need some opinions

[Tom W.]

I bought some valve lapping compound to help seat the rod on my drip-o-matic and so far it did well. I'm wondering if I can put some of the compound on a cloth and run it through my revolver barrel to eliminate the leading and clean it up some. I haven't fired the revolver yet, but when I traded for it I did see a flake of lead just inside the forcing cone. I'm pretty sure that after I clean it and I know what is going down the barrel the leading will vanish.

[Traffer]

I would not use it on a new gun. It is made to remove steel. Normal valve lapping compound is made with grit that is the same as 120 sandpaper. It breaks down to 220 grit after using it (in normal circumstances) for a while. You can buy grinding paste in different grits on eBay. I have valve lapping compound for heavy grinding then 300, 400. and 600 grit diamond paste for finer stuff, like polishing dies. The standard for grade numbers is different for this stuff than for sandpaper. It goes like 20, 30, 40, etc. You can find the correspondence of the numbers between that and sandpaper grit if you dig around a little on the internet. I just don't have it handy.
I had a 22 rifle that my brother gave me that had been shooting bird shot for over 30 years. It looked like there was no rifling left in it. I tried some valve lapping compound on it at first but I thought it was removing steel from the barrel so I quit using it and used the cheap (copper plated steel) scouring pads instead. I just pulled off enough to fit in the loop of a cleaning patch holder and used that. Though it was very abrasive, it still was not as bad on the barrel as the lapping compound. The rifling turned out to be pretty darn good. The gun shoots well now. ...Anyway that's my two cents.

[Tom W.]

Thanks. It's not a new revolver and it's in very good shape, but not being mechanically inclined, I figured it would be best to ask.

[fredj338]

There are lapping kits you can get. Something like JB bore paste is probably preferred for polishing a bit of the rough off a bore w/o damaging anything.

[rancher1913]

it will remove the rust but it will also remove your rifling.

[jsizemore]

If your wanting to just remove lead from the bore, try some copper Chore Boy. Take a magnet with you so you don't get the copper clad steel stuff.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

if you are talking about that S&W mod 19 you just got, I surely wouldn't polish the bore.
Clean the lead out, if there is lead in there, using copper chore boy as jsizemore mentions, then load up your boolits and shoot those...and go from there...I bet you will not have any problems.

[Tom W.]

Again thanks. I figured the old way was what I needed. I'll save the other stuff for the drip-o-matic. Don't want to ruin a firearm. I can cast, handload, reform brass and a few other things, but as stated earlier, I am not mechanically inclined. I've been a Q.A tech most of my life.