A question about maintenance

[ignorantrodentlover]

Are revolvers generally easier to maintain/clean compared to other handguns?
How do they compare with their counterparts?

[Nick_C_S]

The short answer is "no."

Revolvers have a lot of little nooks n crannies that should be cleaned thoroughly - times six .

I shoot a lot of revolver. Fortunately for me, I rather enjoy cleaning A revolver. And I don't mind cleaning two revolvers (or guns in general). More than two becomes a chore. That's probably why I rarely bring more than two guns to the range.

[JohnKSa]

If you are the kind of person who feels the need to remove every bit of carbon every time the gun is fired, then no, an autopistol will be significantly easier and faster to clean.

If getting rid of the external fouling and cleaning the rest of the gun to a fully functional level is good enough for you, then there's not too much difference.

As far as maintenance beyond cleaning, I would say that revolvers generally require less of that. With a lot of shooting, an autopistol will probably want a recoil spring replacement at some point, and may require more attention to lubrication. Revolvers generally just keep going and going.

If you do have to disassemble the gun for cleaning, autopistols are generally easier to take apart. The good thing is that revolvers only rarely require any significant disassembly for maintenance purposes.

[fastbolt]

A couple thoughts off the top of my head, as someone who has carried both issued revolvers and pistols during my career (and as someone who has attended many pistol armorer classes and a single S&W revolver armorer class) ...

Blued/black guns look cleaner, more easily and sooner, than stainless guns.

Service revolvers, even subjected to the conditions and rigors of daily police work, required less 'bench time' and 'immediate action responses' by users, than when we'd switched to pistols. (Admittedly, I remember the head revolver armorer did seem to cuss more often when dealing with issued Pythons, than when dealing with issued S&W's. )

Once we transitioned from service revolvers to pistols, we had to spend a lot more attention and time teaching our guys & gals about the importance of user maintenance (and how NOT to cause themselves problems due to their ideas of such maintenance practices ). Ditto how to resolve stoppages with pistols than compared to revolvers.

Pick your preferred poison. TANSTAAFL.

[Nathan]

Yes & no. Autos require a pretty good strip & clean process. Revolvers can skip most of this and just wipe down until 500 rounds where you may want to remove the cylinder and clean it better. Every couple years though, a full strip and clean is required and that is more extensive than the same on most autos.

[44 AMP]

Are revolvers generally easier to maintain/clean compared to other handguns?

Yes, and also a bit of no.

First thing is decide which class of handguns you're going to look at, and compare, and then the amount of maintaining needed (not desired, but needed) for each.

There are two basic classes of handguns, sporting and service. And there is more than a bit of overlap in use. Sporting arms, with rare exceptions are intended to only be field stripped as part of the normal maint. IF that. Service arms are designed with the idea that they are going to be field stripped, and detail stripped often, and are made to withstand that, without damage.

Keep in mind that just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should do it.

And this applies particularly to detail stripping a revolver.

Every couple years though, a full strip and clean is required and that is more extensive than the same on most autos.

I am strongly going to disagree on the "every couple years" part of this statement. Absent something unusual requiring detailed cleaning (like your revolver getting submerged or dragged through the dirt) there's no good reason to take it completely apart and doing it even slightly wrong can damage the gun. And, this also applies to sport pistols and even pocket pistols. Once in a while, you may need to do more than field strip to clean the gun enough to keep it reliable, but doing so with a gun that isn't designed for that is not a good idea.

Even service class semi autos seldom "need" detail stripping and cleaning in order to keep running right. If your gun doesn't endure field combat conditions, (mud, dust, dirt, etc.) detail stripping and cleaning is rarely needed.

There's a world of difference between a Ruger Mk I .22, a Colt Govt Model and a S&W DA revolver or a Ruger Blackhawk, regarding what can be done, and what ought to be done to maintain them.
So what are you comparing??

[gwpercle]

Sorta ... Six of one and Half a Dozen of the other .

Semi-auto's have sliding parts , magazine and re-assembly problems ...

Revolvers have six holes and a barrel but you usually have no re-assembly problems .

I prefer revolvers and the 1911 platform of semi-auto (they are easy)...
I use a lot of spray cleaners , spray lubes and bore snakes to make cleaning easier .
One trick is a bore snake soaked in Gun Cleaner ... and a bore snake soaked in gun oil .
A few quick pull throughs and you done .
I still find revolvers easier to maintain even though they have 6 chambers + a barrel !
Gary

[44 AMP]

One thing rarely mentioned but that should be included in the maint and pre-use checks for revolvers is checking the screws to make sure they are tight.

All of them, with one exception. Use a properly fitting, hollow ground screwdriver.

