Black marks on cylinder

I've seen a photo that indicates obsessional polishing on my screen, but regardless of your assumptions of competence among visible posters I also take into consideration the non-visible lurkers who may read, but not participate.

Polish the livin' spit outa your guns if you can't live with carbon rings, but it's unnecessary time & labor that most of us won't bother with.
The guns don't need it, and that end of the cylinder faces away from me when the gun's in my hand, so those rings are only viewable during cleaning.
They don't leap out at me & they offend mine eye not in the slightest. :)
Denis
 
Be aware that Lead Away, Simichrome, Flitz, Mother's, etc. are ALL abrasive.
Each time you use them, you are actually removing a minute amount of metal from the front of your cylinder.
How much you remove depends on the abrasive, pressure, and frequency of use.
Click to expand...
Yep...those cylinder mouths, along with the barrel crown are the first things to go that affect accuracy. I'd not tinker with either,...it's a gun.

"Pristine" guns are bit like "Pristine" Harleys, what's the point, excessive cleaning regimens don't affect reliability, and may in time ruin accuracy.

RF
 
Some people like to thoroughly clean their handguns. If you want to leave the rings on your gun, well....it's your gun, do whatever you want with it.

I usually only clean off the front of the cylinder when I'm doing end of season cleaning or it hasn't been cleaned in a while.

As far as things being "pristine"......if you are going to do something, do it right. If you want to do things 95% of the way, whether it's cleaning your gun, washing your car or painting your house, have fun.
 
In my opinion, a cylinder face that has been scratched clean with a scotchbrite pad ain't "doing it right". Nor does it serve any other purpose than to satisfy the owner's compulsions.
 
The reason most of us clean guns is to maintain function and reduce corrosion.
Excessive polishing on the cylinder face to continually remove every last trace of those rings does neither.

Denis
 
This is such a weird discussion. I can imagine someone walking into anothers home and chastising the home owner for keeping the house to clean.
 
This is such a weird discussion. I can imagine someone walking into anothers home and chastising the home owner for keeping the house to clean.
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Your comment misses the point. It is more like someone walking into another's home and chastising the homeowner for using a power sander with 80 grit to "polish" his finished hardwood floors. The chastiser would be negligent if he did not explain what results would be inevitable from such excesses.
 
Your right but the conversation turned to "stop trying to get the gunk off your gun" period
Thats where it got weird.
 
Quote:
This is such a weird discussion. I can imagine someone walking into anothers home and chastising the home owner for keeping the house to clean.

Except that we were asked.
Click to expand...

Weird indeed, Chainsaw. What the op "asked" for was simply, "How can I get the burnt powder residue off the barrel side of the cylinder? What can anyone recommend?" Well-intended and responsible asked-for recommendations were met with a crusade of "how to keep from destroying your gun from wrong-headed cleaning techniques" when no such injudicious procedures were even hinted at. Some people apparently believe that everyone else is ignorant and need to be "educated".

It's my home. I like a clean home (gun). I know how to care for it. If, as Steve in PA noted, "...you want to leave the rings on your gun, well...it's your gun, do whatever you want with it." I, for one, would not presume to chastise anyone for their perceived cleaning "negligence". That's entirely their business and not mine to insert my nose in to satisfy a compulsive and obsessive need to criticize and educate.
 
It's been almost a month now. I'm sure the OP has his answer to a very simple question and has tried one or more of the ideas. I'm also pretty sure he didn't envision the amount of "discussion" his question would evoke - neither would I have.

Closed.
 
OK, I'm reopening this because I think a few things need to be addressed very directly, and very forthrightly.

What's NOT going to happen in this thread is a continuation of the intra-personal snark that was evident before.

If anyone does, I will shut you down so quickly that your head will spin.


First point.

Yes, some people do like to clean the carbon fouling off their guns. That is their choice, because it's their gun. If you don't agree, that's fine. That's your choice to exercise on YOUR guns, and just because someone disagrees with you isn't cause for angst and/or ennui.


Second point.

Yes, many of the polishing products on the market are abrasive. They contain very fine diatomaceous earth or abrasives that are very similar in hardness and ability to polish.

Material hardness is measured by the Mohs scale.

