Gunsmithing Chambering Without Forced Fluid

[Turd in the Pool]

Been fighting it for years and just dealt with it. Makes me think about what an old man told me yrs ago. A young man will work with a pebble in his shoe. An old man will stop and remove it.

Guess I'm old enough to stop and remove the pebble. Or at least try.

Most reamers I've used cut on 1. 2 or 3 flutes on the shoulder. This results in a buildup of metal on the flutes which causes grooves being cut in the shoulder of the chamber. (or maybe it just my cutting fluid) To combat this, I use a ceramic stone to remove the buildup when I get to the last .050" or so. PITA

Anybody got any tricks or magic oil to get the pebble out of my shoe?

 

[cal50]

I always feed the reamer and retract as it loads up until I approach the finished depth and leave .005~.010 material to remove.
Retract the reamer ,clean chips with a chip brush and generously apply by favorite cutting fluid and run the reamer into final depth in one pass and retract.

I always used high sulfur / heavy cutting fluid that clings to the reamer and flutes.

 

[Killswitch Engage]

if you're not going to pressure lube i think there will always be a pebble. i dont use pressure lube and do it same way cal50 does basically. peck, clean, lube.....rinse and repeat. im only doing work for my self though so i got time.

 

[Jkob60]

I was having the same problem a while back. I finally noticed the cutting oil I was using was different than the previous stuff. Took a long look at it and decided it was not the good stuff. I went out an bought a gallon of Ridgid extreme duty and never looked back. It is definitely your cutting oil.

 

[E. Bryant]

Man, for someone who thinks so highly of himself, the OP sure is good at asking some basic questions that belie a lack of knowledge.

My current process:

1) Predrill to remove as much material as possible, while still allowing the pilot to engage the bore when I start chambering.

2) Lubricate the reamer with Ridgid or Oatley pipe-cutting oil.

3) Run in the reamer approximately 0.035" (a quarter-turn of the feed wheel on my tailstock). I stop the lathe before retracting the reamer.

4) Remove the reamer from the holder, brush off the chips, dunk in light oil (WD40 or similar), wipe off, spray with brake cleaner, lube with pipe-cutting oil, re-install.

5) Repeat above steps for the next few hours.

This will yield a very nice finish with no build-up on the reamer. In my opinion, if one is welding chips to tool, something is drastically wrong.

If you find that your reamer isn't cutting symmetrically, you may have something wrong with your setup. I've experienced this with POS floating reamer holders that didn't really float, and I've also seen the same if I crank down the preload too tight on my PTG floating holder.

Another 'smith here (the one that the OP likes to troll without cause) has claimed that he can chamber a barrel in just over a minute, so I'll leave it up to the intelligent contributors to this forum to determine which of us has superior methods. I know that I couldn't make money with my technique - my time is worth too much pursuing other endeavors.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Thanks guys, I give Ridgid a try.

Man, for someone who thinks so highly of himself, the OP sure is good at asking some basic questions that belie a lack of knowledge.

My current process:

1) Predrill to remove as much material as possible, while still allowing the pilot to engage the bore when I start chambering.

2) Lubricate the reamer with Ridgid or Oatley pipe-cutting oil.

3) Run in the reamer approximately 0.035" (a quarter-turn of the feed wheel on my tailstock). I stop the lathe before retracting the reamer.

4) Remove the reamer from the holder, brush off the chips, dunk in light oil (WD40 or similar), wipe off, spray with brake cleaner, lube with pipe-cutting oil, re-install.

5) Repeat above steps for the next few hours.

This will yield a very nice finish with no build-up on the reamer. In my opinion, if one is welding chips to tool, something is drastically wrong.

If you find that your reamer isn't cutting symmetrically, you may have something wrong with your setup. I've experienced this with POS floating reamer holders that didn't really float, and I've also seen the same if I crank down the preload too tight on my PTG floating holder.

Another 'smith here (the one that the OP likes to troll without cause) has claimed that he can chamber a barrel in just over a minute, so I'll leave it up to the intelligent contributors to this forum to determine which of us has superior methods. I know that I couldn't make money with my technique - my time is worth too much pursuing other endeavors.

Thanks for the laugh Mr. Bryant. I wish I could get payed too much to hang out on the hide. Though I do appreciate the rewards.

