Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Reaming question...

I have done a fair number of home gunsmith chores. I have finish reamed barrels by hand and gotten great results.

My question is: Is it reasonable to get a finish reamer for something like an 8mm-06 and drop it in a 8x57 and finish it out by hand? Would there be an problems with doing that? Is there a substantial risk or getting the chamber out of whack or will the fact that it is already more than 2/3ds complete keep things centered?

Second question is if the answer to the first question is that it is okay, would it be reasonable to do the same thing with a 9.3x62 from a 9.3x57?

It can be done, but it will take a long time and a lot of work to hand ream that much metal. The reamer will follow the hole, so unless you bear inordinately on one side of the reamer while you turn it, the hole will be concentric.

Clemson

Thanks for the reply. That is about what I thought.

A friend reamed barrels using a floor model drill press. He used a plumbob to locate a center to support the muzzle end then held the reamer in the drill chuck and held the barrel in his hand. It worked remarkably well.
Another fellow powered the reamer with a 1/2 inch variable speed hand drill. Again, the results were surprisingly good. Both of these guys were real craftsmen who just didn't have the right tool for the job (a lathe) but were able to make what they did have work for them. GD

No offense to your friends, and their apparently successful " 'smithing " techniques, but NO WAY would I allow either of those to be done to any rifle of mine!

Did they ream the whole chamber that way? They were pretty talented if they could do that.

For those who don't quite understand...a "vertical" lathe is nothing more or less than a "Horizontal" lathe turned on it's side and can be used in exactly the same way. Vertical lathes have been used since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

I read somewhere that Savage used a vertical lathe at one time to do chambers...not sure if it is still done that way or not, or if it is actually true or not...could be just more internet BS. If the setup is correct, plumb, level and dialed in there isn't much difference between the different approaches, it depends on the skill of the operator, the accuracy and precision of the machine and a whole bunch of other skills most arm chair 'smiths don't have.

Another thing that seems to be forgotten in these posts is the small fact the reamer does follow the hole to a certain extent BUT the reamer is also supported on the outboard end...in the barrel...depending on what size the original chamber is in relation to the new chamber to be cut and therefore follows the bore hole...not the chamber hole...after the reamer is inserted into the bore. Reamers DON'T bend...they either cut metal or break if used by a wilted brain or the bigger hammer method. I've done a bunch of standard to AI chambers and going to a slightly larger case...i.e., 250 Savage to 257 Roberts, 35 Rem to 356 or 358 W, 308 to 30-06, 223 to 222 Rem Mag, 22-250 to 22-243, etc., that just keep working and working...and shoot much better accuracy wise than the original chamber...mostly to correct overly long throats, or oversized, out of round chambers...using a floating reamer holder, drilling out the chamber diameter if needed, or other corrective measures, so the reamer doesn't have to work so hard and is supported by the bore before starting to cut. You just have to know what is required, the reasons for the requirements, and have the patients to do it.

8x57mm to 8mm 06 (8mmx62, 8x63mm Swede or 64mm) is nothing more than cutting 0.200" to 0.250" more length and a slight bit on the diameter and can be done by hand fairly easily...cutting a full sized chamber is another story altoghether, but still can be done...and can turn out accurate enought for hunting accuracy...if anyone wants to put in the effort. Many 8x57 to 8mm-06 conversion milsurps were done by hand back in the old days. One of those bread and butter jobs to the 'smith.

Remember that need is the mother of invention and the human mind is exceptionally cleaver, otherwise we wouldn't be doing this net thing today or even be around for that matter.

'Njoy

Thank you for that detailed response it was very imformative and helpful.

Geez, Louise... Name wasn't Bubba, by any chance???


A floor drill press is NOT the same as a vertical lathe, just to clarify a small point..

