Unless you have confidence (warranted or not), I tend to agree you shouldn't be doing risky things to your revolvers.
I take a different approach, I generally remove the sideplate on every revolver I buy. The reasons are pretty simple, I don't trust the factory or the prior owners. History has proven the others just don't seem to care. I've found grit and machining chips in the works of my still favorite carry gun, about 12 years ago when it was new. It had some odd looking green oilish stuff coming out every time I dry fired it. So I pulled it down and low and behold all the garbage from some machining operation was still inside. It took maybe 5 or 10 minutes to bring it up to my standards.
With older revolvers, all kinds of sin's can be found. About 8 or 10 years ago we were sitting behind a table at a tiny gun show with my pards, Joe and Glen. I'd bought a revolver with a sticky cylinder stop. We had good light, time to burn, and I had a full bottle of CLP. So I just ran the screws out and instead of hitting the grip frame (the preferred method) I just dry fired double action a dozen time until the sideplate magically arose from the frame. It horrified old Glen, he was sure I'd never get the thing back together again. But when I got it open, I found a bunch of old solidified grease. It doesn't take much CLP and a little time to make it squeaky clean. And I then proceeded to slop it back together. My pards were amazed I could do that tiny bit of mechanical work. I was just happy I had the good light, a flat table, and some solvent.
Other times with misbehaving guns, I've found a bunch of powder residue where it shouldn't have been. Mostly though its just a bunch of old oil. My advice, whenever someone has a gun that seems to have a problem inside, is to really clean it. Yes, disassembly is the best answer, and anytime your gun is balky, just clean it before you tell anyone or seek professional guidance.
Blasting the action from the bottom or down the cocked hammer slot can work, but it will also miss most of the embedded grime. And the way to oil your gun is NOT to just run some oil down the action. My guess is that's how much of the problems develop. Remember these are the good times. In the past everyone didn't use quality gun oil. They used 3 in 1, or mom's sewing machine oil, or anything else they could find out in the garage. Some of it might have been OK if it had been used by itself. But I fear other compounds may have reacted with either the current choices of lubricants, or maybe they even break down the good stuff. The results seem to be jelled oil which later hardens into something that appears to be amber (petrified tree sap.) The only way to remove that stuff is by direct attack.