On the standard scale a diamond is 10 (VERY hard), and talc is 1 (VERY soft).

Diatomaceous earth, depending on the screen size, the place of origin, etc., falls between 1 and 1.5 on the Mohs scale.

Steel, on the other hand, is harder. A LOT harder. Steel is a catch-all term for materials with many different properties, but most scales show steel falling between 5 and 8.5 on the Mohs scale.

Given that the more that is asked of steel generally the harder it is, I'd say gun steel, of which a LOT is asked, is pushing the higher end of the range, at least a 7.0, if not harder for something like a cylinder.

So, does anyone really think that they're going to remove an appreciable amount of metal from the face of a cylinder simply by scrubbing it with a mild abrasive to remove carbon fouling?

If you're actually worried about that, you must be absolutely terrified to pull the trigger on your revolver. Or, maybe not.

After all, depending on the chambering, a revolver round has a flame temperature well in excess of 1,000 degrees F and working pressures upwards 40,000 PSI, all with the added abrasiveness of the burning smokeless propellant at high pressure and speed as it slams into the forcing cone and the face of the cylinder.

Given that handguns can stand up to literally thousands of rounds of such treatment without showing any appreciable wear, I really wonder how long and how hard someone would have to rub their revolver with a Mohs hardness 1.5 abrasive to have it show up at all.



Third point(s), and the question and answer, or statement and rejoinder, portion of our show...

"The obsession with carbon rings is ruining your guns!"

The claim of these polishes "ruining" guns is interesting.

In fact, it's an extraordinary claim.

And, as we all have heard, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

So, Bill, PROVE that occasionally scrubbing the carbon ring off the face of the cylinder is ruining the gun more and/or faster than actually shooting it.


And damage from over-polishing to the cylinder face & bluing can also be avoided.

DPris, there have been numerous warnings against using these polishes on blued guns. That's a nonstarter.

But, again, we're left with the question of what constitutes "over-polishing," of the kind that leads to damage.

How many swipes of the cloth does it take to irreparably damage a gun? How does that compare to firing, say, 100 rounds a week for a year?

Where is the quantifiable analysis of which process causes more damage? I'd be very interested in reading hard facts on the subject, as opposed to suppositions.


"Steve- There is already noticeable wear to your cylinder. Compare it to a new one and you'll see.

Given that the pictures you reference are not exactly clear (lots of flare off the face of the cylinder), I'd say it's impossible to sustain the claim that the cylinder is worn. There's not enough detail, but to me each of those cylinder mouths appears to be champfered, not worn. I know that's a pretty common gunsmith mod to Ruger revolvers because their cylinder holes tend to be pretty ragged from the factory. Several of my friends who own Ruger revolvers have either done so themselves, or have had the chamber mouths relieved.

What's REALLY impossible to sustain is the supposition that any damage on the face of the cylinder is due solely to polishing with a mild abrasive cleaner.

Steve gives no indication as to how much he has fired that gun, how often he has cleaned the carbon rings from it, how hard he polishes, how long, etc. etc. etc.

Claiming that the cylinder is damaged, with the implication that it's damaged due ONLY to an indeterminate amount of polishing with a mild abrasive is a complete non starter without a lot more information.

To try to make that claim based on a fuzzy picture and no other information is irresponsible.


"The gun cleaning mania shows an underlying disconnect with, and fear of, the elements of fire and brimstone that are the physical and spiritual basis of the non-socially subjugated animus of the firearm."

Best line in the entire dang thread, 5thShock. And it went right over the heads of everyone snarking back and forth.


"You anal retentive types are ruining your guns because you can't leave well enough alone."

At what point does a gun become ruined from polishing? Please quantify.

Also, compare with the number of rounds that have to be fired through it in order for it to reach the state of ruined.


"Green Scotchbrite or "scrubby pads" are particularly abrasive.

I'll agree with this statement. Scotchbrite Green pads are supposedly about 600 grit (http://www.woodcentral.com/woodwork...08/md/read/id/178012/sbj/scotchbrite-ratings/)

The problem is, no where can I find any indication at all WHAT the abrasive is. 3M says only that it's "abrasive powder," and that can mean anything from talc at 1 on the Mohs scale to diamond dust at 10.