There were oldtimers who reamed chambers using a brace drill(as in brace and bit). When you remember that some drilled and reamed barrels the same way, and rifled them using tools they built themselves, you may be inclined to give them a little more credit.
If you think about it, using a drill press is not that bad. If the muzzle of the barrel is centered on the axis of the drill and the breech end is hand held, the barrel will "float" while the reamer is held in line. I have used a system for rechambering a double gun which was not that dissimilar to what was done with the drill press. The reamer was held in the four jaw chuck. The muzzle of the barrel was supported on the tailstock center (it's important to be sure you are centering the correct barrel!)and the barrels were hand held while fed onto the reamer.
Many modern gunsmiths, who are ultraskilled as long as they are putting a contoured barrel onto a Remington 700, are real quick to denigrate the skills and methodology of the oldtimers. Because they struggle to do good work with all the modern tooling, they refuse to believe good work could have been done by hand or with crude or improvised tooling.
Instead of laughing at someone who might use a drill press to cut a chamber, it might be worthwhile to imagine how it could be done....
First a blind hole would be drilled into a piece of wood. Let's drill it at 5/8 inch x 3/8inch deep. Into the hole we would put a ball bearing which is a snug fit in the hole. With the table set at the correct height to accept the barrel, we'd use the plumbob to center the ball directly under the drill chuck center. It might be easier to center the hole prior to putting the ball in place.The piece of wood, with ball in place would be clamped to the table. The muzzle end of the barrel will sit on this ball to center it.
A drill bit would be ground with minimal clearance so it wouldn't tend to grab and this would be used to rough the chamber. The barrel would be held by hand at the breech end. After drilling deep enough that the reamer pilot will just enter the bore, the chamber is reamed just as if it were being done any other way. If necessary, the drill bit would be employed again to deepen the chamber prior to finishing it with the reamer. Then back to reaming. Once the reamer is cutting fully, the barrel would be cleaned out and the chamber measured using a gauge or a new piece of brass. Reaming would continue until the measurement was within .010". It would then be finished by hand.
Now, other than the fact that the whole operation is somewhat more difficult than using a lathe, where is the flaw? It's possible to ensure the reamer is running true by the use of a dial gauge or a "wiggler". The barrel is easily removed for cleaning and measuring. Not the easy way for sure but it is possible to accomplish the job. It is even possible to accomplish it perfectly.
Of course, the threading of the barrel is another thing altogether. I don't see how one could get around this without a lathe! However, I have read of cutting off the threads from a barrel and boring this out to fit on the tenon of the new barrel the soldering it in place. Not for high intesity cartridges of course!
I have seen barrels which were ground with a bench grinder and finished with files and were a perfect octagon. I have watched breechblocks filed by hand and fitted to a single shot receiver, again by hand with files and the results were measurably perfect. The breechface was vertical and there were no gaps. Contact was 100%. When a person is capable of doing this, he is capable of chambering a rifle just about anyway he wants and doing a good job of it.
By the same token,an unskilled hack can ruin a job with the finest of tooling and machinery. I have seen oval chambers, eccentric chambers, misaligned chambers,chambers bulged out in the middle, and chambers so rough that extraction was impossible. All were done by licensed gunsmiths on modern equipment. I have seen modern, highly regarded firearms which exhibited the same flaws. So, while you might laugh at someone who would endeavor to chamber a barrel with a drill press, I will admire his skill and ingenuity. GD

"...........and grandpa took his belt off and cut off a chunk that fit just right and put it in in place of the rod bearing and chinched it up. He had to do this several times but made it home. Them Model Ts were darn forgiving............."

I've never had the nerve to try that on a SB Chevy, though.

"..........he'd just take a file and put a big flat on the front of them army bullets, kilt a lot of deer with those bullets, too........."

I've never seen anyone use a piece of belt on a small block Chevy connecting rod but I have seen a bearing shell built up with babbit and scraped to fit and re-installed in one. It ran as long as the rest of them. I've also seen the rear main bearing saddle in the block welded up and re-cut by hand, this also on a small block Chevy. And it worked.
Again, just because one may lack the ability to do something, does not mean it can't be done.
My description of the drill press reaming set-up is a mixture of how I recall it and how I would approach it. I don't plan on retiring my lathe in favor of a tall drill press any time soon but I know the method can work.
I have purchased small, supposedly precision ground pieces which varied by over .0005" in thickness. I promise you, I can beat that by hand.
I suspect that many people who ridicule the idea of precise hand work are people who have no practical experience with the performance of precision work at all. The truth is, good work is determined by the result, not the method. Just because a block has been line bored does not mean the crank bore is straight. It only means it has been line bored. If it has been verified to be straight, then it is. Just because a rifle barrel has been chambered on a brand new lathe complete with digital readout does not mean the chamber is straight, round, or the proper depth. It only means it was produced on a nice piece of equipment. Straightness, concentricity, and depth are proper only if shown to be so via valid inspection methods. GD

You sound like you have a bit of experience in precision work.

You also say the guys "hand-held" the barrels under a drill press, using a "plumb bob" to center it.

So, do you then consider a blank chucked up in a lathe to be "close enough" or "plumb bob straight", or do you want to dial it in? Once you've got it straight in the chuck, do you think that "hand-holding" it would suffice?

How "precise" is that??

Seriously, hand holding a barrel under a drill press is hardly "practical experience with the performance of precision work".

I'd say.....

