Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Chamber Throat - Length or Diameter for Accuracy?

Concentricity ?

I think my spelling/grammar corrector has been possessed by Yoda !

From my experiences, accuracy starts with a concentric throat. After that, the diameter should be no more than .0005 over the bullet shank diameter. Finally, the throat length needs to be appropriate to work with the bullet.

Reamers ground with no throat and throating in a seperate operation opens up a lot of options, too.

Good shootin' -Al

Machinists please comment...I'm just throwing this out there, 'custom' throating as a separate operation uses a throating reamer, which by any other name is nothing but a glorified chucking reamer, never seen one equipped with a rotating pilot, it is skinny, flexible, depends totally on how well the tailstock is aligned, and without some type of collet holder on the tailstock...seems like a misalignment train wreck looking for a place to happen. Am I being a Murphy's Law lawyer here? To me, the amateur it seems one would be well served to do the math, specify the throat you want, have the integral reamer ground to spec....stick it in and it's one and done?

Precision throat reamers are available with interchangeable pilots.....many of my barrels are done this way.

Good shootin'. -Al

The pt&g throating reamer is set up so that the average skilled operator can easily put little to no misalignment into the process.( provided you cut a concentric chamber!!!) The reamer is supported on both ends.

I personally would not buy a chamber reamer with a throat for cutting a chamber in a target rifle. Hunting rifle would be a different story. Ymmv

I agree 100%. I've mentioned before my rebarreled 7x64 is the most accurate rifle I own and throat is enormously long as seen by the chamber reamer. My gunsmith has been in business for almost 40 years and had never seen a reamer with a throat that long. That was the first 7x64 he'd ever done. But miking the reamer showed the throat was just about at bullet diameter and slightly tapered towards the lands centreing the bullet in the bore.

I have several other rifles with long throats that shoot pretty good such as 6.5x57, 8x57 and .35 Whelen. All have long throats but shoot good to very well (8x57 Sako). So as long as the throat is just about bullet diamter I don't really worry how long it is now. I seat bullets with enough base in the neck to hold them and then seat to the magazine box length if I can.