Any tips on getting this cylinder face clean?

Rusty_

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So I got this new to me (supposedly only 100 shots previously, I believe it) 686 and I took it out for the first time and fired 100 rounds through it.

78LwPWc.jpg


I'm brand new to guns. This is my first handgun.

I gave it a good cleaning using the two products that were suggested to me: Hoppe's No. 9 gun bore cleaner and Outers Gun oil.

I tried a textured dish sponge and even a brass brush, but I can't seem to get the cylinder face any cleaner than this.

Is there a product that will get it off? A cleaning tool?

I left it dirty for about an hour and a half by the time I got home to clean it, is the delay between firing session and cleaning what's made it stick like this?
 
Something as simple as a pencil erasure or Lead free polishing cloth from Birchwood Casey available on Brownells and other sites.
 
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It also does no/less harm to leave it, rather than scrubbing the snot out of it every time that you shoot
 
It also does no/less harm to leave it, rather than scrubbing the snot out of it every time that you shoot

Yeah, I can't see myself caring enough to spend a significant amount of time and effort getting it clean so it can sit in the safe all clean. It's dirty again first shot anyway.

But if there's a quick clean fix I'd do it.
 
It's OK Rusty. What you have there is the beginning of "patina". Give it another forty years and it will show a lifetime of good memories. Just like Grandma's favourite cast iron frying pan :)
 
It's OK Rusty. What you have there is the beginning of "patina". Give it another forty years and it will show a lifetime of good memories. Just like Grandma's favourite cast iron frying pan :)

lol. I should be so proud is what you're saying.
 
I like shiney guns and do this regularly with my Smith SS but have grown to like the Blued gun better from a maintaince point of view exaclty for the above reasons.
 
I have owned Revolvers since 1966 , when I shot at Leaside Revolver Club in Toronto . The mess on the front of the cylinder
was always hard to clean , until about 32 years ago I found a "Lead Away" polishing cloth in a gun shop while on a trip to LA.
Since then I have found two other cloths for sale In Ontario . Hoppe's "Quick Clean Rust & Lead Remover" cloth & Birchwood
Casey "Lead Remover & Polishing Cloth" . With the cylinder out of gun & a piece of this cloth on a padded bench , I take the cylinder
& rotate it on the cloth like juicing an orange. It comes completely clean in no time . Done it hundreds of times .

Frank

SASS Member
NFA Life
CSSA Life
Royal City Rangers
 
I have owned Revolvers since 1966 , when I shot at Leaside Revolver Club in Toronto . The mess on the front of the cylinder
was always hard to clean , until about 32 years ago I found a "Lead Away" polishing cloth in a gun shop while on a trip to LA.
Since then I have found two other cloths for sale In Ontario . Hoppe's "Quick Clean Rust & Lead Remover" cloth & Birchwood
Casey "Lead Remover & Polishing Cloth" . With the cylinder out of gun & a piece of this cloth on a padded bench , I take the cylinder
& rotate it on the cloth like juicing an orange. It comes completely clean in no time . Done it hundreds of times .

Frank

SASS Member
NFA Life
CSSA Life
Royal City Rangers

hmmm. Is it easy to remove the cylinder?
 
You can try 0000 steel wool and varsol then gun oil, the steel wool is fine enough that it will not harm the finish.

I would not use steel wool on stainless steel unless you want to find out how to make stainless rust.

Besides the lead removal cloths (not a silicone cloth) and Flitz, Autosol is another product that will do the job.
 
You can try 0000 steel wool and varsol then gun oil, the steel wool is fine enough that it will not harm the finish.

No don't do this!
Rust is a cancer to steel and soft iron (steel wool) leaves a thin plating of free iron particles plated onto the surface of a harder stainless steel object when scrubbed. The steel wool plating will eventually rust and cause the underlying stainless to rust right along side! Don't believe me? Just look at the bottom of your stainless kitchen sink after you have left a cast iron pan in the bottom over night or an SOS pad the same way....and stainless kitchen sinks have a higher corrosion resistance than a gun barrel...but then a sink doesn't need to hold 1000's of PSI so it can afford the extra corrosion inhibiting chromium and nickel.
 
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