M28 6" cylinder hanging up

[Rolandedwinjohnson]

Among my revolvers are two HPs, a 6" and a 4".  The 4" has a great smooth action.  The 6" (N552XXX) has a sometimes nice smooth action.  When I clean it (open it up and degrease the action as well as brushing out the bore and cylinders) it feels like a very new gun that needs to be shot.  When I use some WD40 the action gets really slick (very nice) for about 5 or 6 cylinder rotations and then starts to hang up.  The trigger hesitates to go all the way forward, the bold does not go into the notch, and there is a gritty feel.

So I go and degrease it again and the cycle continues.

Any ideas on what I have, or should I send this back to S&W

Thanks

Roland

[Graybeard]

Lose the WD-40 and use a proper lube.

[Dee]

Rolandedwinjohnson, back in the 70s when the revolver was still king in law enforcement, I made 20 dollars a gun to get the varnish out of revolvers, after they started mis-fireing. The reason? WD40! When I would open one of these guns up, I would find an amber colored GOO, that was WD40. As the carrier liquid evaporated, the fish oil would go bad, and the gun would start getting hard to cycle, and eventually the hammer fall would be so retarded that it would start to have misfires. I made a lot of money performing this task, and folks that paid the 20 bucks learned that WD40 is made of FISH OIL, and fish oil goes bad.
Disassemble the gun, and get the goo out , and all should be well again.

Dee,

[Mikey]

Roland:  as Graybeard and Dee have said, lose the WD-40.  Disassemble and clean your M28 but use a good gun cleaning oil, like RemClean or Breakfree, which cleans and also lubricates.

You can also use Kerosene to clean and a good motor oil to lubricate.  I think Wolfs Head 20-50 is the motor oil most often recommended and that's what mine runs on; use the oil sparingly.   

[P.A. Myers]

Most lubricants evaporate, many also leave a residue. I use triflow on high rub areas [ptfe]. The best way is NO lube at all. Any exposed machinery is better off clean and dry.

[Dee]

You will not keep a revolver clean and dry for long. It will produce excessive wear. Oil you pistols, and leave the things like WD40 for getting rusty bolt out, or moisture out of electronic, which is why a NASA predecessor invented it. It is fish oil, and like any other animal fat goes south after a while.

[Rolandedwinjohnson]

All:

Thanks,

 ;DI pulled apart both M28s.  The 4" was clean and dry, no sign of any lubricant at all so I applied some of the old black gun grease from a kit at least 30 years old.  Then I pulled apart the 6" and used some break cleaner to dissolve any gunk that had built up.  I set it on the deck to dry and it was taking for ever.  So I lit a match and watched all that evaporating fluid burn - took all of 45 seconds for the flames to go out, the gun was warm and dry.  I added some the the gun grease previously mentioned on contacting surfaces and put it back together.

I hadn't started hanging up after about 20 cycles.  It seems OK.  I did use a bit of paper towel to get the carbon off the gun though.

Thanks for the input.

Roland

[P.A. Myers]

WD-40 is a petroleum distillate, developed in the 1930's to spray on distrbutor caps in wet weather. 'WD' stands for 'water displacement'. It can be used as a penetrating oil,  but there are other products that work much better. You can store a gun oily to prevent rust. Oil will slowly destroy wood. If you can help it do not put an oily gun into service. Careful application of dry lube [teflon, moly,etc] is ok.

A dirty gun often will not function properly, as you have found. My favs are kerosene and compressed air. Brake cleaner is good, as is chemtool. Don't use a hot solvent like that on anything with plastic in it. 

[Dee]

WD-40 is a petroleum distillate, developed in the 1930's to spray on distrbutor caps in wet weather. 'WD' stands for 'water displacement'. It can be used as a penetrating oil,  but there are other products that work much better. You can store a gun oily to prevent rust. Oil will slowly destroy wood. If you can help it do not put an oily gun into service. Careful application of dry lube [teflon, moly,etc] is ok.

A dirty gun often will not function properly, as you have found. My favs are kerosene and compressed air. Brake cleaner is good, as is chemtool. Don't use a hot solvent like that on anything with plastic in it.  

No WD40 wasn't developed in the 1930s to spray on distributor caps in wet weather.
According to the WD40 Company, the name WD40 originated in "1953" when the product was FIRST DEVELOPED. The company originally known as THE ROCKET CHEMICAL COMPANY, was trying to design a protectant for metal parts ON ROCKETS to prevent rust and corrosion by displacing water. hence WD, WATER DISPLACEMENT.