what to use for cleaning cylinders

[litl rooster]

 I have been shooting 50 to a 100 rounds a week from my Vaqueros. When I get home I disassemble and clean. Several types wire brushes patches and mops. I spray all the parts  down with Outers nitro bore cleaner first.  Clean patches come back when I clean, however I notice in the cylinders a ring of lead foulings. Is there something I am not using or doing right? Should I be doing something  different?  I am shooting the cowboy 2oo grain smokeless loads from Cabela's. Should I change Ammo?

advice please

[Foothills Drifter]

Howdy......
I have the same problem as do many others I'm sure. I use a 'Lewis Lead Remover' at the present time,however, I am lookin for more options!

Good shootin......
Vern...

[Silver Creek Slim]

Use Black Powder, no leading.  When I shoot "smokeless" powder, I use the Lewis Lead Remover.

Slim

[Micheal Fortune]

I use the cleaning rod and 0000 steel wool.  Won't harm the finish, great for the bore too. 

But if your actually having a lead problem it might have more to do with your cylinder vs bullet size or even the type of lube you are using.

Is that vague?  Well it's about all I can scratch me head about for right now. 

[litl rooster]

Thanks all... Will try to find some Lewis's lead remover this weekend.. When we make the trip  to the City.

[Mustang Gregg]

We fire all .44 Specials in the K-Rugers (.44 Mag cylinder chamberin'). So we end up wit' nasty lead rings at the mouth area.
We pull out all of the cylinders & soak 'em in a vat of Hoppes #9 overnight.  These are ALL K-guns, mind ya...So we ain't lost no bluin' from it.
I have all of our cylinders numbered at the back ends wit' the last 2 digits of the revolver S/N.  So no mixups.
Then I have some M-60 LMG (7.62 NATO chamber brushes) that works as a .44/.45 bronze brush.  But it is more tapered.  I spin it in each hole with a cordless drill.  Then rinse with HOT water.  Lube lightly while still warm wit' LSA.  Reassemble.
works good with APP (our favorite FFFg BP sub) & Win 231 equally well.

MG & CJ

[litl rooster]

  Had to work this past weekend, both  S days.  This time of year cattle need more feed,and so do my ponies. My deputy (my wife is) and I Drove down to Fredrickburg stop at a better Gun Shop and looked for some Lewis Lead remover. She found a nice used Stainless Vaquero .45, price was right so It's at home here. Went on down to Gander Mountain, neither place had any Lewis's, both had Shooters choice. I used it Sunday evening after we did some practice. It was better than what I had been doing, call me anal, I still wasn't satisfied, so will try the 0000 now. Just wanted to thank all you Pards agains.

[Virginia Gentleman]

Instead of the fine steel wool, try Chore Boy copper scouring pads wrapped around an old bore brush with your favorite solvent and see if that works.  It has for me when the leading gets excessive.

[Sam Perfye]

Rooster, Brownell's Inc. carries the Lewis Lead remover. Great service, good prices, and very supportive of CAS. They even have a cowboy catalog. Hope this helps.

[Whiskey Hayes]

Rooster

The Lewis Lead Remover isn't a solvent.  It is a caliber specific tool that uses a brass screen cleaning patch.  It works very well on the forcing cone and barrel.  I'm not that impressed with it in the cylinder chambers that develop a lead ring right at the throat.  The chamber throat begins to compress the brass screen and it just rides right over the lead ring.  A little Kroil oil to loosen the lead followed by a brass brush chucked in a drill has worked the best for me.  The best solution is to eliminate the cause of the leading at the throat entrance.

Leading at the entrance of the chamber throat is caused by mismatched bullet diameter and throat diameter.  You need to use a bullet that matches your chamber throats or have your throats reamed to match the bullet you want to use.  It would be a good idea to check your barrel bore also to get everything to match.  When I got all the diameters matching I now go 10,000 to 12,000 rounds between cleanings with very little lead build up.

Whiskey

[Big John Denny]

Rooster, when shooting shorter cartridges in a cylinder lead and powder buildup doeas occur. I've had good luck with using a larger bore brush, because the cylinder is normally larger then the bore of the barrel, and mounting it in my hand drill. Just put it on low to start, then on high. Use with a good solvent, I use old #9, and it works for me.

[Evil Roy Slade]

I shoot 38's in guns chambered for 357.  I also get that little ring.  I pull the cylinders and let them soak in Hoppe's #9 for two or three days and use a brush to clear the carbon.  It comes out real easy after 3 days.  I also have blued guns and haven't had a problem.  I understand that nickeled guns will lose their finish if you let them soak.

