chamber reaming

[gundriver]

I have an M1 Garand (30-06) with a new barrel installed that I reamed the chamber per instructions that came with the reamer, and upon firing the empty brass sticks in the chamber and it takes considerable force to unlock the bolt and remove the empty brass. Each time the bolt must be recycled by hand. Does the chamber need to be polished after reaming?

[376Steyr]

Are you using new, Military specification ammo for your testing? Inappropriate handloads or "magnumized" factory ammo might be your problem.

[MaLar]

Chip on a reamer cutting edge will cut a ring in the chamber. When you fire a round the case fills the ring and it will cause problems with extraction.

[oldred]

Chip on a reamer cutting edge will cut a ring in the chamber. When you fire a round the case fills the ring and it will cause problems with extraction.


Yep been there and done that, was a real PITA until I figured out (or rather was told) what the problem was. A couple of minutes with a home made polisher using a wooden dowel and some wet/dry sandpaper and the problem was solved!

[gundriver]

Yep been there and done that, was a real PITA until I figured out (or rather was told) what the problem was. A couple of minutes with a home made polisher using a wooden dowel and some wet/dry sandpaper and the problem was solved! did you do any thing special to shape the dowel. what grit of sand paper? thanks

[Nobade]

I polish every chamber after reaming. I start at 220 grit and work up to 400 grit. Dowel is nothing special, just spin the barrel in the lathe and use the stick in and out to make a 45 deg. crosshatch pattern. Keep an eye on it with a strong flashlight and only go until the rings are gone. Usually doesn't take much.

-Nobade

[oldred]

The shape of the dowel would of course depend on the shape of the cartridge, in my case it was a 45/70. I used 600 grit followed by 1000 grit which probably was not necessary but it sure makes the chamber shinny and slick, be careful and check your progress every few seconds because even 600 grit on a snugly fitting sandpaper polisher can remove metal quite fast!


There are a couple of pretty good videos on Youtube about how to do this that explain it much better.

[DCM]

Do you have any pics of the brass?
Whose go and no go gages did you use? Did you strip the bolt down?
Handloads? If so what were they trimmed to? What powder, charge weight, OAL, bullet/boolit & brass??
Too many unknowns at this point.