Re-read. The plumbob had nothing to do with barrel alignment other than to establish the location of the center directly under the chuck. Now, providing the drill press is sitting dead level, the plumbob will truly indicate center. As to whether or not the centering ball would be located at true center is somewhat open to question and would be enirely dependent on the workman's ability to do so. It could certainly be located very close.
I've tried to recall where I mentioned chucking a blank up in the lathe and calling it close enough but am unable to do so. I did mention chucking a reamer in the lathe then hand holding the barrels of a double while supporting the muzzle end on the tailstock center. How precise is it? Precise enough that the throat, which was .0005" over groove diameter, was not visibly eccentric to the bore. Did this make me decide to start doing my benchrest barrels this way? Of course not. It did show there are multiple ways to flay a feline.
At no point did I say the handholding of a barrel under a drill press was "practical experience with the performance of precision work". That is, instead, your interpretation of a quote taken out of context.
I will say this; if a person is able to, by the use of this method or any other, produce a chamber which is round, concentric, inline and the proper depth, he has demonstrated the ability to do precise work and is therefor, experienced in the field. If he is able to produce work of a predetermined size at will, he has demonstrated the ability to do precision work regardless of the method employed. A man who can generate a perfect straight edge with hand tools, (used to be a toolmaking requirement)is a man who is experienced in the production of precision work.
People who produce fine checkering in which the lines are all straight and uniformly spaced and the diamonds of uniform size and shape are, in a sense, producing precision work. Work of a type which is difficult, if not impossible, for most of us (I include myself in the "difficult" category, at best!) to accomplish.
People who dial in a barrel to the nearest tenth then hold the reamer in a flawed holder or on a misaligned tailstock center, are inept. If they produce misaligned, out-of-round, eccentric chambers, they are plainly incapable of precise work in spite of the machinery they use.
I do have some rudimentary skills and some experience in the area of precise work. I have described a method I saw used as it seemed appropriate to illustrate the possibilty of performing some tasks without a lathe but with considerable personal skill. I have described possible ways to accomplish the task using limited tooling as an intellectual exercise more than anything.
The book "Advanced Gunsmithing" by Wayne Vickery makes interesting reading and if the reader keeps his mind open, there is much to be learned by his decription of his "outdated" methods. (As an aside; Wayne Vickery was a customer of my Grandfather's automotive shop in Boise, Idaho. Mr. Vickery installed the barrel and performed alterations on my Dad's first high powered rifle in 1941. The rifle, a 93 Mauser, was fitted with a new Remington barrel, a Lyman receiver sight installed, and the bolt handle altered. The total bill was $25.00!) James V. Howe's "The Modern Gunsmith" (a two volume set) is another fascinating look at methods which would be considered obsolete today,
Again, I'm not trying to tell anybody they should eschew the use of modern equipment and revert to primitive methods. I'm just relating what can be done using these methods if the workman is capable of doing it. I'm also saying this; if the workman is inept, his ineptitude will show itself regardless of the method or machinery he employs. GD

What Greydog said.

+1

GTC

First, let me say that I am not a precision machinist, but I do admire precision work.

This is my opinion only, but I would like to get the opinion from some of you experienced machinists.

It would appear that if a reamer were held in a horizontal lathe tailstock, that the reamer would sag, and therefore cut more on the bottom than equally around the leading cutting edge of the entire reamer. If not sag, then perhaps all the weight of the reamer could be on the bottom cutting edges, causing the chamber to be either oversize or out of round, or both. Also, depending on how and where the barrel was chucked, it could sag, too.

If the reamer were held in a vertical lathe, it would appear that the reamer would cut straight in, therefore cutting equally on the front of the reamer, and the reamer pilot would more accurately follow the barrel bore.

Just to my way of thinking, it would seem that a straighter, more precise chamber could be reamed if it were done with a vertical set up.

To my way of thinking, it would seem that a more precise hole could be drilled if drilled on a vertical machine instead of a horizontal machine. This would be especially true in barrel making, where a long drill is used. It just seems to me that a long deep hole drill could sag on the end.

I have threaded and chambered some barrels, and also reamed some throats, but only on my own stuff. I don't think that I have the skill nor the knowledge to do it on someone elses property.

In truth, the weight of the reamer or drill is such a small component that it is lost in the shuffle. The attitude of the work is mostly meaningless. The lathe could be mounted horizontally, vertically, or anywhere in between the two and it would make no real difference.
In the case of the deep hole drill, it is guided at the start by a close fitting bushing and guided there after by it's own shank or body. When drilling deep holes with a common twist drill mounted on an extension (and I have drilled 1/2 inch holes up to 30 inches in depth this way), I would just start the hole with a standard length drill bit. GD

If a guy just wants to extend the 8x57 to 8mm/06 and NOT take the barrel off the receiver--use of a bushing drilled to 7/16 and a snug fit in the rear of the receiver will allow the reamer to run as true as the receiver/barrel allow. I have done this on hunting rifles [ONLY] with no problems and got good chambers. I would still opt for removing the barrel and using my lathe but sometimes the funding will not allow for the absolute best way [Appalachia of the West Coast] so I just try to help the kids out. The way I feel if a youngster wants a decent rifle to hunt with it is imperative to get him into the field. We, as hunters, are losing ground so fast to the enviropukes we need to get the younger kids into the field. So? The cheap way out? Sure as long as it is safe and fully functional. Let the flames begin!
Aloha, Mark

Some you guys should re-read what Greydog has said and look at other post's of his. I wouldn't be trying to turn on him as he just might know a bit about 'smithing..........

I truly wish he was in the states.....


Dave