30 cal Minimum bearing surface in case neck?

[ar10ar15man]

13 of 13 that work as requested .
head space gauge for each
but i never broke a reamer and then blamed poor cut flutes.
national championship the results.
yes i send in a dummy have reamers made to them.
one less customer is less wait time for the rest of us

9 out of 13 orders were wrong in some way ranging from out of spec reamers and headspace gages, improperly cut flutes leading to broken reamers, entirely wrong items shipped or orders lost but still charged. These are just my experiences which they acknowledged and attempted to make right. I currently have a credit for the last bad reamer they made for me, but I'll never use it. I'll pay for better service from JGS or Manson before I take a "free" product from PTG.

But of course that's all internet hearsay.....

 

[yorke-1]

13 of 13 that work as requested .
head space gauge for each
but i never broke a reamer and then blamed poor cut flutes.
national championship the results.
yes i send in a dummy have reamers made to them.
one less customer is less wait time for the rest of us

The smith who was using the reamer is highly regarded and PTG acknowledged the faulty flute angles. And it's hard to send in dummy rounds for unique wildcat designs. Those of us who do that sort of thing rely on machine shops to accurately read the prints provided and actually run them through QC before sending them out the door. It's a much less common issue when the custom tooling being made is nothing more than slight modification to a reamer which has been done so many times that the shop can give the specs from memory.

 

[DJ Fergus]

PTG contracts out reamers to be made for them, I don't know if it's a few or all. I got this straight from PTG. Not that it matters as long as the reamer is of the quality desired. I was told that was why it sometimes takes a while to get a reamer. I personally have mixed feelings about PTG. My close friend who shoots ftr highly praises them & Dave Kiff. From what I understand, Dave himself is a good guy and the company outgrew itself and several customers suffered the consequences of it. I ordered a particular part from them a while back cause it was a little cheaper and I wasn't in a hurry for it. But I will be discretionary in the future on my decision to go with PTG or some one else cause in general about half of the parts I ordered took longer than they stated. I did eventually receive all that I ordered.

 

[Susquatch]

At the risk of turning this into a PTG thread......

I have only ever had one problem with PTG and they made good on it. It was an action truing tool that cut threads, and squared the face and lugs all in one process. It would cut Chrome Moly but not Stainless. They shipped me a new one at no cost. I've since gone away from hand tools and prefer to single point on the lathe even though it takes MUCH longer to do simply because it produces better results and I don't need to take any more material off than necessary.

I have several hundred PTG tools reamers and gauges and only one problem. Yet every place I look on the internet I see bad reviews of PTG. But I don't see those problems in my shop.

I have also talked to Dave Kiff on the phone a half dozen times about custom tools and/or advice. He even called me from a hotel on vacation once. He can be quite long winded at times, but I'll take that any day over no return calls at all. Besides, he is a cool fellow with interesting perspectives on a wide variety of topics.

Are there problems at PTG? Yes. They seem to go through sales people like water down the Amazon River. It is probably very difficult to find good people to sell complicated tools on the phone.

Lead times can be quite long. But I'd rather wait for a part than have some newbie machinist make it for me on the weekend night shift.

I don't think ALL the complaints can be lies or third hand rumours, but I prefer my own anecdotal experience over any problems reported by others. And quite frankly, I prefer to ignore third hand reports totally.

Nuff Said.

 

[L.Sherm]

ask for the correct reamer, and recut..it should only cut the back.

I know they can be reground, but I prefer them to be right the first time. Sorry OP didnt mean to derail this thread.

 

[Rhovee]

I have a 300 Norma with .235 FB. It gives me about .055 from hitting the doughnut on a 230 Berger Hybrid. Remember that the 225 ELDM has alot longer bearing surface and would require more freebore. I would imagine somewhere in the .270 range. The difference in base to ogive on the 215 vs 230 Berger Hybrids is about .008.

 

[L.Sherm]

Per Bergers website .799 on 215 base to ogive, .875 on 230

 

[Susquatch]

I suspect there are some misunderstandings here about the "dreaded donut". It's important to understand that this problem arises when reloaders outside turn their case necks to fit tight chamber necks. It doesn't happen with unturned necks or with no-turn or larger chambers necks.

Therefore, there is no need to worry about how deeply a bullet is seated into the case if you don't have a tight neck chamber or original brass that wouldn't fit the chamber in unturned sized condition.

Yes, I know that some brass creep happen, and brass can develop the problem over time, but it's a mistake to think that it always happens or that the donut is inevitable.

Seating bullets out past the neck shoulder junction has the advantage of increasing the apparent chamber size to increase charge volumes and velocity, but it's not a major advantage.

Nor is it a significant disadvantage to seat bullets deeper into the case than the neck shoulder junction. The reduction in case volume is not really that significant.

It is much more important to seat bullets to achieve optimum throat position relative to the lands and maintaining adequate bullet retention with enough of the neck to hold the bullet securely than it is to worry about where the bullet's base is relative to the neck shoulder.

Even for those shooters who do have tight necks and neck turned cases, careful attention to the neck turning process and returning if ever necessary is a much preferred approach to the issue than arbitrarily setting the seating depth above the neck shoulder junction.

In my experience, the problem of too long a throat and bullets too far from the lands, and loads that are too long to fit the magazine are MUCH bigger and much more common issues than the donut is.

Last, but not least, bushing dies can also eliminate the problem by limiting how much of neck is sized to keep it away from the neck/shoulder junction.

 

[Rhovee]

I have had Berger 215 BTO show a difference of .025 between lots. The lot of 215's I have and 230's are only .007 difference in touching the lands.