Which chamber reamer?

[Wayne Smith]

We're not to the point of getting a barrel, but my Martini action is getting off the ground, and I want to make it into a cast boolit shooter. It'll be a 45-70. I like to get ifnormation ahead of time. My gunsmith is not up on the details of cast boolit gunsmithing, and neither am I. I get to educate him, and you get to educate me. I will probably print this for him, so write your answers for a gunsmith rather than for a psychologist!

For a strictly cast boolit shooter, which of the available chamber reamers do I want? I'm thinking of throat configuration here, and assuming a rented reamer. It will probably have a Green Mountian barrel.

I have the opportunity to get this done right and don't want to mess it up.

[Char-Gar]

I don't know if any reamer is any better than another for cast bullets. I would use a standard reamers without a throat or a short throat and them use a seperate throating reamer to establish the length of the throat I want. In a single action, you have very little caming power of the action to engrave the bullet nose on the rifling. Throat length becomes very important in single shot rifles.

I have seen some old single shot target rifles that have the rifling just ahead of the throat lapped into sort of a forcing cone so bullets can be seated to engage the rifling. I have a Sharps Borchards with an Axel Peterson barrel in 38-55 throated this way. The rifle is 125 years old and will shoot like a house-a-fire with soft bullets and a velocity of 1.1-1.3K fps. It will put ten rounds in one ragged hole at 100 yards.

[Wayne Smith]

OK, so maybe I asked the wrong question. I was thinking throat, assuming that the chambering reamer also cut the throat, apparently an incorrect assumption.

The proper question, then, is what throat do I want for a single shot 45-70 Long Range rifle? Would this be different for a Hunting (relatively short range) rifle? Remember, we're talking about shooting cast, PB or GC bullets only, using BP most likely.

How are these throats cut if not with a reamer?

[Blackwater]

Wayne, I think if it was me, I'd use one of the reamers designed for BPCR. Those rifles shoot cast bullets exclusively, at least in competition, and generally have short throats that make it easy to get rifling contact with the bullets, which in target type BP rifles tends to usually enhance their accuracy.

If you haven't decided on a gunsmith, you might want to email Lee Shaver at egunsmith.com, or visit his website. His turnaround time is good, and he can advise you on many things about barrel selection, chambers, etc. Also, he's a specialist in SS rifles, and that's something that's sometimes a big help. Just FYI.

[Wayne Smith]

Thanks, Blackwater. I shooda thot of that. E-mail on the way.

[Wayne Smith]

I contacted Lee. He says he has definite ideas on the appropriate throating, but types too slowly to write them. He is more than willing to talk to my gunsmith and gave me his contact info.

Does anyone on the board know him personally? It might be a project to get him to co-author a book with a professional writer.

[Blackwater]

I don't "know" him. He just did the triggers on my two Browning 1885's. Darn fine work, too. If you can get him to write a book, I'd buy one, definitely. If he has trouble typing, tell him to dictate it and let someone else transcribe it. MUCH easier and MUCH faster for him. I also think it allows a real artist, like him, to think in more of a "stream of consciousness" type of way, which I think enhances much good writing. If you're a real "shrink," maybe you can expound on that ... or maybe disabuse me of such thoughts???

Seriously, BPCR shooters are just now really beginning to learn to shoot black powder again, because a LOT of the "technology" (read that "methods, techniques and proceedures" if you're over 50, like me) of loading black was lost to the mists of time, and only "rediscovered" through MUCH research and renewed trial and error testing. Stuff guys like Lee knows OUGHT to be writ down, and you can tell him an old swamp rat down in south Georgia, and a fan of his, said so. Shaming folks into doing something good isn't politically correct, but it CAN work sometimes! ;-)

I think anything Lee wrote would sell, but I don't think it would make him or anyone else rich. Actually, a good bit of publishing amounts to as much a labor of love as a commercial enterprise. Remember Twain and Grant's memoirs?

Knowledge and observations in the technical fields is particularly invaluable, I think, and he's certainly got plenty of that. Tell him his second book is sold. I know you'll get #00001, right?

[Wayne Smith]

Yeah, I'm a real psychologist, but far from a good writer, just ask LOML! The project would need a very good 'ghost' writer, preferably somone who also loves BCPR. I could maybe see he and Mike Venturino do something together, he focusing on how to build one, Mike writing on how the decision process feels/looks from the consumer's point of view.

I know, it's just a random thought. Yeah, I'd be in line to buy one.