If I used your chambering method, I'd just shoot myself ;-)

 

[cal50]

Another 'smith here (the one that the OP likes to troll without cause) has claimed that he can chamber a barrel in just over a minute, so I'll leave it up to the intelligent contributors to this forum to determine which of us has superior methods. I know that I couldn't make money with my technique - my time is worth too much pursuing other endeavors.

My time is less cost than replacing broken reamers.

 

[E. Bryant]

My time is less cost than replacing broken reamers.

Haven't experienced that, but I did find that damaging a couple of barrels by leaving deep scratches in the chamber ain't a smart way to economize time and money.

 

[cal50]

Going back 20+ years there was a great cutting oil called Moly-D.
That was some great stuff for heavy drilling / reaming /tapping especially on stainless and tough steels.

I have never been fond of the water based fluids for tapping / reaming. It cools great but the high sulfur and heavy cutting oils do a LOT better job for reaming and tapping.

 

[my human host]

Haven't experienced that, but I did find that damaging a couple of barrels by leaving deep scratches in the chamber ain't a smart way to economize time and money.

Rolling a chip sucks balls and can be a serious problem with a minimum taper cartridge.

 

[M.rolen]

I have had good luck just using ATF fluid. I just take my time make small cuts normally around .030" and bush the chips from the reamer with kerosene. It may not be the most fancy way but it seems to work fine and produce a nice chamber.

 

[woodsy]

I used to do the cut .020", stop lathe, remove and clean, and cut again but got tired of that and built a flush system. Pushing Viper's Venom I now cut the chamber to within 0.030" or less in one shot before I remove, clean, and inspect. This is all done without prebore too. I've never run into the OP's problem but perhaps it'll rear its ugly head some time in the future. This flush system has resulted in very good chambers and avoids the time-consuming stop, pull, clean, and recut method. Build yourself one and that pebble will be nothing but a distant memory.

 

[cal50]

I always feed depending on how the reamer is cutting or not cutting.
I have never had any issues with chatter or drag marks.

I am more focused on the pilot and making sure it does not gall the bore.

 

[Rthur]

Bob Pastor sells Viper's Venom. What ever you want to call it, it works well.

R

 

[KYpatriot]

Gradous built a pressurized system, maybe you could ask him what he did.

 

[LRI]

Maybe this will help:

Assuming I'm understanding this correctly, what's going on is the vile arch enemy of all chambering efforts: work hardening.

Things to look at:

Condition of tools
Rpm of part
Feedrate of tool


Conditions that promote work hardening:

Dull tooling, they generate heat and this is ultimately what your fighting.
Too much RPM. Again, it generates heat and this accelerates wear on cutting edges. Creating a situation prime for work hardening
Too conservative a feedrate. Tool is "rubbing" against the part, creates heat, erodes the cutting surface which creates more heat, steel hardens, your phukked...


The common denominator here is heat. This is what causes a material to harden. In this instance, friction is the culpert.

Cutting fluids do little to mitigate heat. Especially when oil base. Look back 25 or so years to motorcycles. Suzuki changed the sport bike world with the introduction of the 1st Gen GSX-R750. It had an air/oil cooled engine as they wanted to keep weight at a minimum. Bike ran hot because oil sucks as a coolant. A cutting fluid attempts to control heat by reducing the shearing loads placed on the tool. Make the tool cut with less pressure and you get less heat. While it works to some extent there's modern synthetic water based coolants out there that work equally (better if you spend the sheckels for it) well and are much more efficient at controlling heat.

Next is the tool path strategy. If your "pecking" a great deal what can (can, not will) also happen is the tool dwells for a second and work hardens a shell in the chamber, typically at or right behind the shoulder as the corner feature between shoulder/case body is where the majority of the heat builds (put a torch to a plate of steel, takes a while to get hot. Put it at the corner and it'll glow red very quickly). Now when you stick the tool back in there it has to chew through a hard candy shell to get to the softer stuff underneath. Once you push hard enough it rips this layer off and your chip gullets are now full of tough/hard marbles. If one friction welds to the tool, your going to get hula hoops.

This same phenomenon has to be dealt with when drilling holes in steel. The inclination is to peck to clear the chip. Your drills go to shit in a hurry this way. Stick to feeds and speeds that work for the tool/material and it'll solve the problem because drills won't have to break through the hard shell and chips will be small enough to evacuate.

Pressurized chambering will help, but it won't solve the issue if work hardening is taking place.

