re chamber a 22 lr cylinder to 22 mag ?

[ra_balke]

After a long search, I found a new cylinder for my smith wesson model 63. It is caliber 22 lr.

I want to re chamber it to 22 mag to make a convertable gun. 22lr/22mag.

I need to know how, I no longer have a lathe.

1. Do I need to reem out the chamber to a size, before to use the 22 mag reamer ? Or can I just go right in with the chambering reamer ?

2. Can I do the job in a bench vice, with a tap handle, and good cutting oil ?

3. what about head space ? Can I just ream the chambers to flush, like the 22lr cylinder ?

4. can anyone recommend a gun****h who is qualifyed ?

I'd really like to do the job myself, I just do not know quite how to get started with it.

Thanks

[leftiye]

If you gave the dimensions of the reamer I could answer better. The chamber mouths want to be .225" or something close to that, so reaming the whole chamber to .225 probly wouldn't be a bad idea. BUT - you might wanna measure your reamer pilot and see what size that is first! After the holes are the right size for the reamer pilot, then just ream away.

[Casting Timmy]

You might have to fit the cylinder to the gun first.

[KCSO]

The chamber can be reamed by hand if you go slow and carefull. You will need a 22 Mag chambering finish reamer from Brownell's and a go and no go gauge. You are just taking the chamber up a little in dimension so it's not a major task. If you want you can use a 4 jaw chuck to center the chambers one at a time to a ten thousands of an inch in the lathe and ream a 28 rpm but from expirience I doubt you will see any difference in accuracy from just hand reaming the chambers.