Cleaning the front of a stainless revolver cylinder
- Thread starter ranbur
- Start date
I got mine off ebay, there was a guy that would ship.
Drop me a pm ill give you his user id
juancarlos
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- The Island
So....do you use dishwasher detergent or just leave the soap tray empty?
- Location
- West Quebec
I just use a wooden stick for the tight areas...
I'm wondering on this advice at not using PMC ammo. I never had but the question is are they really that dirty? And others commercial ammo are they really less ? I'm reloading a lot using whatever powder I can get, any known difference more than advertised cleaning properties?
- Location
- Southwestern Ontario
Personal experience on my part. For a while in 2012/13, PMC ammunition was about all we could get that didn't generate the instant and irate notice of She Who Monitors The Visa Statement. I have found it to be very dirty in almost all the calibres I have fired it in (9mm, .40S&W, .357 Magnum). I loaded some .357 180ish grain SWC once with Clays Universal and that was ALMOST as dirty as the factory PMC out of my 6" GP100. I have decided that PMC stands for Pukes More Combustion.
The absolute best solution to cleaning your stainless revolvers is get a big ultrasonic cleaner, fill it with varsol, and run your whole gun through it (minus grips of course) for about a half hour, with heat. They come out so clean, and you don't even break a sweat. Then, clean as per normal (Hoppes # 9, patches, brass brush, rinse and repeat, oil)....you will be happy you invested in the Ultrasonic.
I've shot it by the crate in 9mm, .45acp, and .233, I don't find it excessively dirty.
Yes the ,,,," lead remover cloth " ,,, from Birchwood Casey or Hoppe's works completely .
Put the cloth flat on a padded table & push the cylinder face onto it while rotating
with your hand . Doe a 100% job. I have used this a lot since the 1980's .
Frank
ambishooter
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Southeastern Canuckstan
Chlorine-free Brake cleaner from Crappy Tire. Or soak it for a few hrs in Lacquer thinner, rinse and scrub any residue using scotch-brite green pad, rinse again. Then polish with Flitz. Alternatively, use Gunzilla/Copperzilla or pre-soak with WD40, scrub and wipe clean.
I have plastic sight inserts, and used orange nail polish on the front sight of my GP100. Varsol is a very mild solvent and hasn't harmed them in any way whatsoever, it doesn't even soften the nail polish. It does strip absolutely all the gunk and oil out of your gun, but so what? Fresh oil and it is good to go. Your advice against dunking in solvent might be valuable if the solvent in question was laquer thinner, acetone or Zylene, but heated varsol will not harm any stainless gun in any way.
- Location
- Vancouver Island
No matter if they're silver or blue.
Being essentially lazy, the dishwasher idea appeals to me as definitely worth a try. To stay out of trouble on the 'domestic front', a couple of suggestions:
1. Do it when the wife won't be home for an hour or two.
2. Don't tell her you did it.
I'd put it in by itself, not with the dinner dishes.
Set it in vertically with a chamber dropped onto one of the racks' vertical rods.
I'll try the dishwasher soap first, on 'small load'. If that doesn't work, do it again on the 'pots and pans' cycle. I would NOT put any solvent in there!
BTW-- When I was in the Army we used to do an annual cleaning by dunking the metal bits into a barrel of boiling water with a cake of that
caustic yellow soap we used in the mess hall. That method really worked!
I've been using a 12" length of 1"x4" with a strip of terrycloth wrapped round one end and stapled on (to the back side, doh) and a strip of the finest emery-cloth on the other end. I then take the cylinder a rub it, first onto the emery w/ some solvent, then on the terry for finishing with with a drop of oil. That works on the flats, but does not get into the fiddly bits.
You can use the power tooth brush for the rest. I tried that method for a few weeks, until my teeth began to turn black....
BTW-- We're all talking about cleaning our stainless cylinders, eh?
Don't we care about our blued cylinder faces? Or is it that we just don't notice the carbon build-up on the darker-complected cylinders? If all that carbon on the faces is harmful, then equal attention should be payed to the blued guns, but if all that gunge is purely cosmetic, then (ach!) why all the fuss?? I'd prefer to let my revolvers look 'well-used'.
I'm thinking of just letting mine go now, for about a year, then do the boiling water method. Yeah, all that scrubbing by hand every time I shoot my revolvers is just too time-consuming, eh?
Being essentially lazy, the dishwasher idea appeals to me as definitely worth a try. To stay out of trouble on the 'domestic front', a couple of suggestions:
1. Do it when the wife won't be home for an hour or two.
2. Don't tell her you did it.
I'd put it in by itself, not with the dinner dishes.
Set it in vertically with a chamber dropped onto one of the racks' vertical rods.
I'll try the dishwasher soap first, on 'small load'. If that doesn't work, do it again on the 'pots and pans' cycle. I would NOT put any solvent in there!
BTW-- When I was in the Army we used to do an annual cleaning by dunking the metal bits into a barrel of boiling water with a cake of that
caustic yellow soap we used in the mess hall. That method really worked!
I've been using a 12" length of 1"x4" with a strip of terrycloth wrapped round one end and stapled on (to the back side, doh) and a strip of the finest emery-cloth on the other end. I then take the cylinder a rub it, first onto the emery w/ some solvent, then on the terry for finishing with with a drop of oil. That works on the flats, but does not get into the fiddly bits.
You can use the power tooth brush for the rest. I tried that method for a few weeks, until my teeth began to turn black....
BTW-- We're all talking about cleaning our stainless cylinders, eh?
Don't we care about our blued cylinder faces? Or is it that we just don't notice the carbon build-up on the darker-complected cylinders? If all that carbon on the faces is harmful, then equal attention should be payed to the blued guns, but if all that gunge is purely cosmetic, then (ach!) why all the fuss?? I'd prefer to let my revolvers look 'well-used'.
I'm thinking of just letting mine go now, for about a year, then do the boiling water method. Yeah, all that scrubbing by hand every time I shoot my revolvers is just too time-consuming, eh?
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I am thinking the idea of placing a $800 - $1,000 revolver in a dishwasher just to remove some carbon crud on a cylinder is just not a very bright idea. Why not spend <$5.00 on some Leadaway cloth that will clean up the same cylinder without having to spend time ensuring all the moisture is removed from the innards if the gun. I would not do it even if it were just the cylinder from a SA. Just saying. The carbon buld up is for the most part just cosmetic.
Take Care
Bob
