Chambering by hand?

O

oneeyedmac

Guest
I spoke with a smith recently who was trained by an 80 yr old gunsmith who did things "old school", to use the current vernacular. He finish chambers all his barrels by hand and his mentor sometimes completely by hand. He says it really allows precision because he can stop his hand faster than he can stop his lathe. His results are pretty phenominal too, his guns shoot extremely well.

This is interesting. Do any of you old salts have experience doing this and where can one purchase hand tools for this sort of thing?
 
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I'll use the lathe until the last .005" or less. I then use my hand until I get the last .001" out of it. I cant imagine chambering by hand for the entire 100% of the chamber.
 
One question Why?????
I can cut a chamber with a good finish, plus or minus .0005"
The first requirement is to measure accurately. After that it's easy.

Dave
 
hand reaming

Give it a try --oh and by the way
Good Luck With That --------------let us know when your wrist gives up,maybe your first chamber should be a 7STW or 375 h&h or 300 wby.

As stated earlier WHY?
chris
 
If you're more comfortable finishing by hand, try using the lathe as a jig to keep even pressure on the reamer as you turn it. If you finish the depth without a way to keep the reamer depth constant, you'll most likely end up with as many humps in the shoulder as your reamer has flutes.

-Dave-:)
 
Hard on the body

wnroscoe said:
I'll use the lathe until the last .005" or less. I then use my hand until I get the last .001" out of it. I cant imagine chambering by hand for the entire 100% of the chamber.
Click to expand...
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Some time ago a friend of mine living on the land some 160km from the nearest small country town had asked me, next time I come to visit him to bring my .450AI reamer. When I got there he had pre threaded, crowned and blued 26" CM barrel for his Brno ZKK 602 and no lathe. He couldn't wait any longer to have his .450AI, so some 60 minutes later I've made him a .450AI chamber head spaced to his requested 0.1mm (0.004") on the belt. The entire 100% of the chamber was done by hand in a bench vise, using just a motor oil the chamber was smooth with no sign of a chatter.
When the job was done, the "hand chamber" could match my own 602 ZKK "machined chamber" in accuracy. 500SP/2400fps 35MM/100M three shot groups. We had no equipment to be able to measure what the actual runout of the chamber was.

Shoot better
Peter
 
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oneeyedmac said:
I spoke with a smith recently who was trained by an 80 yr old gunsmith who did things "old school", to use the current vernacular. He finish chambers all his barrels by hand and his mentor sometimes completely by hand. He says it really allows precision because he can stop his hand faster than he can stop his lathe. His results are pretty phenominal too, his guns shoot extremely well.

This is interesting. Do any of you old salts have experience doing this and where can one purchase hand tools for this sort of thing?
Click to expand...

I know a gunsmith that only uses the lathe for cutting and threading the tennon. He rough reams and finish reams by hand. He does excellent work too.
Way too much work for me.
Around here we call that movin' the rock pile.

James
 
A confidence in youself and

Using an indicator with care, will make the lathe finish better and more reliable.

Shoot better
Peter
 
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I believe he said it gives him a better feel for the chamber and he pefers to do it that way. I was just curious if it was a common practice or not. To each his own, no need to be critical.
 
I'm curious. What does feel have to do with getting a chamber to the correct depth? Most hand wheels on tailstocks are graduated. Get your last go to number for chamber depth, get all the slack out of the tailstock while pushing against the reamer, lock the tailstock down, start the lathe and feed in the number you need. It's just that simple. There's no black magic involved.
If your handwheel is not grauated then make up something like what I use. If you chamber a good number of barrels it will make it very easy, if you don't chamber many barrels if will give you the confidence to know you can get it right the first time. Also the experience of making the tooling. This piece of flat stock was made in a 4 jaw chuck and a drill press.

Dave
 

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dave t.,
that is the second time i have seen you post that pic. i'm gonna duplicate it. i have a starret 4 inch travel dial indicator that i used to use to check the stoke on crankshafts/piston travel. my tailstock has 4 inch travel..it all works!
thanks
mike
 
The mechanical advantage of the quill screw in the tailstock allows me to focus on the "feel" of the reamer beginning to cut. As Dave said, the graduated tailstock or indicator allows you to control your feed and depth of cut.
Having to push the reamer by hand while guessing at the depth of cut may have advantages but they are not readily apparent to me.
Opinions vary....
 
My 2 cents worth..

Reamers and the materials they are made of today are desidgned to cut at higher RMS than reamers of 50 years ago. Dave Kiff told me the worst thing one can do with a reamer is to grind with a reamer. Reamers are designed to cut not grind. Most of the barrels I do are stainless steel. Stainless steel tends to work harden and it cuts better the first time.

I am in agreement with Dave Tooley.

Rustystud
 
mike

You don't need 4" of travel. I throw the go gage in once in a while to monitor the depth of the chamber. I never take a measurement until I get down to within the thickness of the rim. Then it's measure-feed, measure- feed and I'm done. So a 1" travel indicator will work just fine. Put the reamer in the chamber, bring the tailstock up against it, rotate the handwheel until you get the number you want to remove from the chamber. Lock the tailstock down, run the quill lightly up against the reamer to double check your setting on the indicator, then make the cut stopping on zero. It ain't rocket science.

Dave
 
Chambering by hand

As a Benchrest Shooter, and Machinist, I am one of those who chamber by hand. I rough bore the chamber, on the correct taper, to where all I am using the reamer for is to establish the final size, shape, and finish of the chamber.
I have my own reasons for doing this. In fact, on my Benchrest Rifles, I do things a little backwards. I establish the best chamber I can in the barrel first, then I do all of the other machining operations, basing all of the criticle dimensions off of that chamber..
But, I do not do Gunsmith work for a living. And, the biggest thing I will ever encounter in the size of a chamber is a 308. If I were doing this for a living, I would certainly be using one of the tried and true methods that Masters such as Dave Tooley employ.
Gunsmithing, to me, is a hobby. I can spend as much time as I want doing one of my own barrels. But, since I also own and run a Marine Repair Machine Shop, I know that time is money. You can only dedicate a certain amount of time for any job, because there is a set price that the market dictates. It might sound cool to say, "I take all day to ream a chamber if neccessary', but if you do, you will be working for sub minimum wage.
Master Gunsmiths, who do thousands of chambers, use methods that produce the very best results in a reasonable amount of time. The excellence of their work does not suffer because they have developed set-ups that guarantee the finest reasults in a timely fashion.........jackie
 
I would add a caution: Don't assume your tailstock is coaxial with the axis of rotation of your headstock. It could be off in a number of ways. The smiths who use a lathe to chamber have this worked out in advance. There are also "floating" reamer holders, but it is best to have a lathe with a dialed-tailstock.
 
Why would one do it this way is why I asked the original question. It's interesting to see different ways things are done and more interesting to find out why. I'd like to get into gunsmithing as a hobby and I'm reading books and asking questions to that end.
 
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