toothpaste, baking soda, etc...home action jobs

Status
Not open for further replies.

SureThing

Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2004
Messages
545
I have heard by 2 different people now to use tooth past or baking soda to help smooth out the action of a pistol's trigger. I also heard of a person doing that with the slide and frame fit.

The theory is mild abrasives with smooth out the metal parts, almost to shine.

My wife is a Dental Hygentist, and I know that abrasives are what is used to clean teeth. And if you have difficult stains on the front of your teek, put a bit of baking soda on a wash cloth and that will clean it up between cleanings.

But doing that to a gun.....does it work?
 
^^^I guess that answers that....

I would be curious to hear from someone who's actually done it as well.
 
I've done it to smooth-up the bolt action of a precision rifle. Toothpaste and thousands of repetitive motions working the action. Probably helped a little although the action was pretty butter slick to begin with I have to admit. You need to be very careful about clean-up to make sure that no water/paste remains anywhere to cause corrosion.

Would I do it again? -No.

Would it be a waste of time for a pistol? Yes. You can easily shoot a thousand rounds thru a pistol and let everything work itself smooth, can't do it as easily or cost-effectively on a bolt action rifle.
 
Flitz metal polish. Any polish without ammonia. At least for brass, but I would just extend to guns too to make it easy! You can also go easy with auto wet/dry sandpaper, 800 grit and up. Hard to sand through anything with 2000 grit paper!
 
JB bore cleaning compound, mixed with a light oil, such as Break-Free CLP, works wonders.

Toothpaste has one big advantage. It is such a mild abrasive, that you are likely to do no damage. It has one small advantage, it is easily cleaned away with hot water.

Probably best is just normal useage and cleaning. My Security-Six revolver, purchased when I turned 21, is now pretty slick. It only took 31 years to get that way.
 
Well I would submit that if rubbing any compound on one's teeth each morning and each night using a plastic brush would wear away the tooth enamel if the same compound would work on metal..., and repetative motions of metal on metal will often work alone..., so long as the metal is without a lubricant. A lubricant with an abrasive does work when the lubricant is about even in quantity, or a bit less than the abrasive.

Anybody else tried Valve Lapping Compound? It's designed to give valve's in an engine head a proper fit, and is designed to remove metal as it does so. I've done it many times, both in black powder and revolver actions..., as well as polishing the interior of black powder barrels. Works well for me. It's often water soluable.

LD
 
I normally use Brasso on the slide-rails of new pistols (wipe on, let it dry and then hand-cycle a few hundred times before wiping off). I recently started using valve-lapping compound as an experiment - so far, so good.
 
Toothpaste will work. I use valve lapping compound for really rough stuff but it is a little too aggressive. JB and CLP slurry works great. My preference though is to hit up a good truck stop and head to where the wheel polishing junk is and find a bottle of liquid rouge.
 
Don't know about guns, but....

The Crest Nighttime+Whitening formula does a great job of polishing my vintage Dukoff tenor sax mouthpiece!!
 
I used jewler's rouge last week on one of my revolvers. It had a real gritty action. It is very smooth now.
 
Toothpaste and a dremel tool. Shined the action of my glock up when I first got it. Took quiet a while though. Jewler's rouge or any other metal polishing compound works much faster, you just have to pay attention to what your doing.

-Jenrick
 
Why not just dump a handful of dirt in it?

The effect is the same, which is accelerated wear on all the "hard contact" points.

Myself, I'm more of the stone & sear jig sorta guy!

That only wears parts where it needs to be worn to actually do some good.

Without wearing everything else where is doesn't.

rcmodel
 
Basically, what you're talking about is called "internal friction reduction". Gunsmiths routinely incorporate it when performing "action jobs".

As was said, it's basically the process of applying artificial wear in the right places.

The art and skill lies in knowing exactly what to use, where and how to apply it properly and when to stop.

Just be aware that it doesn't take a whole lot to cross the line from "fine" to "FUBAR". Personally, these days I'd rather pay what it costs to hire skill than what it does to get it myself. It's almost always been much cheaper, IME.
 
Back in "the day" on the police force, (talking late '70s early '80s) we were issued, or bought, model 19s, then model 66s as the department required. Due to liability, no modifications were allowed. One of our "cheap" ways to get a better action was to put toohpaste in the action of a new gun and for the next couple of weeks work the action back and forth while watching TV.

It works.
 
I've used toothpaste on both revolvers and automatics. I fill the action with toothpaste and work the action for a week or two, then disassemble and clean with boiling water (this heats the metal, so no liquid water remains after you drain it.)

It helps to use a fine compound (a bit finer than valve grinding compound) on a popsicle stick to polish the non-functioning areas (the sides of the cuts that other parts can rub against) such as the hammer slot.
 
Have used Pearl Drops in a pinch, and it works very well for those times when only a little smoothing is needed.

One of the best all-around "Poor Man's Action Jobs" on a double-action revolver is a tin of 606S DuPont polishing compound...the same stuff that you used on your cars in the days before clearcoat became standard. Glop it in and go shoot a couple hundred rounds, but be careful not to use so much that it interferes with the seating of the sideplate. Warp one, and you'll understand.

Valve grinding compound is the short cut to ruin, as are some lapping compounds if not used carefully and sparingly.
 
If you undertake such a job without the services of gunsmith, do TONS of research first. Consult with a gunsmith, but by the time you do all of that, it may be better just to have a pro do it for you.

Better to have 900 rounds of skill and 100 rounds of ammo, then 1000 rounds of ammo, and no skill.
 
While I've never tried to perform an action job I have used fine valve grinding compound on a rough 1911 slide to frame fit.It was a brand new Springfield parkerized and I wanted to smooth the slide a bit.It took very little time to obtain the results I desired.YMMV.tom.:cool:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top