[Driftwood Johnson]

When you fire a cartridge there is a moment in time when the powder is starting to burn efficiently and building gas pressure, but the pressure has not built up enough yet to force the bullet out of the cartidge case. As the bullet begins to move, the exact moment it emerges from the case high pressure gas blasts out of the crack between the case mouth and the bottom of the bullet. This gas is blasted against the surrounding chamber walls, and because the gap it is leaking out through is so tiny, the full gas pressure gets exerted on a very small cross section of the chamber. With a lead bullet, the gas is hot enough to have vaporized a little bit of the lead off of the bullet base, and that vaporized lead, along with carbon and other exhaust products gets deposited in a ring right at the case mouth. This ring of lead and carbon is most noticable in the straight section of chambers like 357 Mag, or 44 Mag or even 45 Colt, where shorter cartridges, like 38 Sp, or 44 Sp or 45 Schofield are being fired. But it exists in all chambers. It is just not as noticable on the tapered section of a chamber, for instance the tapered section of 45 Colt where the case mouth sits. But it is there.

I get that ring in all my Smokeless revolvers, Single Action and Doubel Action, regardless of caliber. When I was shooting Smokeless in CAS I spent the majority of my cleaning time squinting up at a bright ceiling light through all 12 chambers (2 pistols), painstakingly picking off the lead with a sharp pointed pair of tweezers. I wasn't hurting anything, the steel in the cylinders is at least as hard as the tweezers. The tweezers were much harder than the lead, and would scrape off shiny shards of lead. I found methods such as bore brushes, bore brushes in electric drills, pentrating fluids, and Lewis Lead Removers to be basically useless for removing ALL the lead and bringing the surfaces of my chambers back down to the steel. The only thing that really worked was the chisel action of a tool like the tweezers and a lot of squinting and sore cramped fingers.

The only other thing that worked well, and was easier on the fingers was a Lead Removing Reamer made by Clymer. You have to be very, very careful when using one of these reamers. It will reshape your chamber if you are not carefull. The Lead Removing Reamer is designed to SAAMI specs of whatever caliber it is made for. It is NOT to be used with power tools. It is to be carefully inserted in each chamber and slowy turned by hand with the help of a small drill chuck or tap handle. At the front there is a pilot that rests on the chambe throat to keep it lined up. If one uses it carefully it will cut away the soft lead that is standing above the surface of the steel. If one pushes too hard or is too aggresive, it will cut into the steel. I repeat. DO NOT use the Lead Removing Reamer with power tools. Ultimately, even the Clymer Reamer let me down, because of the different specs chambers are cut too. It worked like a charm on my Colt cylinders, shaving the lead away clean as a whistle, right down to the steel. But my Ruger chambers were just enough oversize that it did not do anything in them. The lead was still there because it was deposited on the chamber walls about .001 or .002 away from the cutter.

Finally I just said the hell with it and left the damn lead in there. It doesn't hurt anything. For those who are shooting shorter cases in their chambers, like 38 SP in 357 Mag, the ring can build up thick enough to cause interference when trying to chamber the longer rounds. A bore brush will take care of enough lead to be able to chamber the longer rounds. When shootinng 45 Colt in my revovlers, I just left the damn lead in there. It was just too much trouble to remove, and didn't really hurt anythin anyway. No, I didn't find any rust.

For some wonderful reason, when shooting Black Powder, lead does not get deposited at all. After a few matches of BP, all the lead rings had magically dissapeared, since I don't shoot Smokeless anymore in CAS, they have not returned.

[1Riot1Ranger]

With the Vaquero, the cylinder which has multiple chambers including the back part of the cylinder where the cartridges are loaded and set freely and the area just ahead of the projectile which necks down called the "throat".As the round is fired the projectile moves forward in the cylinder chamber and is caught by the "throat" which slows the bullet until sufficient pressure is built up to push it out of the cylinder. This all happens in a fraction of a second. The bullet then enters what's called the "forcing cone" of the barrel which is the tapered area at the rear of the barrel just in front of the cylinder. This is designed to aid in directing the bullet into the barrel and engaging the "rifling" of the barrel as centered as possible. For some reason Ruger notoriously manufactures their cylinders with an undersized throat. The proper throat diameter for the .45 colt would be .4525 to .4530. This dimension would match closely the rifled bore diameter used in today's manufacturing process. When the cartridge is fired in chamber, the undersized "throat" grabs the bullet and, in some cases creates excessive pressure. The undersized throat "shaves" lead or squeezes the bullet down to a smaller diameter than the barrel rifling. The lead has to go somewhere usually the cylinder, forcing cone or barrel or all three. The now undersized bullet enters the forcing cone of the barrel at an angle, and barely engages the rifling causing erratic shot groups and severe leading. In my case on my new "Old" Vaqueros, the throat diameter was about .452 and wghile that doesn't seem like a lot, the average cast lead bullet diameter is .454 and the remaining lead is left in the Vaquero.

The guy who's doning my 4 new "old" Vaqueros , the Cylinder Doctor (http://www.alaskais.com/45Cylinderdoctor/) , has the explanation that aperas above and also a great solution. You shoud try this out. I shot my partner's Vaqueros with the job done and the difference is incredible but I didn't giev him my belover competition pistols until I could verify the problem, the solutuion and the fix. That done, my groups are great w/ no lead fouling. Hope this helps.
1Riot1Ranger