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Cleaning Your Revolver
For the purposes of this procedure, I will assume you have read your owner's
manual and are familiar with the manufacturer's recommendations for field-stripping,
cleaning, and lubricating procedures. The gun I'm shown working on
is my S&W 686.
1. MAKE SURE YOUR PISTOL IS UNLOADED!
Never trust your memory, check to be sure...
and make it a habit to check every time.
| 2. Place a few drops of solvent into the muzzle.
Use enough that the entire barrel will be wet when you use your brush.
As you can see, I'm using BreakFree CLP here. |
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| 2. Brush out the barrel.
Insert the bore brush. Take extra care not to allow the cleaning rod to touch the crown (edge of the bore at the muzzle) or anything else inside the bore. Some people will place the cleaning rod through the bore, and attach the brush to the rod from the breech end to avoid the possibility of damage to the crown. Personally I just prefer to be careful.
Give the bore several passes with the brush, between five and ten, depending on the amount of fouling in the barrel. |
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| 3. Run patches through the barrel.
Wet a patch with solvent and, using a jag, force it through the barrel. The patch should fit tightly into the barrel, but not so tight that you can't use regular hand strength to
push it down the barrel. If you have to hammer the rod with anything, it's too tight.
Discard the soiled patch and repeat the process with a second solvent-soaked patch. Discard this one as well.
Follow with a dry, clean patch. Inspect the barrel for fouling (use a bore light if necessary). If the barrel still isn't clean enough for you, repeat steps 2 through 3.
When you have it clean enough, run an oil-moistened patch through, followed by another dry patch. If you've been using CLP or another solvent with protectant properties, you can
skip this step. |
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| 4. Clean the extractor assembly.
I like to use an old toothbrush with a few drops of solvent to thoroughly clean the extractor star. Use extra care when cleaning the bearing surfaces on the top of the extractor -- since this area is what indexes the cylinder, you don't want any foreign matter in the way of the moving parts. Use a patch moistened with solvent to wipe the area clean. |
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| 5. Press the extractor rod and clean underneath the extractor assembly.
Use a toothbrush to loosen the tough deposits, and then use a
clean patch moistened with solvent to wipe the area clean. |
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| 6. Brush out the cylinder.
Follow the same procedure as you did for the barrel. If you have a magnum revolver (or one that shoots different length cartridges), pay special attention to the forward part of the cylinder chambers. If you've been shooting a lot of .38 Special in your .357 magnum gun, for instance, you may have some fouling in the chamber that may prevent full-length ammo from chambering. |
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| 7. Run patches through the cylinder.
Again, follow the procedures for running patches through the barrel. The cylinder chambers will usually clean up a lot faster than the barrel because there isn't any rifling there to pick up fouling. |
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| 8. Clean the face of the cylinder.
This area will get filthy pretty quickly. I feel that there isn't a whole lot of point in trying to remove the carbon stains that will inevitably appear. Just try to remove the actual fouling deposits from this area. There are some polishing cloths that claim to remove all the stains from the cylinder face, but I can't comment on their effectiveness.
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| 9. Clean the interior of the frame.
Use a solvent-soaked cloth to remove the fouling from the areas inside the frame. Pay particular attention to the topstrap, as it seems to accumulate fouling very quickly.
Try to keep foreign matter out of the openings on the rear of the frame. |
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| 10. Clean the exterior of the revolver.
Pretty self-explanatory. The cylinder and muzzle, and any porting you may have, will need the most attention.
Keep the solvent away from the grips, whether wood, rubber, or plastic. It can't help and may do some harm. Feel free to remove the grips to clean underneath if necessary.
Remove any solvent with a dry cloth. Follow with a light coat of the protectant of your choice.
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| 11. Lubricate at the proper points.
Place a tiny drop of oil on these surfaces: a) extractor shaft, b) hand. Also lubricate the cylinder crane, and possibly the cylinder release... when in doubt, follow your owner's manual, and keep in mind the rule of thumb that less lubrication is usually better than more.
It's probably best to resist the urge to dribble oil into the frame via the hammer and trigger slots. The oil will invariably leak out at some future point, and an encounter with a sandy environment will turn the inner workings into a gritty sludge that will do the gun no good.
If you suspect the inner parts need to be cleaned and relubed, it's money well spent to ask a decent gunsmith to do it. If you simply must do it yourself, heed this advice: when removing the sideplate, DO NOT use a screwdriver or anything else to pry the sideplate off. This is a good way to mar the sideplate and/or frame.
Use a non-marring tool to gently tap against the opposite side until the sideplate loosens
and drops off (generally taking some parts with it.) Hopefully you can easily figure out where everything goes when putting it all back together. Also, do this over a surface where you can easily find dropped parts. You probably wouldn't be reading this if you were very comfortable taking apart your revolver, so again I advise you to let a gunsmith tinker with the interior parts.
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That's it, you're done!
Related Posts:
Cleaning your semi-auto
Related tags:Do it Yourself, |
