DISMISSED- Fireclean suing author that claimed it same as vegatable oil

**ExFlyinguy** · March 31st, 2016, 10:45 AM

Andrew Tuohy of Vuurwapen Blog:

I wrote several articles detailing the results of scientific testing from three different laboratories which showed, according to three different PhDs in chemistry, that a gun oil called FireClean was "probably a modern unsaturated vegetable oil virtually the same as many oils used for cooking" as well as "nearly identical" or "virtually identical" to canola oil. In addition, I showed there were significant discrepancies in a video test performed by FireClean and Vickers Tactical which purportedly proved the effectiveness of FireClean by causing more smoke to leave the gun.

From his "gofundme" site for legal defense: https://www.gofundme.com/spwt9qss

**dkf** · March 31st, 2016, 11:59 AM

Here is another article. http://soldiersystems.net/2016/03/31...ce=twitterfeed

I can see why Fireclean doesn't want their customers to know they are buying a grossly overpriced vegetable oil mix.

**stainless** · March 31st, 2016, 12:10 PM

Can I use it for french fries?...

**alpacaheat** · March 31st, 2016, 12:24 PM

Did it smell like canola oil?

**ExFlyinguy** · March 31st, 2016, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by stainless

Can I use it for french fries?...

**GunLawyer001** · March 31st, 2016, 12:36 PM

Interesting case. I found this as well, which seems pretty damning:

http://www.vuurwapenblog.com/general...e-theres-liar/

**wanneroo** · March 31st, 2016, 12:56 PM

IRC the Vickers Tactical slow mo vid of Fireclean was hilarious, all this stuff squirting out everywhere when the gun was fired. It kinda of reminded me of:

It killed me to see in one of Vickers vids for the Stoner 63 him squirting that stuff all over the insides of that gun. Terrible.

Fireclean is between a rock and a hard place on this one. Probably they could have let the issue die and it would over time, but this case just reawakens it. The end goal will be to break the Tuohy guy financially through long court cases he can't afford. The cut snake reaction to the blogger says to me what he came up with from testing is probably right.

The thing is in 2016 with the internet is that companies can't hide anymore. 100 plus years ago you could travel from town to town selling your "magic" elixir and get away with it. These days technically everyone in the world can communicate with everyone else in the world if they so desire, so consumers are going to get products in their hand, test them, use them and then probably post their own opinion about it online. That's just the way it is and companies that react poorly to that are probably going to have some problems.

Probably the better PR solution for Fireclean would be to have some independent testing done and then they could issue a rebuttal and state their side of the case and do it in a positive way. Instead the "we're gonna squash you like a bug" mentality is negative and a turnoff. I wouldn't touch their products in a million years.

**dkf** · March 31st, 2016, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by wanneroo

Probably the better PR solution for Fireclean would be to have some independent testing done and then they could issue a rebuttal and state their side of the case and do it in a positive way. Instead the "we're gonna squash you like a bug" mentality is negative and a turnoff. I wouldn't touch their products in a million years.

I don't think that is really much of an option. The patent information basically says Fireclean is a mix of vegetable oils.(3 kinds if memory serves me right) It may not be Crisco oil (I doubt they are repackaging crisco oil) but is not that awful far off. Seems to me like Fireclean got caught playing the ole snake oil game. They are pissed about it, as I am sure their sales suffered. On the other hand I am sure a lot of customers are pissed from getting duped. It is why I don't fall for the ole snake oil routine. They probably would have been better off letting it pass.

A friend of mine uses Fireclean on his machine guns, after seeing it in action I was not impressed. I swear a lot of problems he had that day with several of his MGs was partially because he was using fireclean as directed.

**GunLawyer001** · March 31st, 2016, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by wanneroo

IRC the Vickers Tactical slow mo vid of Fireclean was hilarious, all this stuff squirting out everywhere when the gun was fired. It kinda of reminded me of:

It killed me to see in one of Vickers vids for the Stoner 63 him squirting that stuff all over the insides of that gun. Terrible.

Fireclean is between a rock and a hard place on this one. Probably they could have let the issue die and it would over time, but this case just reawakens it. The end goal will be to break the Tuohy guy financially through long court cases he can't afford. The cut snake reaction to the blogger says to me what he came up with from testing is probably right.

The thing is in 2016 with the internet is that companies can't hide anymore. 100 plus years ago you could travel from town to town selling your "magic" elixir and get away with it. These days technically everyone in the world can communicate with everyone else in the world if they so desire, so consumers are going to get products in their hand, test them, use them and then probably post their own opinion about it online. That's just the way it is and companies that react poorly to that are probably going to have some problems.

Probably the better PR solution for Fireclean would be to have some independent testing done and then they could issue a rebuttal and state their side of the case and do it in a positive way. Instead the "we're gonna squash you like a bug" mentality is negative and a turnoff. I wouldn't touch their products in a million years.

It seems like it's usually the con men who threaten to sue their critics fastest. I've been threatened with lawsuits in the past over truthful things that I've written, and it never comes to anything, because (a) I'm a lawyer and I know what I'm doing, and (b) there are sanctions available against people who sue you when they know their case is bogus. See "Wrongful use of civil proceedings" - 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 8351, for example.

SLAPP suits are not new, people with deep pockets routinely have used the court system to make criticizing them expensive.
http://www.anti-slapp.org/slappdash-faqs-about-slapps/

If the defendant has the financial resources to defend here, I suspect that he'll win, assuming that his informal lab testing was as he claimed it was. A nationally-advertising company is likely a public figure, meaning that to prevail, they have to prove actual malice, that the non-opinion material was not only false and defamatory, but that the defendant knew that it was false at the time.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the notion that "making more smoke" is proof that the gun is "rejecting the carbon". It reminds me of a carnival snake oil salesman, literally; years ago, "Mr. Adam" appeared at the Allentown Fair, and I remember the claim that his elixir would cause your body to expel all the bad poisons, and form a pool of them in your mouth, which you could spit out. Pretty sure his product was crap.

I'm not familiar with the product here, but from what I've read, it doesn't claim to protect against corrosion or rust, and it may gum up over time and make the gun fail to function. I wouldn't cook food with the stuff, regardless of what's true.