what should I use to clean up an old pistol?

[colddeadhands]

A friend of mine brought me an old revolver a couple of days ago that his boys found in the staircase of and old house on their ranch, he asked me to see what i can do to clean it up. They had been spraying the gun with WD40 and wiping with a rag but that wasnt doing the trick. It looks to be 25-32cal I just want to get it cleaned up to maybe get some information off of it. any help its greatly appreciated.
I wasnt sure if this belonged here or gun smithing maybe mods can help.

[Crusader]

Is it covered in rust, or just extremely dirty? If it's rust, I'm pretty sure WD-40 will not work. At least, not very well.

[colddeadhands]

There is some rust, but they got most of it off with rags and WD40, it is black-ish now, all seized up and i cant find any markings I was hoping there might be a polish or something for it. I wish I could post pics but my computer is POS.

[Tallship]

Try some Simple Green, full strenghth. That should hopefully get most of the crud off.

[jdberger]

Start with Kroil to loosen rust. Then STOP.

Post pics.

Often enough a mighty nice collectable gun was ruined by a well intenioned cleaning.

[olhunter]

Drench the thing in WD-40 or any penetrating oil and put it in a zip-lock for 2-3 days. Then try again. Won't hurt the finish.

[colddeadhands]

k. thanks I'll try the simple green. and try to find kroil when I go to town. I'll try to post pics.

[ZRX61]

Simple Green is corrosive.

[colddeadhands]

I got some pictures of the gun together. the only markings I can see on it are on the bottom of the grip they read 34373. the barrel measures .30 and a cylinder measures .32. Any help with what kind of gun it is and how old would be appreciated. thanks.

[Sacjesusfreak]

Cool find!


What is that tool called that measures the bore?

i want one

[sigfan91]

Cool find!


What is that tool called that measures the bore?

i want one

Caliper?

[Turo]

Caliper?

Yep, and a pretty nice set too!

Cool find on the gun, I wish I could help identify it for ya, but I'm sure some of the gurus on here would know.

[00BuckShot]

Sac...you lose your mancard!

OP-Nice find...Kinda looks like an old S&W 32 Spur Trigger...No. 2 Maybe Old Army?

[00BuckShot]

Check out this link...pretty sure that what you got. Look how the serial number is stamped. An older model 2 it looks like. http://www.model2project.com/

[SixPointEight]

Wonder if it was used to kill someone and then hidden...thats epic