Rechambering info.....????

[Roughneck1860]

A member from another forum I'm on has graciously offered to loan me a .22-250 AI reamer and head space gauge to do the work on my Savage .22-250 Rem. What I'm looking for is the info on how its done. I'm quite mechanically inclined and have done a lot of different type detailed work. I'm pretty sure I can handle the work once I find out exactly whats involved and what steps to take. Does anyone have a link to an article or video on rechambering? I'd like to give this a try. I was going to have it done but locally there's not a gunsmith I'd let even clean my gun.

Thanks
Tim

 

[Fitch]

OK, I'll tell you what I did when I was in the exact same situation in the fall of 2008 with the throat on my .22-250 LRPV shot out and a gunsmith friend willing to load me a reamer.

I got Gordy Gritters and Richard Franklin's videos. Gordy's is just chambering but it is very good. Richard's covers every thing from chambering to action truing. I watched both videos several times. The first time I just watched them. The second time I put MS Word on the second monitor and paused the video to take notes. I've watched them both about 4 times now.

I also went on several forums, the gunsmithing portion of Bench Rest Central was a very good source of information. I did searches on chambering and read the posts. I copy/pasted the best parts of threads into an MS-Word document. I followed links to WEB sites, copy/pasted good stuff from there into my "chambering book". I ended up with 200+ pages of book on chambering. I put it in the throne room and spent hours reading it.

I wrote out a procedure that would work for me in my lathe. Then I started making tooling.

My barrel vise:

Adaptor to use a dial indicator on the tail stock:

Spider chuck for the front of the headstock (I used my 4J chuck backplate):

A cross slide threading stop:

Couple of receiver truing sleeves:

These are used with a set of bushings I machined in .0005" size increments from .698" to .705". I used a chucking reamer to ream the ID of the bushings to .500". For a mandrel I bought a 14" piece of 60R precision ground shafting from MSC.

To be continued.

Fitch

 

[Fitch]

Chambering Continued:

I also made this spider to go on the back end of the headstock:

I later cross drilled and tapped the back end of the tail stock for some spider bolts.

I'm able to chamber thorugh the headstock like this:

So with the tooling made I made a plan to set back and rechamber the LRPV barrel:

Put the barrel in the band saw:

Flipped the switch and ended upwith this:

To be continued ...

 

[Fitch]

Continued ...

It was time to put my tools, including this home made reamer pusher:

to work. The end result was this chamber:

and this crown:

I reassembled it:

It shoots 3/8" to 1/2" groups at 100 yards which is as good as it did out of the box. The barrel is about 1-1/2" shorter but the difference in MV doesn't seem to matter.

Anyway, that's how I addressed the challenge you are faced with. The whole prlcess took me about 3 months from start to finish. I also bought John Hinnant's excellent book.

Go for it, and have fun. I sure did. Since then I've bedded 5 rifles, chambered two, crowned three, and taught myself to true actions.

Fitch

 

[Roughneck1860]

Thanks.......that was the most useful info I've gotta so far after posting on several forums. Most replies ranged from....."I did mine just turning it in by hand" to "if you have to ask then you aren't qualified to do it". I'll look into getting my hands on those videos and book you mention.

Thanks again
Tim

 

[Fitch]

Thanks.......that was the most useful info I've gotta so far after posting on several forums. Most replies ranged from....."I did mine just turning it in by hand" to "if you have to ask then you aren't qualified to do it". I'll look into getting my hands on those videos and book you mention.

Thanks again
Tim

They will help. Take your time. Do everything like it was the only thing you had to do and it will work out.

I ended up taking some of the process from one source, some from another. I use Gordy Gritters method of aligning the barrel in the headstock because it makes the most sense to me to do it that way. I use Richard Franklin's approach for truing actions, and for chambering all except how I align the barrel in the headstock and I use a different reamer pusher than he does. I made my own reamer pusher based on what one of the gunsmiths that posts on the bench rest forum does. If one looks at the geometry and inherent stability of the process, the one I use makes sense. Again, that form of pusher made more sense than the ones used in either of the videos.

Bottom line, work to understand the "why" of each step rather than just "what". My reading of threads in gunsmithing forums was devoted to trying to find out the "why" behind doing things. Turns out not many people understand the underlying physics of what is going on and why something would make sense,. or not.

Fitch

 

[Roughneck1860]

Bottom line, work to understand the "why" of each step rather than just "what".
Fitch

That's exactly the way I like to work. I don't just like going ahead for tilt and ramming into things blind. I really like to know why I'm doing something instead of just because someone said so.

Thanks again
Tim

 

[mo]

Fitch I appreciate when someone takes the time to make a post like yours. Thanks

 

[J E Custom]

Fitch:

That was a very good post and should help anyone that is getting started !!!!!

I to built my own fixtures for doing the whole job and it's amazing how similar
mine are to yours. They may look a little different but they perform the same task
and its fun to build your own tooling and see how well they work.

It's also OK to practice on some mild steel stock to perfect your process for threading,
chambering and crowning.

Don't get in a hurry and you will do fine.

J E CUSTOM

 

[GNERGY]

FITCH Great write up and very well explained so the novice has a good idea what is envolved.

Tarey