Hope this helps.

C.

 

[xringaccuracy]

I have learned my lessons in the past. A forced fed system helps in removing the chips. For feed rate, as stated above, too slow hardens the surface. An agressive rate helps.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

I've seriously been considering going to a flush system. I'm pretty damned hard headed and tighter than Dick's hatband so the conversion won't be a snap.

Pretty good insight Chad. I suspect your logic is spot on. I turn them 60 rpm and feed .1" per plunge as fast as I can and still hold the reamer. I often want to spin them faster but if bad stuff happens, it goes south quicker.

Stainless seems to be worse than cm. In the even that I get lucky and get a reamer that cuts on 4 flutes there is really no problem.

Until I talk myself into a flush, 2 Qs

Is viper's venom better than ridgid?

When using a flush system, will standard pilots work or do you have to use the fluted ones? Thx

 

[woodsy]

Is viper's venom better than ridgid?

When using a flush system, will standard pilots work or do you have to use the fluted ones? Thx

Have had excellent results with VV. Have never tried Rigid because I started with VV and it worked.

You may want the nose of a removable pilot reamer fluted. I write "may" because it might flow just fine if you run high pressure and low viscosity oil. The downside to that is you'd better be on the ball and shut the pump off before removing the reamer. Fluting doesn't take much and some already come this way (like my PTG .260 reamer). You may also want to cut a notch or 3 on the OD of the screw head but I haven't seen a need for this personally. I would not cut flutes in a solid pilot reamer because that could result in some nasty things happening to the bore.

I though long and hard about spending the extra cash building a flush system but am certainly glad that I did. That system saves a lot of time.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Ok, so no one else wants to comment on fluid. Thx. Been thinking of mixing ridgid, vv and atf. Has to be the best of all worlds.

I know it's off topic but does anyone stone/sharpen their reamers that don't cut on all flutes with any success?

 

[Aeon1]

When using a flush system, will standard pilots work or do you have to use the fluted ones? Thx

Standard pilots work fine. You grind grooves in the retaining screw that line up with the flutes on the front of the reamer.

 

[Edds]

Ok, so no one else wants to comment on fluid. Thx. Been thinking of mixing ridgid, vv and atf. Has to be the best of all worlds.

I'd rig up a heater and use Lard.

 

[slayer_21420]

I'd rig up a heater and use Lard.

I've experimented with this and IMO beef suet produces a much better surface finish

 

[300sniper]

Bacon grease!

 

[RonA]

Going back 20+ years there was a great cutting oil called Moly-D.
That was some great stuff for heavy drilling / reaming /tapping especially on stainless and tough steels.

I have never been fond of the water based fluids for tapping / reaming. It cools great but the high sulfur and heavy cutting oils do a LOT better job for reaming and tapping.

I've used a bunch of MolyDee, but haven't used it in 20 years or so(still have an un-opened bottle from way back) I use a Trim tapping fluid for all tapping, and the old stinky sulfur oil for chambers. I admit to spending a bit of time pecking and clearing when I cut a chamber, but as long as it doesn't take more than one cup of coffee to finish the chamber, I'm fine.

 

[RonA]

Man, for someone who thinks so highly of himself, the OP sure is good at asking some basic questions that belie a lack of knowledge.

My current process:

1) Predrill to remove as much material as possible, while still allowing the pilot to engage the bore when I start chambering.

2) Lubricate the reamer with Ridgid or Oatley pipe-cutting oil.

3) Run in the reamer approximately 0.035" (a quarter-turn of the feed wheel on my tailstock). I stop the lathe before retracting the reamer.

4) Remove the reamer from the holder, brush off the chips, dunk in light oil (WD40 or similar), wipe off, spray with brake cleaner, lube with pipe-cutting oil, re-install.

5) Repeat above steps for the next few hours.

This will yield a very nice finish with no build-up on the reamer. In my opinion, if one is welding chips to tool, something is drastically wrong.

If you find that your reamer isn't cutting symmetrically, you may have something wrong with your setup. I've experienced this with POS floating reamer holders that didn't really float, and I've also seen the same if I crank down the preload too tight on my PTG floating holder.

Another 'smith here (the one that the OP likes to troll without cause) has claimed that he can chamber a barrel in just over a minute, so I'll leave it up to the intelligent contributors to this forum to determine which of us has superior methods. I know that I couldn't make money with my technique - my time is worth too much pursuing other endeavors.

