New Barrel and Reamer for 6PPC

A

Alan C

Guest
A little over a year ago, I purchased a used 6PPC rifle. It's built on a BAT Model S action with a .262 neck 1:14 twist barrel and I was told it had "<1000 rounds through it." I have put 400 additional rounds through it and thought it may be time to start thinking about a new barrel. I am presently using Barts 68gr Ultra flat base bullets (100-200 yds) and was thinking about a 13.5 twist Krieger for the new barrel.

I don't know who the gunsmith was that originally built the rifle, so will be looking for one to do the work. That said, I wanted to purchase my own reamer and have a couple of barrels chambered at the same time and will be ordering a custom sizing die to fit the new chamber.

The reamers are confusing to me...there are several made for the 6PPC. I noticed that Grizzly had a PTG finish reamer with .262 neck and .0550 freebore in stock. The PTG website offers several different 6PPC reamers with various measurements for neck size and freebore, so I'm not sure what to chose. I have 200 rounds of .262 neck brass and that has been working well, but I just ordered another 200 pieces of Lapua brass so could change to a different neck size if there are any real benefits, other than how much the brass needs to be turned. I also noticed on the PTG site that they have rougher, finish, and resizer reamers. Would I need to purchase both rougher and finish reamers?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Alan
 
As you have discovered, there are multitudes of different readers available for the 6PPC. They vary in neck diameter, case web diameter, throat length, and some other things that shooters come up with in the quest of smaller Aggs.

If you are already invested in a .262 neck, the PTG with the .055 freebore will work just fine. I use a reamer that is the is similiar except I use a .269 neck.

You will ask why a .269? I use it for convenience in neck turning.
 
Call Bart and ask. He might say Billy Stevens.
Match the bullets and the reamer........
Gunsmith might also depend on where you live....
 
If there is/was a "standard" 6PPC reamer it was the JGS 1045. There are many variant drawings available especially from PTG (Pacific Tool & Gage). Oodles of benchrest shooters have used variants of freebore length and case neck diameter for many reasons. If you pick a for-sure benchrest gunsmith to do your work, pick their brain and then decide what sounds best. Really there probably isn't a "best". Billy Stevens is one of the best benchrest gunsmiths and his work wins for him and his customers.

Its kind-of like do you want a red Ford or a blue Chevy.


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Thanks Jackie, Jerry, Zippy and the member that sent a PM. I'll get in touch with one of the gunsmiths to see what they say. Lots of options available and inexperience on my part makes it difficult for me to make an informed decision.

Jerry - I notice that you are from Tennessee. I lived in Bristol TN for about 20 yrs. A lot of good folks there. I spent a fair amount of time at the Kettlefoot ranges, but nothing benchrest related. I'm in Raleigh NC now...I miss the old days!

Alan
 
I would not buy a reamer until you find a gunsmith that is going to do the work.
If he is good, he will have a reamer and sizing die that works together. This might sound easy to do but it takes a lot of trial and error to get it right.
Give Billy Stevens a call and ask him. He will give you good information.
Joe Hynes
 
Oh, or give Wayne Campbell a call.
He is another great smith. Wayne is in Concord Virginia.
Both of these guys can fix you up.
Joe Hynes
 
Alan C said:
Thanks Jackie, Jerry, Zippy and the member that sent a PM. I'll get in touch with one of the gunsmiths to see what they say. Lots of options available and inexperience on my part makes it difficult for me to make an informed decision.

Jerry - I notice that you are from Tennessee. I lived in Bristol TN for about 20 yrs. A lot of good folks there. I spent a fair amount of time at the Kettlefoot ranges, but nothing benchrest related. I'm in Raleigh NC now...I miss the old days!

Alan
Click to expand...

Alan, we tried to bring centerfire benchrest back to Kettlefoot. We shot centerfire there for about 20 years. We recently spent over $85,000 upgrading that range but we don't have anyone willing to run the shoots now.
We have a nice 60 bench 50/50 rimfire range where the international Triple Crown is shot. I was raised there. I live in Tennessee but I have a farm that joins the Kettlefoot property.

