Properly cleaning S&W Revolvers

[bensode]

I am new to owning and although I expected Youtube to have a plethora of great instructional vids on properly cleaning, I found many were not as thorough as I had hoped. I'm looking for details/suggestions for cleaning and maintaining a S&W 642CT. My S&W manual says follow the instructions provided by the cleaning kit and the cleaning kit says to follow the directions from gun manufacturer ... sigh ...

[rwb1500]

Hoppes Number 9. Apply to toothbrush. Scrub away the black stuff. Finish clearing away black stuff with cotton patches or even paper towels.

Procure a barrel cleaning device. You may use a brass brush designed for this purpose, nylon brush, or even a Boresnake.

http://www.hoppes.com/boresnake

You can also use cotton patches pushed through the barrel with a rod and Hoppes Number 9, but typically you should clean from chamber to crown. Kinda hard to do that with a rod on a J frame. Boresnake works great. You can also use it to clean out the chambers in the cylinder.

If you shoot a lot of lead ( not copper jacketed) bullets we'll have to address a slightly more aggressive barrel cleaning, and there are also ways to clean up the cylinder face, which will get dirty and discolored over time.

For now stick to the basics, doesn't sound like you need to worry about all that yet.

[Remington788]

Ignore the videos on how to remove the side plate, for the time being.
No reason to open that can of worms.

[bearman]

is the rev. new or used? the q tips w/ wooden sticks helps clean the small areas. only have found them at Big Lots. suggestion, smithandwessonforum.com. a excellent forum/ http for info of your rev. if you have trouble finding the site IM me. several might come up. it has a blue front setup.

[Sparks]

Don't forget to push the extractor and get under there with the tooth brush.

[Just1more]

I forget all the small details of cleaning -- different for revolvers/semis and of course there is the oil to be added after the cleaning and the spots to put that on the various firearms.

I pawn that job off to the husband, although i need to watch and learn also.

[RLS]

I use a Bore Snake. Cleaning the cylinder, I run the Bore Snake almost completely through a chamber and then thread the bronze end through the next chamber. That system ensures I get each chamber even if the cylinder indexes a bit.




Rick

[cephas]

From S&W: http://smithandwesson.deepblue.com/s...uidelines.aspx

[johnydavid]

Remove cylinder or drop it. I'm not familiar with your S&W but run a wet patch through the muzzle with hopps 9 then a brass brush for that caliber several times then a dry patch, then a wet patch, then 2 dry patches or until dry. Use a tooth brush with hopps around cone and frame and anywhere blackness is present and clean cylinder with wet patch and a few dry. I never really brush cylinder unless it's really cruddy or you have extraction issues.
Once it's clean I only wet and dry patch bore and cylinder after shooting and clean blackness off around cylinder bore gap. Think "maintain not clean" Don't get brush crazy as you can over clean your gun. I shoot mine more than I clean them. With todays powders corrosion is not an issue just buildup that may cause jams and binds which takes a lot of shooting without cleaning.

[Dave_n]

I disagree a little with the previous poster. I always remove the cylinder and crane, then immerse them in "Ed's Red" for a couple of hours. Clean the bore from the muzzle with a brass muzzle protector, but if you want to remove leading, then use a Lewis Lead remover pulling from the breech to the muzzle. Then clean the cylinder. If a stainless gun then a brass "tooth brush" after soaking in "ER" will very easily lift any fouling.

I do this with S&Ws ranging in age from >100 to roughly 20 years old. Do not touch the side plate at all unless you know what you are doing. Dave_n