Well, problem solved.
I did a COMPLETE disassembly of the entire gun...
sprayed the entire thing down with brake cleaner...
then took a bronze brush to the internal frame and parts for about 2 hours.
Afterwards, I wiped the entire interbals down with a VERY light coat of rem-oil, since break free seemed oddly to make the action grittier somehow, which totally contradicts my past experience with it.
After hours of work..
the entire piece works flawlessly, the action feels like glass once again, and in quite a few dry firings with snap caps, nothing has YET happened.
I suppose the normal cleaning I gave it, like every other firearm I've ever owned, were not enough.
The firearm itself is a monson, very early model 15-the dealer I bought it from used it as his personal sidearm and truck gun, and I suppose it had not been cleaned in the decades that it had been owned at all, judging by the amount of CRUD the brushes took off...what I'd taken for messed up bluing inside was actually caked on, very hardly caked on, in that a nylon brush would not get it off, residue-the internals are actually all quite polished up, I suppose he did that long ago to it.
I think it's amazing that an old workhorse like this can live again, and the fact that it's still functioning after, judging by the condition I bought it in originally, what must have been thousands of rounds through it says a lot for the Dan Wesson line.
I am duly impressed once again with the durability of the Dan Wesson line, and feel great for having paid 225 out the door for this piece.