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Jerry - sounds like there have been a lot of upgrades at Kettlefoot since I moved out of the area almost 25 years ago. I did shoot in one .22rf match there using a rifle that someone loaned me. I didn't do all that well, but it was really fun. I still remember how amazed I was at the "real" scope on that rifle. So much better than the cheap variable scope that I had on my .243 model 700.

I did take a few trophies with the .243 in metallic silhouette matches that were being held at Kettlefoot back in the day. The only work I did to the rifle was to bed the action and float the barrel, but it did shoot fairly well for a cheap rifle, which was all I could afford at the time.

After trying the 6PPC, I was hooked. I was surprised at how accurate it was, even when fire forming the brass. This barrel probably has 1400 or so rounds through it. I'm hoping that with a new barrel, it will be even more accurate. I doubt that I'll shoot in any real matches but I do want to do the best that I can when I go to the range.

Alan
 
I haven't seen much difference in how one reamer shoots over another as to freebore length or neck diameter. However, when you go with a thicker neck, you can get more seating pressure than you can with a thinner neck. The .262 neck is a carry over from the Sako .220 Russian days as that thickness was what it took to clean up the necks on the cases at that time. I've been using a .265 neck for the past three or four years now and can get enough neck tension with it that its sometimes very difficult to pull a bullet with a PMA bullet puller. I turn necks for .002" clearance. .263" loaded neck diameter and use a .258" bushing. So am running a lot of neck tension. If I have to pull a live round out of the chamber, I won't stick a bullet in the barrel. The .269" neck that Jackie is using has worked well for him for years. I like the carbide bushings that are made for the size dies. You don't see as many of them being made for the thicker necks, but I haven't looked for them in several years either. I'd check with whichever gunsmith that you have do your barreling as to what reamer they recommend and one close to you would be a plus. Either Wayne or Billy will do you a great job. Owning your own reamer is a plus when it comes to shooting benchrest as it makes every chamber the same from barrel to barrel to barrel as long as the gunsmith knows what he's doing and has the reamer cutting as close to diameter as possible. Your own reamer will save you lots of load work up when you change barrels, just having to do minor seating depth or load changes when you switch barrels rather than having to start over from scratch with every barrel.
 
Many years ago, when Ferris Pindell was retiring, I bought much of his tooling, reamers, seaters gages, etc. On the reamers, most were on 40 degree variants of the PPC, had 266 necks. So I ask Ferris why and why the current 262 neck. his answer was at the time of development for the PPC the brass available had to be turned to 262 to clean up.

For several years after that I shot a 266 neck in my PPC's, 6-40 Dune, and the 6-40 Tyger. All worked fine. For the last couple of years I have gone back to a 262. Why? No justifiable reason other than my most recent PPC reamer cuts to the body dimensions I like. Using a neck larger than 262 is probably best and requires less work to turn necks. However I still feel that a 1-cut neck is probably not as accurate as taking 2 cuts, even 3 cuts if you want neck wall concentricity perfection. With a 262 I use about average neck tension but control ignition pressure with bullet jam.

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Thanks everyone. The good news is that there don't seem to be any accuracy concerns with any of the various neck size options.

As for the barrel itself, it looks like Krieger barrels with 13.5 or 14 twist are available in .236 and .237 and with 4 or 6 grooves. In addition, it seems that some of the top gunsmiths use Bartlein barrels, so there are even more options. Any recommendations?
 
Alan C said:
Thanks everyone. The good news is that there don't seem to be any accuracy concerns with any of the various neck size options.

As for the barrel itself, it looks like Krieger barrels with 13.5 or 14 twist are available in .236 and .237 and with 4 or 6 grooves. In addition, it seems that some of the top gunsmiths use Bartlein barrels, so there are even more options. Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

Krieger 237/243 in 4 groove.

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