What is the procedure for tightening them properly. I have a pre 27 that likes to test my patience.
Just using your fingers to tighten it up, maybe with plyers is not tight enough.
If you ever noticed the factory doesn't use lock tite. I don't like loctite for a couple reasons. If the wrong stuff is used you can damage or break parts if someone like me doesn't know that you used it. Why?, because, I will crank on it until something gives.
There is a way to remove lock tite by heating it, but being inside the cylinder gives me only one option. That is to drop the entire cylinder assembly into the oven at which I heat it up to 482 Fahrenheit, then you must remove the extractor while hot or the locktite will re-strengthen. If too much is used, the stuff will drip and get other things inside the cylinder frozen.
To avoid the loctite issue, I use (Like John explains) tools to hold and tighten it up. Personally I use either a lathe chuck or a tool like this for light duty tightening:
You must put fired cases into the chambers to prevent damaging the cylinder pins or damaging the extractor itself. Then I tighten it by holding on the cylinder and tool as leverage. I won't go crazy because you could strip the threads, but if tightened down tight enough, it won't unscrew.
Once you have it tightened up, don't take it apart. Some people are clean freaks and will unscrew things daily or weekly for cleaning the gun after shooting it. Only if you must for service take it apart for cleaning or other repairs. To take it apart weekly will damage the threads in time. And if the threads are gone, that means replacing an extractor & extractor rod. Some older guns will also need a new cylinder if extractors are not available.