I agree. Keep Scotchbrite pads away from your guns.


"Abrasion in critical areas is not good."

That's an overarching statement that can be easily shown to be absolutely false.

The application of abrasives on the critical trigger sear surfaces can turn a horrible trigger pull into a crisp, precise delight.

The application of abrasives to the inside of a rifle barrel -- aka lapping, or even fire lapping -- can markedly improve accuracy and make it easier to clean.

Obviously not every application of abrasives to "critical areas" is a bad thing.

Then we have to determine what constitutes a "critical area."

Is a cylinder face really a critical area? I think that's a stretch that's really hard to make, given that it doesn't, and shouldn't, touch other parts of the gun and it's hanging out in air about 80% of the time.



OK, enough is enough.

Look, folks. If you don't want to clean your revolvers with these mild abrasives, then don't.

But please do NOT go all chicken little sky is falling and you're RUINING YOUR GUN FOREVER!!!!!! on anyone who does.

Without any proof whatsoever you've somehow arrived at the conclusion that all abrasives are the same and all abrasives are bad, and that even minimal use is going to melt your gun away in your hand.

As I said above, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

So, to those in "Club Ruination!", you need to come up with some hard, empirical numbers on just how much wear these MILD abrasives cause and how much use would be required to cause verifiable damage to a firearm.

Otherwise, stop belaboring the point, stop making unbacked claims, and calm down, and try and remember just how well your gun holds up to regular shooting.


One last thing. As I said above, anyone who engages in snark at or with another member here wins a 5-day vacation.
 
The "substance A is harder than substance B, therefore substance A should resist all efforts applied with substance B" argument is tired and short-sighted. Rocks are harder than water but something made those rocks at the bottom of a creek round. A diamond is harder than a hammer but we all know what effect smacking one would have. :rolleyes:

It is evident to me and the resident professional metal polisher that Steve's cylinder has rounded off edges.

Gunsmiths use green scotchbrite pads to refinish stainless guns because they are abrasive, they do remove steel. That is a quantifiable fact.

I don't care what people do to their own guns but those asking these questions should go into it with their eyes open.
 
Mike,
Just a final note here:
I don't believe any of my comments indicated the gun would be destroyed by over-polishing, nor do I think those comments were snarky.

After participation in several gun forums for many years, I don't automatically assume that a given poster has a background sufficient to understand what's involved in his or her question, or to necessarily understand a straight answer to the question.

I've seen many posters with 500 or so posts behind 'em ask questions that indicate what I consider a surprising lack of knowledge given a long enough presence on a gun forum to hopefully already have a broader foundation.

I was not insulting the original poster or anybody else, and I'm only here now because you address me by name. I was done with it otherwise.

I was, as I said, attempting to educate.
A percentage of new gun owners seem to think those rings HAVE to be removed, as part of a thorough cleaning regimen.

I was saying they don't, if he was under the mistaken assumption that they do.
And that polishing them off each & every time the gun's fired is nothing more than a cosmetic compulsion, which he's perfectly free to indulge on his own property.

My comments were not only directed at him, but at any new-to-guns lurkers reading this thread who may be under the same erroneous perception that the carbon rings MUST be removed entirely.
Denis
 
"The "substance A is harder than substance B, therefore substance A should resist all efforts applied with substance B" argument is tired and short-sighted."

First, that was an argument that was made only by you, by an imperfect reading of my post.

I never claimed that a substance that is appreciably harder than another substance would resist all efforts. Those are your words, and your reading into my comments what you want to see.

Using the flawed application of logic that has been evident in this thread, it would only go to reason that a jacketed bullet, which would have a Mohs hardness of roughly 3 to 3.5 (bronze/gilding metal), would quickly destroy even the best steel gun barrel, hardness of maybe 7 or so.

Yet we know that gun barrels can last for many tens of thousands of rounds firing jacketed bullets without appreciable wear.

Hell, we know that military rifles will last for tens of thousands of rounds firing mild-steel jacketed bullets, which have a hardness in the 5 range, FAR harder than bronze/gilding metal jackets.

Are we then to believe that the limited application of a substance that is several factors LESS hard than bronze is going to have and immediate, and destructive, effect on the same kind of steel that can resist thousands of high pressure, high temperature cartridges?

