hundred year old product, it must have some value. One of my first experiences with Ballistol was with it's use as a first aid/medical product. In early 1981, I was watching Walter Grass( my German gunsmith friend) try out a lathe he had just bought. He was turning a barrel and a "chip" was coming off in a long ribbon, and he was breaking it with a bent rod. A ribbon flipped back and cut his finger "to the bone"; I could clearly see white bone, before the blood started flowing. I insisted he let me take him to the "krankenhaus"( hospital) for stiches. A similar wound in my youth required 4 stitches to close. In refusing, he took a dirty roll of gauze from under his work bench, and unrolled it enough to get to almost "white" gauze, from which he made a little pad and wet it with Ballistol. He then wrapped it with more gauze, put on a glove and went back to the lathe to finish. Since the wound was in an area that needed to "flex" in use, I had every idea he would have it "stitched", later. When I went back the next week, I asked to see the finger. He unwrapped it, and it was almost healed( still w/o stitches). It was obvious, from the smell of Ballistol, that that was all he used on the wound. That incident gave me an awful lot of confidence in it, and this was well before Americans knew about it.
Mike
