Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Cleaning revolver cylinders

After firing 38spl ammo in my 27 S&W or 44spl ammo in my 29 S&W I find it difficult and time consuming to remove all of the residue from the cylinders. Unless I spend a lot time to clean each chamber thoroughly, subsequent 357mag or 44mag rounds fired in the revolvers require a hard rap on the ejector rod to get the empty cases out of the cylinders. Any suggestions on methods to easily remove this residue?

SS chamber brush and a drill. A few quick zips.

HawkI,

Do you use the brush dry or with solvent? Have you noticed any wear in the chambers caused by the steel brush, in other words any precautions?

Thanks,
Mike

No on the cylinder wear. Very quick hits on the trigger, no heat.

Use a bronze chamber brush if the SS makes you worry, but use the drill. I don't use any solvent of any kind, just dry brushes.

Bores get a fine brass brush, but I do not use jacketed.

I will give the dry SS brush a try. Thanks for the advice.

I like the foaming cleaners like the Hoppes Elite. Fill the chambers and set it aside while you clean the rest of the gun. Come back to it when the foam has dissapated and then brush it out.

I haven't had a opportunity to buy a SS brush but I do have some Break Free Bore Cleaning Foam on hand. I'm going downstairs to try it my my 29 which is in need of cleaning. I see how it works.

For 357 cylinders I use a .40 pistol bore brush, for .44/.45's, I use a .48 pistol bore brush.

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I tried foaming bore cleaner combined with the use of an oversized bore brush and had good results with a minimum of effort.

Previously I had been using bore solvent and a bore brush appropriate for the bore of the revolver. While this method worked it was time consuming to get the chambers clean.

I'd avoid steel brushes like the plague, stainless or not. Brass or bronze of your preference, please.

You use the "next size up" from your caliber, as you seem to have found out. For a .38/.357, a .40/10mm brush is ideal. I don't like power tools around guns, so I use a handle with a T, or ring at the end. Insert to where you meet some resistance and give it a few good twists. Try to nudge it right up against where the chamber constricts to where the bullet rests.

And yes, the pre-treat with your chosen cleaner does wonders.

I don't own any steel brushes so I used an oversized bronze brush with the foaming cleaner and had very good results cleaning the chambers. The foaming cleaner really loosened up the crud.

Any particular experiences why? Have they messed up a chamber? A throat?

I guess I use chamber brushes (some SS), a few zaps in a drill and avoid solvents like the plague....

Mike,

Approaching the problem from a different direction - what loads do you usually use? Not much can be done with factory jacketed ammo, but a lot can be done with lead bullets and reloads to prevent the problem in the first place. Often times the crud left behind in a revolver cylinder is lube.

Also, I seem to have better luck cleaning cylinders dry from the chamber end which pushes the crud from a small diameter to a larger diameter. The downside is moving crud under the extractor star, but a quick blast with an air compressor deals with that.

My only magnums are a pair of 357s, and I usually shoot full-length rounds in those, so I seldom have the problem.

But in my normal cylinder cleaning routine, I'll use a worn-out regular bronze brush wrapped with some fine steel wool and squirted with solvent. That on a short manual rod, but I have been known to chuck it into a power screwdriver when the crud got thick.

Another great choice is that same worn brush wrapped with a patch and daubed with Flitz - with the power tool. Run it in the chamber until the cylinder gets warm in your hand. You CANNOT hurt steel with Flitz, and it leaves a mirror finish behind.

(Works like gangbusters in your sizer dies, too!)

The steel-on-steel will score the insides of your chambers with thousands of little scratches. This will provide more grip for lead and powder residue to cling, and crevices for corrosion to start. The former leads to harder extraction and, the latter is never good for any gun. On a blued-gun, it trashes the blueing fast, and the corrosion potential is worse.

Look at it this way, would you use a stainless toothbrush on the outside of your barrel or receiver? HECK no, you use a brass brush, IF you absolutely have to due to some speckling of rust, or whatever.

I used stainless steel brushes on my department issue revolver after range qualifications. They used cheap lead reloads that left lots of lead in the bore and fouling in the cylinder. The stainless brush cleaned out the crud and lead fast. However, it scratched up the bore and the cylinder. I wouldn't have done it to a revolver that I owned.

JOG,

Here are the target loads I use in the 27 and 29 respectively.

38spl brass 4.5gr Bullseye 125gr FMJ

44spl brass 9.0gr HS6 240gr FMJ

These loads don't seem to be particularly dirty, but if I don't take care to clean the chambers thoroughly I sometimes have sticky extraction when I use magnum ammo in the revolvers.

Mike

Mike, so as not to confuse, JOG has some advise closer to reality.



I agree with this.

Also, anyone pushing bronze, Flitz, Mothers, JB, or your own nylon tooth brush on a polished, blued surface is suspect, just as much as your SS advocate. All will wreck a blued finish and scratch it, period, some faster than others of course. Your finest flavor of "dirt" may well create the most damage.

To note, steel finish and chamber finish is not polished with bronze nor brass at a factory....and using leather or blood will wreck bluing. Hell, a wipe down of your favorite car wax will pull bluing.

Some saying they will scratch to the point of leading, hard extraction and a point of no return has not used a SS CHAMBER brush in a chamber, least not have tested it nor fixed it.

A pure lead push through slug would reveal such disaster, as would a brass case fired to contact a chamber case-wall....

The only thing ever present in a fired case is toolmarks from a reamer.

Funny, I do have a revolver that was never cleaned with SS at/in the bore, yet the muzzle has no bluing and shows wear...a steel brush would have worn it quicker, per obvious, yet the iron shoots just fine.

For some reason, magical solvents have a hard time with powder, despite a century of magic claimed. When success is claimed, it always has some sort of brush involved.

Like I said, if SS scares you with chambers, use brass or bronze.

This scoring, rusting, fouling talk reeks of a Boys Life article, 1951.....I suppose the only cure is more ammonia.

Hawk, I don't think anyone has meant to clean the blued outside of a cylinder with those products. We are talking about the inner chamber walls ONLY.

I know pard...what I tried to say, but mine was in book form(grins)

I just never knew folks had a phobias about cylinders and brushes.

Lord knows I can't fit my head in there to find all of these problems.

I was trying to address this;

"Look at it this way, would you use a stainless toothbrush on the outside of your barrel or receiver? HECK no, you use a brass brush, IF you absolutely have to due to some speckling of rust, or whatever."