How to clean powder burn/stain from barrel

If your barrel is truly chrome, I wouldn't try this. I have a Taurus Tracker in 357 Magnum that is matte stainless steel and I found a post years ago on another site. I use a scotch bright pad dipped in Hoppe's #9 solvent to remove the powder burning from the front of the cylinder. It works great, but ONLY on stainless steel. It will remove bluing and I'm sure it would damage chrome plating.

This is what I use on my Ruger Single 7 and SP101 revolvers. Not sure if they still sell this today.

Hard chrome should wear like iron so I wouldn’t be too concerned about it damaging from cleaning. My recommendation would be to find a carbon specific cleaner to remove the fouling and read carefully any post treatment steps necessary. I still use Sweets for those hard luck rifles I sometimes adopt and I’ve yet to damage one despite dire warnings. If you prefer something safer try T/C Number 13, works great on muzzleloaders.

When you say "barrel exterior," do you mean the crown of the muzzle? Be aware there is probably no part of a barrel or frame or slide that is more easily damaged by aggressive cleaning than the crown. My sincere advice would be to let it be. You're more likely to harm the gun chasing a sterile-clean crown than if you just gave up cleaning entirely.

White ink eraser

A picture would help us figure out exactly what you mean, but in the absence I’ll suggest Flitz and an old sock as an applicator.

I use it to take the rings off of my revolver cylinders when I choose to go fancy and it works every time.

Stay safe.

That stuff never really bothers me, but if it did, I may give SLIP 2000 Carbon Killer a go

http://www.slip2000.com/slip2000_carbon_killer.php

This is what I used to clean stainless:

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Star-Cleaner-Powdered-Brewery/dp/B001D6IVZG

Makes things shiny and removes carbon. Especially after I burn something in a stainless pan. Also keeps my beer fermenter spotless. Clean the oil and other things off. It works slow and better in warm water. A pain with carbon burnt on takes about three days. But it works.

Looks like normal wear to me.
But, what do I know?

George Dickel said:

Here are pictures as requested.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the pictures. Your barrel is stainless, but I'm pretty sure the black stuff you're trying to take off is a factory coating, and not powder residue.

Here's a guy with a similar S&W 1911. His barrel is black.



https://www.smith-wesson.com/firearms/performance-center-model-sw1911-1

If trying to take off the factory coating, I don't think the SLIP2000 Carbon Killer is going to help.