I had to laugh when I read #5.

 

[E. Bryant]

I know it's off topic but does anyone stone/sharpen their reamers that don't cut on all flutes with any success?

Are you certain that the reamer is at fault? If so, I'd just send it back to the manufacturer.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

You f'ers are just too damned funny. Ok, so we have all of the animal fat covered. I saw that MSC is selling Castrol Moly-Dee. Not the same stuff My local supplier had yrs ago.

No takers on the stoning of the reamer? I know you all have some that only cut on one or 2 flutes on the shoulder.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Are you certain that the reamer is at fault? If so, I'd just send it back to the manufacturer.

Thanks for the comeback Mr. Bryant. I'm sure it's the reamer. Check some of yours. You will notice that they don't cut on all flutes.

 

[RonA]

Maybe you have offset reamers. I have one of those that cuts a .257 Roberts chamber with the tailstock on center, and If I move my tailstock so it's .0135 off center it cuts a .284 Win. Check on the body of the reamer and see if it says Clymer.

 

[300sniper]

Maybe the flutes aren't perfectly symmetrical.....
Maybe there's a reason for that.....
Or maybe it's because you aren't into animal fat....

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Maybe you have offset reamers. I have one of those that cuts a .257 Roberts chamber with the tailstock on center, and If I move my tailstock so it's .0135 off center it cuts a .284 Win. Check on the body of the reamer and see if it says Clymer.

You bitches kill me. They all do it. Clymer, Kiff, Manson, JGS. You name it. I thought I was blind. Get out some glass and look at yours. I know I have bad luck but I can't be the only one that sees this.

300sniper, coming from you, after bragging about your indicating skills, I find humor in the fact that you want the flutes to be symmetrical. Think! UNIFORM!

 

[Aeon1]

You bitches kill me. They all do it. Clymer, Kiff, Manson, JGS. You name it. I thought I was blind. Get out some glass and look at yours. I know I have bad luck but I can't be the only one that sees this.

300sniper, coming from you, after bragging about your indicating skills, I find humor in the fact that you want the flutes to be symmetrical. Think! UNIFORM!

Ok I'll bite. I'd say most of my reamers cut heavier on one or more (or lighter on one or more) of their flutes than the others. Some more some less but generally just a slightly different cut between flutes. I'll also say I haven't had any issues due to that either. If the chamber ends up true and on size (within reason) what's the problem? What issues are you having due to one flute cutting more than the others?

 

[RonA]

If the reamer is cutting too much on 1 flute, put some valve lapping compound in the chamber, slide the reamer in and run the spindle backwards while putting slight pressure against the reamer. With a little time, if you're careful, you can get it to where it won't cut with any of the flutes, but you'll have uniformity.

 

[300sniper]

If the reamer is cutting too much on 1 flute, put some valve lapping compound in the chamber, slide the reamer in and run the spindle backwards while putting slight pressure against the reamer. With a little time, if you're careful, you can get it to where it won't cut with any of the flutes, but you'll have uniformity.

Awesome!

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Ok I'll bite. I'd say most of my reamers cut heavier on one or more (or lighter on one or more) of their flutes than the others. Some more some less but generally just a slightly different cut between flutes. I'll also say I haven't had any issues due to that either. If the chamber ends up true and on size (within reason) what's the problem? What issues are you having due to one flute cutting more than the others?

As stated earlier, the flutes that cut get a buildup of metal on them. Nothing I haven't been able to work around. Just a pita.

My truck will run on 5 or 6 cyls but I'm much happier when it fires on all 8 ;-) I'm kinda funny like that.

 

[JJones75]

Has anyone had any chance of working with a rifle barrel that was chambered via EDM?
I remember some.years back a company that was chambering Encore barrels this way. I heard they were good accurate barrels just never got a chance to handle one

 

[Straight Shooter]

Time to get your reamers sharpened. I just took all my PTG reamers to JGS to get them sharpened. The cutting edges looked like wood saws. My JGS reamers are sharpened to a much finer grit. I have never seen any of them collect metal though. My JGs reamers cut evenly on all the flutes. I get them same amount of swarf in every flute. If a drill bit is only pulling metal on one side it's not sharpened right. If you feel the need to call BS again just PM your email address I will send you some pictures.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Time to get your reamers sharpened. I just took all my PTG reamers to JGS to get them sharpened. The cutting edges looked like wood saws. My JGS reamers are sharpened to a much finer grit. I have never seen any of them collect metal though. My JGs reamers cut evenly on all the flutes. I get them same amount of swarf in every flute. If a drill bit is only pulling metal on one side it's not sharpened right. If you feel the need to call BS again just PM your email address I will send you some pictures.

