I Must Have Missed Something?

[Dennis1209]

I recently traded for a Ruger SP101, great gun by-the-way!

Ran across a thread on how to really polish that bugger and make it shine like a brand new silver dollar. Hey, that's for me he says, not ever polishing a revolver to send mirror signals to airplanes searching for me lost in the jungle.

Anyway, I spent hours and hours going through the process of sanding from 800 grit sandpaper to 1200 grit. Then hours and hours spent polishing it with Mothers wheel polish.

The results were outstanding! I took it outside and focused the reflection like a magnifying glass on my dry grass and started a fire in seconds, well not really, but you get the point.

Anyway, I finally got around to shooting this beast for the first time this weekend. I'm glad I only took a box of fifty .38 +P to try it out. To say, "I got a kick out of it" would be an understatement. I'm a decent shot, or at least I thought I use to be. At seven yards on my first five rounds, I grouped them all inside of a full size dinner plate? I got a little better with the stock sights further into my 50 round shoot.

But here's the kicker (pun intended), when I got home to clean this little monster, the finish on the SP101 was messed up in places. I guess from the heat generated from firing it, and it looked terrible finish wise.

I had to go over it again with some Mother's polish to get it looking pristine again. No amount of cleaning and wiping would remove the distortions on the stainless steel?

Any thoughts?

[Trekbike]

I'm assuming the discoloration is at the face of the cylinder end and forcing cone area but please confirm. If so, this is quite normal. Cleaners like Flitz polish will get this off but I've heard it's not good to use this on a normal basis. On my SS Ruger I just clean the areas with gun cleaner and don't worry about removing the powder rings at the cylinder face.

Edited August 19, 2012 by Trekbike

[Oh Shoot]

.... On my SS Ruger I just clean the areas with gun cleaner and don't worry about removing the powder rings at the cylinder face.

I'm not fastidious about it either, hit blackened areas briefly with copper brush and Hoppes on SP101, Blackhawk, and GP100 just to get the more solid grunge off.

Then again, I didn't shine 'em so they glow in the dark either.

- OS

Edited August 20, 2012 by OhShoot

[Dave Shooter]

If you really want to get stainless cylinder face clean there are cleaning cloths impregnated with something and they do work.

One example:

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/623952/tipton-metal-magic-rust-and-lead-remover-gun-cleaning-cloth

They supposedly will take blueing off also!

[TrickyNicky]

A little balistol and a stainless brush gets the rings off everytime for me? It takes a while but that was the only way I could use dads guns when I first got old enough to shoot on my own.

For blued cylinders replace the stainless brush with brass and same results until the finish "blasts off."

Oh Hoppes works fine too, actually works a bit better but I bought a three can sampler of ballistol that I have to go through one way or another.