Kerosene?

[M. De Land]

On the black powder revolvers an action shield and packing the insides with hi temp wheel bearing grease is a really good option. It saves a lot of time during cleanup and is good for about a year if you are a regular shooter. Once a year dig the grease out, clean everything and repack it.

That idea I got from Mike on action shields is a good one and am going to employ it on the rest of my open frame guns. I don't care for how he attaches them with a cross cut in the hammer body at a stress point though much preferring a top hat rivet press fitted into a snug ,red Loc-tite filled hole. It stronger, neater and catches less debris than the cross cut method.

 

[45D]

Personally like a smooth, uninterrupted surface rather than a rivet in the middle.

Mike

 

[TNGhost]

Yes but when it's applied after the water has desolved the fouling it will lift any residue moisture where it can evaporate and leave a barrier to prevent oxidation/rust underneath.
I usually follow up with Gunzilla which is a vegetable CLP. Gunzilla will also desolve carbon fouling better than water. Cooked on Carbon fouling is the toughest of all fouling to remove even surpassing bullet jacket fouling.

True.

WD stands for "Water Displacing" as it was designed for that purpose

 

[D Yager]

That idea I got from Mike on action shields is a good one and am going to employ it on the rest of my open frame guns. I don't care for how he attaches them with a cross cut in the hammer body at a stress point though much preferring a top hat rivet press fitted into a snug ,red Loc-tite filled hole. It stronger, neater and catches less debris than the cross cut method.

I attach mine the same way Mike does. I don't like a rivit head poking up there getting the crap pounded out of it. It will eventually work harden and crack. When I install an action shield I fill the gap with JB weld to give it a seamless look.

 

[sussexmuzllodr]

Kerosene works well for my Modern .357 as it seems to cut through the burn rings and such.
But it,s smokeless so....

 

[stank]

Normal rubbing alcohol will displace water from your action. I never use hot water to clean my guns

 

[Greenjoytj]

I’m lucky to have a laundry tube with a 3’ hoses attached to the faucet outlet.
Hot tap water blasts out loose carbon fouling and dissolves potassium salt residues, that’s the main reason for using water to clean BP fouling to dissolve the salts. If no potassium salt were present in the gun powder then clean up would be the same as cleaning up after firing smokeless powder. Carbon is carbon no mater the source of it.

Squirting 99% pure alcohol with a syringe body into the trigger/action area within the frame works well to absorb water trapped in this area.
Alcohol absorbs water and holds it, that’s why your whiskey doesn’t separate into an alcohol/water emulsion.

I shake out the alcohol as best I can as I don’t have an airgun and compressor.
After the shake out I spray in an aerosol brake cleaner (outdoors), this is also shaken out but it evaporates fast.

I use my shop vac as a reverse air gun to accelerate the brake cleaner removal by suction aiding evaporation.

Aerosol spray gun oil, dispensed through the straw that plugs into the sprayer cans nozzle.
The oil is sprayed into the nooks and crannies and parts within the trigger/action area.
Excess spray oil is rolled around inside the allowed to drip out while other parts are being cleaned.

A film of bullet lube is always present sliming the outside surface metal so it gets hosed off first with hot water then cold to remove heat from the metal to halt flash rusting.

The new Dawn Platinum Plus Powerwash spray foam dish cleaning detergent works super to degrease or de slime the outside surface and other parts. A bore brush and weapons brush with the power wash foam cleans theses parts.

Rinse well, dry well.
Oil all the metal, grease the arbor and cylinder hole and nipple threads and cylinder threaded holes.

 

[M. De Land]

I attach mine the same way Mike does. I don't like a rivit head poking up there getting the crap pounded out of it. It will eventually work harden and crack. When I install an action shield I fill the gap with JB weld to give it a seamless

Apparently you've actually never tried a rivet as the head is never touched by anything let alone being pounded and there is no weakening cross cut left at a stress point in the hammer body.

 

[45D]

Too funny!! 1000+ shields out there and the failure rate is . . . 0.

Mike

 

[Smokerr]

Also, compressed air actually has less water in it by volume than ambient. If you've got enough vapor coming out of your compressor to leave behind visible water, you've gone too long before draining your tank, the compressor is way too small for the volume of air needed, or the compressor was designed horribly.

Funny, I built and repaired compressor plants. If you did not dry the air you got water in the pipes. We dried the air and still got water if the dryer was not good enough and the pipe temps got cool enough. Guess I don't know what I am talking about.

If flash rust shows up, then its already to depleted surface, it can't show up unless it is deplete, simple fact.

Its got zero impact on anything. Clean it off, oil it and you are good until the heat death of the Universe.

And I don't use an oven, I use a cartridge case dryer. Ovens are fine if you don't have wood handles involved, ergo the 47 Walker but its bad bad bad news for an ROA. The case dryer works just fine.

 

[M. De Land]

Too funny!! 1000+ shields out there and the failure rate is . . . 0.

Mike

Apparently not yet anyway and I wager we'll never hear about it if it happens.

 

[45D]

Apparently not yet anyway and I wager we'll never hear about it if it happens.

As someone else posted, a little "presumptive" don't you think?

No, unlike you, I'd actually tell. Besides, it'd be all over YouTube, Instagram, forums. . .

