Getting 38 special fouling out of 357 chambers

W

Willie Lowman

New member
I just picked up a 4" 686. The previous owner had used it to exclusively shoot .38 specials. there are heavy rings of fowling in the chambers.

What's the consensus on the best way to get rid of it. I have brushed the chambers by hand with a 357 brush. It knocked some of the crud out but a lot remains.

I was thinking about chucking a cleaning rod into a drill and just going to town with a 357 or .40 brush and some solvent.

Is this the best option or is there a better way?
 
Give the cylinder a good long soaking in a penetrating type solvent or Ed's Red Bore Solvent (do a search on "Ed's Red Bore Solvent recipe" you can mix up a gallon with $20 worth of ingredients from wall mart .
The secrete is the long soak ...it gives the solvent time to get up under the crud ...
then go after it with drill or elbow grease . Two scrubbings and two long soaks beat trying to power brush it all out in one pass .
Keep it clean and you will never have the " I'm too lazy to clean my gun" problem .
People who wont clean their firearms were not raised by my Daddy ... you didn't eat supper or go to bed untill your gun was cleaned and passed his critical eye ... but honestly ... I'm glad he taught me to keep my firearms clean and in good order ...
It's a good habit to have .
Gary
 
What has worked the best for me is to use 35 cal "rifle" brass cleaning brushes. They are large enough and long enough to give the chambers a good scrubbing. After soaking the cylinder as recommended above give them a good scrub with a quality .358" brass brush.

I keep on using the larger diameter brushes for the chambers even if I don't shoot a lot of 38 Specials in a Magnum revolver. I prefer to shoot Specials in guns chambered for the 38 Special cartridge.

YMMV,
Dave
 
I just use a nickel plated .357 case that’s been fired but unsized, I sharpen the mouth using a chamfering tool and shove it in the cylinder so it scrapes the carbon out. Just make sure it’s as long a case as you can find. It also helps to soak the carbon ahead of time, I like Carbon Killer.
 
The fastest, simplest, safest, easiest way is to buy some bronze chamber brushes from Brownell's.

These are larger then a bore brush and made of a much stiffer bristle.
Usually, no matter how fouled, one pass will clean the chamber completely.
These work far better then using a larger caliber bore brush, and you waste no time setting up and spinning a brush with a drill or soaking the chambers for a period of time.

My method is to push the brush in until about 1/3rd of it is sticking out the front of the cylinder, then rotate the brush 2-3 turns, push all the way through, then pull it back out...... Clean...right now.
Use the right tool for the job.

Buy BRONZE, not stainless brushes which can damage the chambers...........

https://www.brownells.com/gun-clean...ze-rifle-pistol-chamber-brushes-prod1287.aspx
 
To add to what has already been said; patience really is a virtue. And once the cylinders are clean, regularly clean after use.
 
I take a .357 case that has been fired in the revolver… stout or factory load.

(Actually, you may find that some cylinders are slightly larger or smaller. Pick the largest diameter case.)

Make a scraping tool the diameter of your chambers:
Punch out the spent primer without resizing.

Hot-glue or epoxy a stick poking through the primer pocket. Drill a hole for your stick. I like a bamboo shush kabob skewer.

Let your cylinder soak well in a gun cleaning solvent. Let it sit.

Poke your new chamber cleaning tool in and out, scraping the .38 ring off. Don’t spin it much- push/pull.

After a rough pass with just solvent, add abrasive paste such as buffing compound or rifle lead cleaning stuff. Push in/out again. Spin the tool a little bit.

You can always rub more carbon away, it’s hard to rub steel back on.
 
I use a brush and some Shooter's Choice. If things are really nasty, a brush and cordless drill do the job quickly - In use the same method for shotgun barrels and choke tubes.
 
Give the cylinder a good long soaking in a penetrating type solvent
Click to expand...

This works ^^.

But you have to remove the ejector rod (assuming you know how to remove the cylinder crane from the frame). Put the rod in a vice with something around it to protect it from scratching, then unscrew it by grabbing the cylinder. These are LEFT-HAND THREADS.

Then place the cylinder with the side toward the barrel breech down in a bath of solvent deep enough to submerge the fouling. A day or two should do it.

I think just about any penetrating solvent would work. I'd just use good ol' Hoppes #9; or Kroil.

stinkypete's method would likely work too. No doubt it's quicker, but I doubt it would be quite as thorough.
 
We just had a thread somewhere on this the other day. If I remember right it was determined that a lightly flared piece of 357 mag brass, possibly tapered with a counter sink bit. push it in to scrape put the ring. hit the ejector to remove.
 
I was thinking about chucking a cleaning rod into a drill and just going to town with a 357 or .40 brush and some solvent.
Click to expand...
Yep, it'll work, but may take some time for heavy build ups of lead/bullet lube/powder fouling etc.

I use an ALL COPPER CHORE BOY kitchen scrub...ALL COPPER...impossible to find here abouts, but Amazon carried an eight-pack with a two day delivery. I cut them as needed, wrap around an old bore brush and the lead's gone in a half dozen passes, give or take.

Best Regards, Rod
 
I've always just used a stiff bronze rifle brush, and I've never had any problems with .357 ammo not fully seating.
 
Shadow9mm said:
We just had a thread somewhere on this the other day. If I remember right it was determined that a lightly flared piece of 357 mag brass, possibly tapered with a counter sink bit. push it in to scrape put the ring. hit the ejector to remove.
Click to expand...
That's what I would suggest.

Put just a bit of a bell on a .357Mag case mouth and use it for a scraper.

I'd probably also run a patch wet with MPro7 or Hoppes Elite through each chamber and let it sit for awhile before using the scraper case.

You may have to reflare the case a time or two if there are really heavy fouling rings.
 
A. Buddy gave me his old 586 to get the ring out. It was impressive. Like somebody welded a ring in there. (He shot thousands of .38’s out of it.

I did the flared .357 case a few times. Didn’t get it.

I used a .410 bronze brush. Soaked in Hoppes chucked in in a cordless drill and just ran it slow. Kept adding Hoppes. It looked like used motor oil pouring out. But, it finally got it.

That ring is lead (soft) and carbon (hard). Let’s it build up long enough, it tough.

On a stainless gun, I’d use the Lead Away cloth wrapped around a worn brush.
 
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Yikes! I understand that some ranges demand you purchase their ammo, but not mine.
There is no reason at all that prevents me from loading .38 loads in .357 cases or .44 special in .44 magnum loads and avoid the problem. .32 Long in .32 H&R (or .327 but I don’t have one) too.

Why load down? After the stage of “how much recoil can I endure” (it was fun!) I now like easy shooting loads.
I had no idea it could build up that heavy!
 
I've never had it get that bad either--but I confess that even with the relatively light buildups I was getting I finally got tired of cleaning it out and went to shooting only .357Mag ammo through my .357Mag guns.
 
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