The exception is the strain screw on the front gripstrap of S&W DA revolvers. This screw should be flush with the frame, not screwed in tight.

[nuchie11]

Yeah, revolvers are generally easier to maintain. Fewer moving parts, no slide to strip, and you don’t have to worry about magazines. I just pop the cylinder out, clean the chambers and barrel, and I’m done. Way less finicky than semi-autos, especially if you don’t shoot super often.

[2damnold4this]

One thing rarely mentioned but that should be included in the maint and pre-use checks for revolvers is checking the screws to make sure they are tight.

That is an important point. I had neglected to check the screws on a new to me 351pd and after firing about 60 rounds, the trigger pull got wonky and I noticed the thumb latch/cylinder release was about to fall off. Checking the screws was something I should have done before the range session.

[Nathan]

I am strongly going to disagree on the "every couple years" part of this statement. Absent something unusual requiring detailed cleaning (like your revolver getting submerged or dragged through the dirt) there's no good reason to take it completely apart and doing it even slightly wrong can damage the gun. And, this also applies to sport pistols and even pocket pistols. Once in a while, you may need to do more than field strip to clean the gun enough to keep it reliable, but doing so with a gun that isn't designed for that is not a good idea.

You make a good point as most people are not good or not skilled enough to do this kind of work. Please don’t take this wrong there is plenty of work I’m not intended to do, but I can do this.

IMO, S&W revolvers are no more difficult to detail strip than a 1911. I don’t think barrel removal is appropriate unless repairing or replacing. I find a magma-tip bits, small pusher/flathead, yoke wrench and a rebound spring tool to be all I need.

Ruger GP100 takes a bit more. I don’t know Colts.

[RickB]

I find the revolver easier to maintain, as I haven't found a need to completely disassemble them for service, ever.
I'll disassemble semis every thousand rounds, but have pulled the sideplate on a revolver only once or twice in my life.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by RickB

I find the revolver easier to maintain, as I haven't found a need to completely disassemble them for service, ever.
I'll disassemble semis every thousand rounds, but have pulled the sideplate on a revolver only once or twice in my life.

What do you do about lubrication?

[JohnKSa]

Grant Cunningham, in his Book of the Revolver, has a section on cleaning. His recommended process does not involve any disassembly, not even the removal of the cylinder.

As far as lubrication goes, here is his recommendation.

Using a precision oiler:

"Open the cylinder and apply a single drop to the crane pivot" and then work the pivot a few times to distribute the oil.

"With the cylinder open, invert the muzzle and apply a drop of oil to the small gap where the front of the cylinder meets the crane." He then recommends spinning the cylinder to distribute the oil and then repeating the process--a second drop and a second spin to distribute the oil.

To finish up he recommends cocking the gun and applying a single drop to the sear/hammer engagement surfaces inside the gun. This is the main reason he recommends a precision oiler so it is possible to apply the drop down into the gun without running a bunch of oil down into the innards of the gun.

For S&W revolvers, he also recommends an occasional drop of oil on the front locking pin under the barrel. For Ruger DA revolvers, he recommends a drop on the crane latch to keep it opening smoothly. In both cases, he recommends opening and closing the cylinder several times after applying the oil to distribute the oil.

On a Colt DA (this was before the new Colt DA revolvers so this may apply only to older Colt DA revolvers) he recommends a drop of oil behind the thumb latch to help reduce the binding he says they commonly experience.

Once a year, he says one can put "a drop or two of oil on each side of the hammer" and then leave the gun sitting upright overnight to let the oil run down into the frame. He recommends the same treatment on the same frequency for the trigger, but letting the gun sit upside down overnight in that case.

[44 AMP]

You make a good point as most people are not good or not skilled enough to do this kind of work. Please don’t take this wrong there is plenty of work I’m not intended to do, but I can do this.

As I see it, its not so much a matter of what one can do, but a matter of what one should do. Obviously everyone who buggered up a S&W (or anything else) was able to do it. They did it wrong, so, they could have done it right, but didn't.

You can warp (bend) the sideplate of a S&W by prying on it. I've seen guns it happened to. Along with other guns with issues caused entirely by their owners.

A gun with a visible gap between parts where there should not be one, and/or buggered up screw heads is a hard pass for me. Actual damage, (not honest wear) on the visible exterior is a strong indication that something on the inside could be messed up, as well, and I'm not in the market for guns I need to fix, these days.

[RickB]

Originally Posted by Aguila Blanca

What do you do about lubrication?

It's not difficult to get lube to places it needs to go, using applicators with extensions and gravity to get it there.

