I'm getting ready to sell my 6" Ported 686. I think I probably purchased it around 1999.

I'm cleaning it up and for the life of me these rings will not budge. Tried Frog Lube, Hoppes Elite and MPro 7 all with no result



Any ideas what may work? Someone suggested lead away wipes? If so I may try to find some tomorrow before I bring it to the LGS

It is a great gun but my attention has turned to 1911s

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M&P 2.0 9mm-Shield9-Shield45

I personally prefer to buy a used one with the rings. It proves the owner did not use a really bad method to clean the front of the cylinder - such as a file, steel wool or a power sanding tool, all of which have the potential of causing damage far worse than the appearance of the end of the cylinder.

If you must clean the end of the cylinder, I suggest using the method used by Jerry Miculek.

It took him about 3 minutes, no kidding, and although I see no need for such things, it is the "approved" method.

See his video "Complete Revolver - Diassembly/Reassembly Smith & Wesson K, L and N Frame Revolvers." He shows how to COMPLETELY clean and lube one of his competition revolvers that has Five or Six Thousand LEAD bullet loads fired since its last cleaning. And it looks it! When done, it looked like new, including the face of the cylinder.

Flitz. 50 gram Flitz Polish : FLITZ POLISH | Brownells

Ken

Fine bronze wool, your choice of solvent and a little elbow grease will remove the dough nuts and preserve the factory’s sanding or tooling marks. A bag of Bronze wool is under $5 at Ace Hardware. If your local store doesn’t stock it they can still order it from their warehouse. Brownells has it as do most yachting hardware stores.

The continual recommendations to resort to metal polish are unfortunate. That saves no money or work and devalues collectable stainless revolvers.

Like Shawn I’m happiest buying a revolver with its dough nuts in tact but I know some retailers polish them off and will see no dough nuts as less work for their staff. It’s unlikely the store will appreciate that you avoided metal polish but you’ll be preserving the factory surface for future collectors.

Lead away.

So lead away will damage the finish? I wonder if LGS will value less if I leave rings?

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M&P 2.0 9mm-Shield9-Shield45

Those don't lower the value of a used gun. You can get rid of them. You could really screw up a gun in the process. The next time it's shot they are back. So why? The people who fuss over things like that just don't know jack. Big shocker here, nothing in this life is perfect, nothing gets better with age except booz. Maybe cheese. Where was I ? I'm getting too old.

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A republic if you can keep it

Lead away,Flitz,bronze wool and Mothers Mag polish will all work on stainless.

I use one of the bronze bristle 'toothbrush' cleaning brushes with good old Hoppes and plenty of elbow grease. Works well. A new brush with all the bristles still fairly straight is great for the top of the forcing cone/frame window area. If I can't find bronze brushes, I'll use stainless steel brushes but think bronze are abrasive enough.

I use a lead removal cloth. Removes ring with little pressure and even less abrasion to the cylinder...

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Retired Marine Gunny

Flitz applied with a paper towel and removed with a paper towel.****bber pencil erasers work well..

Birchwood Casey Lead Remover cloth.

They are great for stainless guns.
They cost around $8.50 +/- and they work as good as they are advertised.

Adco Wonder Cloth. A yellow felt like cloth. It will remove the rings in about 5 seconds of rubbing. No damageand non abrasive. Been using it for 25+ years. Probably the same as the Birchwood Casey cloth. Don't waste your time with anything else.

I have one of these and while they work really well, they still don't remove all traces of the ring. I really think a green or gray scotch brite is the best way to remove the final traces of the ring without altering the finish.

Flitz and Mothers Mag polish will alter the finish of the revolver shinier than it comes from the factory, that is why I like the scotch brite pads, they mimic the scratch pattern of the original finish.

You don't have to worry about altering the size of the cylinder, I have done a little amateur metal fitting and it takes a LOT of work to remove 0.001" of metal by hand.

I also prefer to buy used revolvers with burn rings, they come right back anyway. I think the best strategy is preventative maintenance, I scrub the cylinder face with the lead away cloth during routine cleaning. It does not remove the ring, but it does reduce its appearance.

Chris

The problem is someone using the wrong method/product continuously. Say a guy shoots his gun 10 times a year and while dutifully cleaning after each shooting session removes a mere tenth off the front face of the cylinder each time. He's not going to notice any problem during the first year or so but after 5-10 years of shooting and improper cleaning, he decides to measure the cylinder gap one day and wonders why he's got .015" -.020" and then logs onto the S&W forum yelling about S&W's lower quality and all that song and dance we've seen 100 times before...

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SWHF #448