I will admit that JGS seems to get it right more than most. I've rentedand borrowed more than the 2 I own. I would like to think that a reamer would last more than 4 to 6 chambers before needing to be re sharpened. My 300 Ultra has only cut 3 or 4 chambers and my 50 bmg has only cut 5.

Pics suck but I don't think the finish is any better that the PTG saw teeth as you put it ;-) The 300 pic shows the left flute cuts most. Kinda hard to see but the metal buildup is there.



This is the 50 with minimal buildup because it only cut a few thou after cleanup. Shows more of the finish. Sad part is looking at under the scope, I saw that someone stoned it with what appears to be an arkansas stone. Just typing that makes me want to cringe. They should be outlawed ;-)

 

[cal50]

If the material is "gummy" you will get a build up on the tool. If the barrel blank is good material it should cut a clean chip.

You can stone a reamer to dress up the cutting edge but it still needs a proper relief angle to clear the chip and cut easy. If the relief angle is not there the reamer will rub vs cutting action.

 

[Jkob60]

I stand by my original posted reply, IT IS THE CUTTING FLUID YOU ARE USING.

Jim

 

[cal50]

Cutting fluid makes a huge difference .
It will not make a dull reamer suddenly cut like magic but it also keeps your sharp reamer from becoming a sword in stone.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

If the material is "gummy" you will get a build up on the tool. If the barrel blank is good material it should cut a clean chip.

You can stone a reamer to dress up the cutting edge but it still needs a proper relief angle to clear the chip and cut easy. If the relief angle is not there the reamer will rub vs cutting action.

Thx for the input. Stainless seems to be more of a prob than cm. Guess I need to get out the ceramic and finish what they started.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

I stand by my original posted reply, IT IS THE CUTTING FLUID YOU ARE USING.

Jim

Since you seem to be the only one with a spine on here, I'm going to take your advice and try ridgid.Thx ;-)

 

[Straight Shooter]

There is a reason one costs quite a bit more than the other. The top one takes a lot of polishing to get what the other starts out with. It wasn't just this one. Every one of my reamers consistently look like this. Without even looking I can feel the difference in them in the lathe as soon as they start cutting. JGS also has much more pronounced staggered flute cutting arraignment where the PTG ones the flutes look evenly spaced so they are much more prone to chatter. I can certainly make the PTG work but it just takes a little more work. The hard part is the throats cut with PTG take a bit of break in where the JGS hits the ground running.

PTG



JGS


The only fluid I use.


My flush system.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Finally we got through the fat and to the meat! Granted the JGS reamers I have were made in the 90's. they look just like the PTG you show. Looks like they have stepped it up a notch. ;-)

 

[RonA]

The primary relief angle on the JGS reamers has a better finish than most of my PTG reamers. That being said, the material sticking to the cutting flute is caused by a lack of lubrication. If you swab a reamer with cutting fluid and peck it into the chamber, the oil film will keep the barrel material from sticking to the edge of the cutting flute for a time. As the film goes away the heat goes up and the metal will start trying to stick to the cutter.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

The primary relief angle on the JGS reamers has a better finish than most of my PTG reamers. That being said, the material sticking to the cutting flute is caused by a lack of lubrication. If you swab a reamer with cutting fluid and peck it into the chamber, the oil film will keep the barrel material from sticking to the edge of the cutting flute for a time. As the film goes away the heat goes up and the metal will start trying to stick to the cutter.

Lack of lube might be the problem. I don't swab the reamer, I pour it from a bottle. Once I get past the predrill I take .1" per cut. Usually when I get close to headspace I pour a second dose on the reamer when it is about half way in the chamber to make sure it has plenty. Maybe a tenth is too much.

 

[JJones75]

Once you think you have it figured out get a Lothar barrel or better yet one of the old Blackstar Accumax-II barrels.

 

[Turd in the Pool]

Looks like a trap Mr. Jones but what's up with them?