You're going to have to explain how that's going to work, because it certainly doesn't mesh with any of the physical materials sciences courses I've taken, so I say once again... extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. So trot it out, or bow out.


"Rocks are harder than water but something made those rocks at the bottom of a creek round."

Yes. Those rocks were MOVED by water, causing them to grind against other rocks of a similar hardness. That is the mechanism of wear, not the water. That's how the rock tumbler you had as a kid worked.

Water was only the transport mechanism, it was NOT the direct cause of the wear.

Depending on the type of rock (primarily limestone, marble, dolomite, etc.), water can erode it through the action of acids in the water.

You can, however, pour water on quartz for many thousands of years without causing appreciable wear.

"A diamond is harder than a hammer but we all know what effect smacking one would have."

And the diamond will scratch the living hell out of the hardened steel of the hammer. No matter what, though, your statement is a false analogy. This thread is about abrasive wear. Smacking a diamond with a hammer is NOT abrasive wear, it's force impact. So unless you're beating the crap out of your cylinder with a lead away cloth, it was ridiculous that you'd even bring that up.
 
Another example of the durability of guns...

Glass bead blasting. This is becoming more and more popular, especially with stainless steel, as a means of applying a low luster finish.

Glass, being composed of primarily slicate, has a Mohs hardness of 5.5, yet gunsmiths around the world fearlessly expose firearms to glass beads propelled a high velocity.

The prevailing theory in this thread would posit that the gun would be destroyed in short order, the steel eroded away to nothing.

I'll have to remember that the next time I spend 20 or so minutes bead blasting decorative stainless steel fittings, which are softer than the stainless steel used in firearms, but which seem to hold up just fine, and without appreciable loss of mass.
 
Mike- it's obvious you have your mind made up- but I'll have my say.
Polishing a flat surface with sharp corners with an abrasive will eventually wear those sharp corners away, simply because those corners have an apex. As the apex is worn down, wear at the tip lessens.

Lead Away cloths will remove bluing in one or two LIGHT uses, so how much stainless does it remove-especially when a neophyte uses excessive pressure with it? Polishes like Simichrome and Flitz use aluminum oxide, which is much harder than steel. Moderation is the key to most things. Unfortunately, some people have no idea what moderation is.

Your example of bead blasting is a case in point- done once, carefully, it produces a nice finish with minimal wear. But keep bead blasting a sharp edge and see how long it takes to blunt that edge.

Re: water- all I can say is Grand Canyon. Why is water known as the "universal solvent?"

Re: gun barrels- they DO eventually wear out, don't they?

People come to these forums to ask questions and get answers. As you well know, anyone here can answer- correct or not. I didn't say that an occasional cleaning with a mild abrasive was harmful. I said that REPEATED cleaning can cause damage-especially by people who have no mechanical concept of what they are doing. Scotchbrite pads are an example. I can assure you that most of them will cut the hardest steel very quickly. One use by a ham-handed amateur could irreparably damage a cylinder face. The gun will still shoot, of course.

When the dentist cleans your teeth, the abrasives used are much harsher than your toothpaste. Used every day those abrasives/methods would have your teeth as nubs within the year.

Uncontrolled abrasion in critical areas is not good-how's that? The sharp edges of a cylinder face are, in my opinion, critical areas. If you round them, the gun will still shoot, but with much more blast from the area.

Yes- guns are made to use a controlled explosion to drive a piece of metal down the barrel. It's pretty violent stuff, and they do eventually wear out. Adding unnecessary wear should be kept to a minimum.

My question to you Mike, is "Do you polish your cylinder faces?" Honest answer, please.
 
By the way, Mike- It seems that I come off as a terse horse's arse. I'm not. I come here to offer advice (and get advice) about things that I generally have more experience in than most people.
I hope my comments are accepted in that light.
 
The fact is, you can scrub s/s cylinder faces with Lead Away cloths after almost anybody's number of average shootings in a lifetime and not see any appreciable loss of metal. I can only imagine how many strokes it would take for a hand-applied cloth, even embedded with a light "abrasive", to actually remove metal from steel strong enough to "...resist thousands of high temperature, high pressure cartridges." Actually, I can't imagine it.
 
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