617 lead buildup

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cbunix23

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My 617 has a lot of lead buildup that I want to clean up. I don't care about the staining so much. Some lead is on the under side of the cylinder strap. The worse of it is by the forcing cone, shown in the photo.

I am wondering if a soldering iron would work?

Various cleaning solvents aren't working. Lead removal cloth works, albeit very slowly, and also scratches up the revolver so I don't want to use them anymore.

Is this much lead buildup normal?

4y7ujy4y.jpg



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MAN you do shoot that 'ol dog. I would use a brass or bronze brush. Since it obviously a shooter just get most of it out and keep going. I use a Lead Away cloth from Kleen Bore and have never had scratching issues. Good luck.
 
I had about three times that buildup on my 17 -9
I got overly aggressive and scratched the finish a little.
There is a thread on here somewhere about that with pics.

Use solvent and give it time to work.
I have updated my solvent arsenal with
Kroil
50/50 acetone/atf
Marvel Myystery oil
Hoppes 9

Note that most of the advise on here comes from people that shoot their 22 revolvers 2-3 a year and not 2-3 times a week.
2/3 of the people on here are only worried about how their guns look inside their gun safe :eek:

IMO that's what happens when you actually shoot them :D
I've decided to enjoy my shooter and keep on using it for what it was made for.
 
I learned long ago, when we qualified with low bid reloads (solf lead) to wipe down my revolver inside & out. Barrel, chambers, top strap, forcing come with Break Free CLP... BEFORE shooting. Wipe well, so you just leave a film. The dirt & lead will mostly be on top of the Break Free film & much easier to clean. Guys who didn't regretted it. The Dept Armorer saw what I was doing... began buying in gallons with spray bottles. I don't recall over the years where I first heard of it... No help for you now, but going forward...
 
The 617 I shoot a lot is a beater gun. I haven't looked for scratches, but, I used the flattened end 5.56 cartridge I read about on the forum

It gets the lead off right now.

If I was worried about scratches, I would steal the wife's pot cleaner.

It is a little 2" square thing that is plastic, and made for scratch-less scraping.

scraperinhand.jpg


I do agree, there got to be something that will help with eliminating build-up, how about Eezox? :confused:
 
Thanks all. It's easy to shoot a lot. I have a speed loader and a 100 round loading tray. It's definitely no safe queen, and it's only a couple years old.



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Mine is going to need attention, this was several cleanings probably less than 500 rounds, built up in the forcing cone.

lead617.jpg
 
not using remington thunderbolts by chance are you? they leave sheets of lead in my guns. i quit using them. i had a ruger ss that started keyholing on me. the lead that came out of that gun was unreal. doesn't happen with the federals i shoot now.
 
soak it!

what I did with a revolver that I shot a lot was to soak the barrel and cylinder in kroil. overnight it REALLY softened the crud up. all I needed was a plastic screwdriver
 
I shoot several brands of ammo. I never did shoot Thunderbolts until recently, and even then only one brick since it's inaccurate and I have plenty of better ammo. The lead buildup predates that. If these suggestions don't work I'm getting a soldering iron!


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I had a leading problem with Thunderbolts in my Ciener conversion. I tried Hoppe's Elite, and it came right out. I still use Elite, but not Thunderbolts.



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Acetone has already been mentioned in a mix, but I have given them a bath in straight acetone. The acetone seems to oxidize the lead and it can be easily (relatively) removed. I got hold of one once that was built-up from the face of the forcing cone to the frame in the upper right quarter. The guy NEVER cleaned it and had untold numbers of rounds fired. Never had burped, but it was out of this world caked. A razor-blade usually works well to slice the build-up from underneath the top strap. I don't bash another mans cleaning habits and my guns are not pristine....no safe queens. I just never put one away without a "little" cleaning.
 
I have some of the same problems. I note the forcing cone, as well as the forcing cone in my 617, has no bevel at all. Would it be a help of there was a bit of a bevel inside the forcing cone at the back of the barrel?
 
I bought a new 63-4 in 2010 and was having trouble with lead buildup, and hard extraction after shooting several rounds (Federal and CCI). I talked to a Smith rep at a grand opening of a new LGS, and he suggested to send it back to S&W to have it checked out, which I did. When it was returned, they replaced the cylinder and cut the forcing cone 11 degrees, from what I remember. No problems after that.
 
It's been shot more than not

After you get that mess out with everything that's in the gun cleaning kit, I like G96 spray myself with a good stiff brass tooth brush you can get in the plumbing dept's and sometimes paint dept's at your favorite hardware store,(and you let that sit overnite saturated) I use a polish that is made by Happich and is called Simichrome Polish. This is some really good stuff. Put it on a cotton rag and go at it. I got it at a Harley Davidson dealer. It is imported by Competition Chemicals, Inc. Iowa Falls, Iowa. 1-641-648-5121. It leaves a finish better than what comes out of Smith.
 
pumpgun said:
not using remington thunderbolts by chance are you? they leave sheets of lead in my guns. i quit using them. i had a ruger ss that started keyholing on me. the lead that came out of that gun was unreal. doesn't happen with the federals i shoot now.
Click to expand...

I had a five brick batch of CCI Blazer 40 grain that caused my 617 and two Ruger MKIII's to lead so badly they were throwing keyhole shots. I had to pour Kroil down the barrel then ruined two bronze brushes before a patch would go down the barrel.
Every now and then you get a badly lubed batch of .22.

As for the 617 filth-yes mine looks like the OP's after a 300 round outing. S&W 22's splatter a lot of lead, more than any other 22's I've ever fired. Colt's seem to have the least build-up with Ruger next best. I use a brass letter opener as a scraper to get rid of the heavy stuff and ignore the rest as I'm just going to shoot it some more!
 
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