Mike

 

[KingOfKindling]

Funny, I built and repaired compressor plants. If you did not dry the air you got water in the pipes. We dried the air and still got water if the dryer was not good enough and the pipe temps got cool enough. Guess I don't know what I am talking about.

So you know exactly what I'm talking about and just want to muddy the waters. Great! Fun!

I mean it's fun for extending internet arguments but not for helping anyone out here.


You got water in the pipes because you were using an industrial amount of air. Not an issue for drying out a revolver frame. Unless you've got a tiny tank, it's not even likely to kick on when drying off the parts. You're not gonna be spraying water out of the hose on a well maintained residential or shop size compressor. If you are, the tank needs to be drained, it was plumbed wrong, or you're dealing with a very tiny compressor.

You're also choosing to ignore that the water that gets trapped in the air tank, and even the water that could condense in the line, means that the air coming out of the end of the hose is quite a bit drier than the air you're standing around breathing.

Do I even need to get into the fact that a residential/shop size compressor is probably a piston design, and if it kicks on while you're blowing stuff off, it also starts spraying oil vapor on the gun?

If flash rust shows up, then its already to depleted surface, it can't show up unless it is deplete, simple fact.

Its got zero impact on anything. Clean it off, oil it and you are good until the heat death of the Universe.

It most certainly has a definite impact on the finish. Every spot of rust that shows up corrodes underneath the bluing next to it, and it'l just be worse the next it happens. Every time you have to scrub it off, you thin the bluing. And if you don't remove it all, and it just disappears because you used an oily rag to wipe it, it'l still be there under the oil continuing to corrode the finish.

I mean some people like the worn look, but pretending you can let bluing rust over and over without consequence is just silly.

 

[D Yager]

Wow , you know as much about rivets as you do about open top pistols. So enlighten us all on how the that rivet isn't hitting the frame? Another question is how much stress is the hammer being put under that you think that its been weakened by cutting a slot in it?

 

[D Yager]

Last comment was for Mr DeLand.

 

[Ed C.]

I attach mine the same way Mike does. I don't like a rivit head poking up there getting the crap pounded out of it. It will eventually work harden and crack. When I install an action shield I fill the gap with JB weld to give it a seamless look.

I do about the same thing. Just notch the hammer and solder the shield in place. I have about zero concerns about the hammer being weakened.

 

[Ed C.]

So you know exactly what I'm talking about and just want to muddy the waters. Great! Fun!

I mean it's fun for extending internet arguments but not for helping anyone out here.


You got water in the pipes because you were using an industrial amount of air. Not an issue for drying out a revolver frame. Unless you've got a tiny tank, it's not even likely to kick on when drying off the parts. You're not gonna be spraying water out of the hose on a well maintained residential or shop size compressor. If you are, the tank needs to be drained, it was plumbed wrong, or you're dealing with a very tiny compressor.

You're also choosing to ignore that the water that gets trapped in the air tank, and even the water that could condense in the line, means that the air coming out of the end of the hose is quite a bit drier than the air you're standing around breathing.

Do I even need to get into the fact that a residential/shop size compressor is probably a piston design, and if it kicks on while you're blowing stuff off, it also starts spraying oil vapor on the gun?





It most certainly has a definite impact on the finish. Every spot of rust that shows up corrodes underneath the bluing next to it, and it'l just be worse the next it happens. Every time you have to scrub it off, you thin the bluing. And if you don't remove it all, and it just disappears because you used an oily rag to wipe it, it'l still be there under the oil continuing to corrode the finish.

I mean some people like the worn look, but pretending you can let bluing rust over and over without consequence is just silly.

I've found that if I clean with dawn and water, then rinse with a ballistol/water solution, blow dry and then oven dry I get no flash rust due to the ballistol film left behind. Works on muskets and revolvers.

 

[bpd303]

I clean with water (room temp) rinse with warm water, use canned air for computers to blow as much rinse water away then run dry patches through the bore & cylinder chambers on revolvers then run patches with Barricade and never have any rust, don't really like Ballistol but others do and that's their choice... If you ask 12 shooters how do they clean their guns, you will get 28 correct answers. As @Rifleman1776 always said, it's a do your own thing.

 

[Frontstuffer070]

As simple as it seems I never thought of doing it until I went and worked at PSA building unmentionables, them suckers went swimming is a drum of 5W30. Now I have a tub of moose milk with a sealed lid. I wash the revolver in the sink with Dawn and warm water (when I do a complete tear down and wash) rinse, shake it off, let it sit for a few as it will dry some, then I dunk the parts in the moose milk bath, pull it out, dry it off and lube as necessary. Works great.

 

[Coinneach]

I'm and old time gun mechanic/smith if you prefer the term and all the WD-40 does is lift the residue moisture from cracks and crevices where it can evaporate. It then in wiped off and the gun is oiled to prevent oxidation.
Another problem with WD-40 use is it will thin brown or blue finish on a barrel as it is also a penetrating oil. It took me a few years to figure out why the bluing on my hunting rifles was thinning out after wiping them down with WD-40.

Point taken, but here in the land of the Aussie, many of our blokes use WD40 as a body cologne before stepping out on Friday and Saturday nights; it drives the women nuts !