[Drm50]

I don’t think revolvers are that hard to maintain at first level. That is standard cleaning after firing session. If this is done you don’t have to fight build up in those hard to clean nooks. Getting into the running gears can be tricky for a beginner. I have torn down hundreds of S&W revolvers J-K-N with no problems. There was only 2 reasons for this.
Guns that had gone years without any attention to interior parts or somebody took it apart and didn’t know how to reassemble. There is no doubt S&W lock work is better design than Colts.
Having said that I switched to a pistol for fishing duty. I use to carry a S&W m34 until I fell in with it. Once revolver gets deep sixed you got to do a complete strip down immediately
if not sooner or you will have rusting innards. A pistol is much easier to strip to the point you can be sure water is cleaned out. That’s why now a S&W 422 is my official fishing gun.

[fastbolt]

FWIW, when I went through my S&W revolver armorer class I was surprised to see how often the manual recommended an armorer inspection/cleaning, since I never saw that happen in the years our folks carried both S&W and Colt Pythons.

On another thought, I've seen how the aluminum yokes in the newer S&W J's, especially those with titanium cylinders, could have the yoke bearings become so dry the free spin of the cylinder was hampered.

One of our guys had his 340PD become so dry and fouled that he had to turn his cylinder by hand in order to complete a trigger press during a qual. While that ought to have been a hint to stop and take a look at it, he opted for turning it by hand, and the instructor running the qual let him.

When they finished and brought it back to me, I found the DAO trigger couldn't make the cylinder turn. Removing the cylinder and yoke I saw that the yoke bearings were nasty with fouling and bone dry. I wiped everything off and checked further, but didn't find anything else wrong. A couple drops of CLP on the yoke bearing surfaces, and reassembling the yoke/cylinder back in the frame, and the cylinder spun freely and the trigger press was normal.

I told the owner and instructor to go back downrange and repeat the qual the normal way. I did it both as an exercise for the instructor and gun owner, and for the snub owner to have his confidence restored in his secondary (U/C) weapon. I also showed the owner how I'd done the cylinder/yoke removal and the wipe down/lube. He carried that undercover weapon so it was exposed to temp/humidity changes in various conditions, and they shot more often than the average line cops. I told him if he wasn't comfortable doing it himself, to bring it by the range and one of our revolver armorers would check and lube it for him.

I've never had one of my 36's or 642's have the steel yokes dry out in quite the same manner or so quickly, but the aluminum yokes in my M&P 340's have done so, even though they don't have the rougher surfaced titanium cylinders (PVD stainless) spinning on the yokes. I check them every year or two, and refresh the lube on the 2 yoke bearing surfaces as preventive maintenance, which restores easy spinning of the cylinder if they had started to 'slow' a bit.

I've not done a complete armorer level disassembly of the frames very often, and even when I did I didn't find much fouling or debris inside them. Then again, I don't subject them to harsh environments, either. They live in their holsters in the safe, or on my person. Since I have so many of them, I tend to spread the range duty around a lot more than when I only owned a couple of them.

Even my first M&P 340, which I used as my hard-use 'range beater', bench 'armorer practice' snub (cut a couple replacement extractors, to try out the 'hand-powered' ratchet cutter in the armorer kit ), and off-duty (and then retirement) weapon has withstood my use and abuse fine. The last time I disassembled the frame it was clean and serviceable, and I simply refreshed the minimal drops on the few spots of normal lubrication. That snub has seen some number of cases of standard pressure and +P loads since I bought it new in '05 (and a few boxes of .357MAG loads).

Naturally, since I pocket-holster all but the 3" 36, I make sure to wipe and blow off the usual lint that accumulates over time. The 649 Bodyguard, in particular, since that hammer shroud can gather it.

Just some thoughts. Now, cleaning and maintaining most pistols seems to require a bit more frequent attention and effort. Even the simpler plastic ones.

[JohnKSa]

^^ Good information!

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by fastbolt

I've never had one of my 36's or 642's have the steel yokes dry out in quite the same manner or so quickly, but the aluminum yokes in my M&P 340's have done so, even though they don't have the rougher surfaced titanium cylinders (PVD stainless) spinning on the yokes. I check them every year or two, and refresh the lube on the 2 yoke bearing surfaces as preventive maintenance, which restores easy spinning of the cylinder if they had started to 'slow' a bit.

Thanks for that advice.

What do you use for lube? CLP? Is that really good for two years?

On most of my handguns, I use my own mix of 5W50 full-synthetic motor oil with super-fine molybdenum powder mixed in. It works for me, but I don't carry a revolver as a backup gun every day.

[FITASC]

The easiest gun to clean is a Glock - simple components, easy to break down,etc. That said, I'll take my H P7s, my K frame S&Ws, even my SIGs for ease of cleaning