Cylinder rotation

A

AttackTurtle

New member
While with a friend, i noted his S&W cylinder, when spun, didnt really seem to stop. I have spun my Taurus a few times and the most rotations I have ever seen it complete are 3 before slowing to a quik stop. Im not looking for a spinny revolver, Im just worried something might be wrong. I do want to note that My gun is titanium although Im note sure the cylinder is as well. (It's a 651). I always keep my gun oiled useing tetra gun lub although now that I am reading the directions, I dont think I shake the bottle well before useing. I also notice heat seems to affect it. After a few hours in the car, my cylinder will not complete even one rotation. Any ideas?
 
all my wheelguns have had their actions tuned and their cylinders will spin forever. i had them done rigt after i bought them so i can't really compare stock vs. tuned. my old departmental issued smith m-15 seemed to have alot more drag to it.

i'd be more concerned about it's reaction to environmental temps
 
That is not a good sign. If it's clean, and that includes inside the spindle, it should spin freely.I assume you have opened the cylinder before spinning it? The same sort of spin can be had if you partially cock (halfway) on the trigger then it will ,or should,spin freely.What I would do is take the cylinder out and clean the spindle,especially at the back - be very careful that you don't drop out any washers (shims) that might be in there. There is absolutely no good reason why it shouldn't spin freely - Maybe a good squirt with 'Gunk Out' will do it. All you can do is play with it and fiddle and try out some approaches - luckily it is not rocket science and when you get it to go right the feeling of satisfaction will be enough reward.
 
I will pose one question here

And please dont take offense, have you ever closed the gun hollowoodstupid way.
You know gun in right hand cylinder open and snap the wrist and slam the cylinder closed?
If you havent Good for you.
If you have, Thats your possible problem.
Had a man come into our gun store bout a year ago, with a Smith MOD 27 in five inch, one of the finest guns smith ever built. Same problem.
Brought it to us and asked if we could fix it or send it back to smith. This was a gun built in the 60's, wanted smith to fix for free a defective gun. (yes some people are that stupid)
The first thing he does is pull it out of the small case he brought it in and opened the cylinder to show it was empty and then did the hollywoodstupid close. slamed it so hard the first time diddnt lock and had to do it again.
He made a gunsmith very happy fixing that bent out of alighn gun.
 
Nope, Not once. Even when I didn't know much about guns, (before I bought mine) I wouldnt have slung the action closed. Ill have to play with it tonight and go from there. Thanks for your suggestions all.
 
9mmepiphany said''

all my wheelguns have had their actions tuned and their cylinders will spin forever. i had them done rigt after i bought them so i can't really compare stock vs. tuned. my old departmental issued smith m-15 seemed to have alot more drag to it.

i'd be more concerned about it's reaction to environmental temps
Click to expand...

Does everyone here have their action tuned? Is this a gunsmith issue? Im pretty good about cleaning my weapon (probably a bit of overcleanning as is common to begginers) but other than drag, it does spin freely. Personally, I feel the reaction to environmental temps is lubrication related.

I have never soaked the cylinder in a solvent. Does anybody here do this/might this help?
 
not everyone does, i just got spoiled early :p

you might be lucky and i just might be packed/gunked up lube...at least it is better than an out of alignment crane. :(

you could soak the cylinder/crane assembly, but you'd still need to get the gunk out. maybe a soak to loosen it and then the spray with the carb cleaner to blast it all out.

i had an uncle whose maintence consisted of spraying, both inside and out, with WD-40. it was hard to argue with him...after all he taugt me to shoot over my parents objections...since all his guns looked and functioned great.
 
If you don't know how then you can just carry the cylinder/yoke assembly to a gunsmith to have him clean and polish it. It could just be powder residue, unburnt powder, a mixture of residue and lube, or possibly a burr.
 
Wd-40

Nothing against WD-40, I use alot of it...but not for guns unless I need a temporay coating to protect "in the white" steel.

I have seen several pistols (Revolvers and Semi-Auto 1911) that stopped functioning after having WD-40 applied and left in that condition for several years. I personally had a S&W J Frame M60 that would NOT fire after two years in storage with lots of WD-40 in/on it. The oil had congealed over time.

Same thing may happen with other oils too. I am careful to "wipe down" guns with oil and lubricate carefully.

BTW; in the NW we often over-oil guns to reduce rust, but in some climates (Gunsite in Paulden, AZ) the dust, sand would clog 1911's, that we took with us, and we learned to avoid too much oil in that environment. Probably true over in the "Sand Box" right now.
 
Tuning means improving the operation. Usually best done by a gunsmith if you don't have the gear and the experience. Basically it's a slick-up of the trigger and related moving parts,usually by polishing any rough spots off. At the same time the cylinder gap can be checked and set to optimum space (around 3-4 thou). The forcing cone should be reamed out to about 18deg and the Crown should be re-polished. The spring set can also be altered or changed to suit what you are using it for- mostly this means softening the pull and strike. I think that's about it - Is there anything I forgot?
 
If the cylinder had drag, it's may be because the ejector rod is bend to some degree. If you have the jig and a babbit bar, it can be straightened.

WD40 should NOT be used on firearms as it turns to gum, then the cleaning fum begins. Use a good lubricant that is made for firearms.

BHP9
 
tight ejector rods..

Taurus comes from the factory with tight ejector rods.

After a few hundred rounds, the cylinder on my M66 7-shot "loosened" up so that it would spin...and spin...and spin....

Also, I use CLP for lube. Rem oil works quite nice as well...but CLP tends to make things a bit "slicker".

Give your revolver a good cleaning and go after it with an airgun to blow out any particles. Then lube it up good and check it out.

Regards,

-Warlock
 
Does anybody here use Grease instead of Oil?? I have been useing Oil and I read on another thread that oil can evaporate in heat. I leave this gun in my car 6 hours a day and it gets Hot.
 
The grease can melt depending on it's make-up.
If you are worried about the oil evaporating under heat then do you have to put oil in that same car before you drive away?
 


There is something about Ti that makes it a little grabby. It doesn't polish well and when fit to steel, even properly lubed surfaces do not have as low a friction as steel on steel. The other thing to consider is mass. If you spin an empty Ti cylinder, there is almost no mass to keep it spinning.

My Ti Tracker does the same thing.



-tINY

 
Thanks Tiny. I had not heard of this contributed to the metal.

as for evaporating oil. Your car is for the most part a closed system although burning off oil is normal. I just cant get away from the fact that the rotation of the cylinder does change with temperature. It doesnt affect the firearm in a negative way but I do want to understand it.
 
tINY's point is a good one .I would suggest going to a gunshop and try spinning some other titanium revolver cylinders to see if, in fact, the nature of the material is causing the "drag". If others do it, I wouldn't be concerned.
Regarding the use of WD-40 on firearms, I learned the hard way that using it on the "internals" of a gun in time will result in a tough, hard to remove, almost "shellaced" coating of gunk. If this "gunk" ends up on moving parts, the parts end up not moving. However, I've had good luck using WD-40 on the outside of a firearm as a rust preventitive.
 
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