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Botched chamber reaming
- Thread starter cdhknives
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2018
- Messages
- 7,045
What's your beef with turning on centers? They are, after all, centers. Until fairly recently, nearly all rifles chambered outside the factory were done through a steady. There just weren't any small (under 14-16") lathes that could go through the headstock before China/PM/Fox/Grizzly came out with their "gunsmith" model. You know, I just don't see balancing the barrel over a knife edge in the headstock and tilting it back and forth with jack screws to be a "good" method. At least with centers/steady, the axis is easy to set true and can be counted on. But I do resent the "tone" that you say, "eew, you're turning on centers, nevermind" with. It's closed minded.
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2020
- Messages
- 484
Make chips however makes you the most happy.
I want the first few inches of bore in front of where my chamber is to be perfectly in line with the chamber. I also want to clock the barrel so it points straight up when it's screwed to the gun.
The chamber end being on a "knife edge" isn't a problem. It's plenty rigid.
For shorter barrels that wont fit in my headstock (less than ~22 inch) - check out my thread on chambering short barrels. I want to be able to gimble both ends of the barrel.
I wont start an argument and say my way is better than anyone elses, but if you look at the top gunsmiths today (ignoring the old grumpy dinosaurs that live on benchrest central) - you'll find they all insist on super rigid setups in the headstock. Modern methods might have something to do with modern records being set.
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Amen!
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2013
- Messages
- 560
I got a second call form Manson reamers, Dave Manson himself. Him and one of his designers took almost 40 minutes to talk through my setup and procedure. Other than a looser than preferred (he wants slight interference fit) pilot bushing and a preference to recut the center (instead of relying on the barrel profiling center drilled champhers), he was good with my working methods. Best guess is like I suspected, use a tight reamer and loose steady rest or vice versa, not both loose or both tight.
Slowly recovering...Manson has a 6 page writeup on reamer chatter. One of their solutions is to cut a center hole in a patch and slide it over the pilot, make a short cut, withdraw, clean, repeat. That was their recommendation. It seems to be working.
1st recovery pass:
10th recovery pass:
Slowly recovering...Manson has a 6 page writeup on reamer chatter. One of their solutions is to cut a center hole in a patch and slide it over the pilot, make a short cut, withdraw, clean, repeat. That was their recommendation. It seems to be working.
1st recovery pass:
10th recovery pass:
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2014
- Messages
- 352
I would add the following, pack the patch with grease to help dampen vibration you could even use a couple patches. An additional step that will help (depending on how much of the chamber is still left to go) is to go in with a tiny boring bar and clip the lands down to groove dia. for a 1/4" or so. This will help if the reamer bushing is deflecting as the lead portion of the reamer is cutting the lands and starting the harmonic up in the front end of the reamer. It will allow the reamer to get established without vibration and set the chamber up to finish reaming. Good luck with it looks like your getting it figured out
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