Good Floating Reamer Holder

C

Curious

New member
Guys,

I currently pre-bore my chambers and get good results with a pusher but I dont like the fact I have to control torque with my hand, I also dont very much want to rest my handle on something solid, I would like to pre-bore as usual but then use either a tailstock or cross slide mounted floating reamer. I see holders like the Manson one but have read about them sagging etc so I really dont mind investing in something of higher quality that can control both radial and axial misalignment, maybe even with the option to be adjustable with regard to how much control is put on the reamer.

Can you guys tell me what the quality products are out there and any experiences of using them.

Many thanks.
 
No "correct" answer...

For about every reamer holder on the market, and every reamer pusher you can conjure, if you ask around enough, someone is going to tell you they love it, and someone is going to tell you it's the best way to ruin a good barrel. Personally I like the JGS floating reamer holder. It has a small range of motion (0.040", IIRC) and is weakly held to center, so it doesn't sag (at least as much as some) by default. I also use a homemade pusher/holder that's a lot like the Bald Eagle pusher - basically a reamer holder with a flat surface (inside a sleeve) and a ball bearing pusher that bears on it. The latter does require controlling torque with your hand. I'm happy with both. I'd probably use the JGS more if I had a coolant flush system. Its only drawback to me is that it's more difficult to retract and clean the reamer than the pusher style holder.

GsT
 
floater reamer

I use one that the guy who owned Bald Eagle precision machine sold to me.. Seems like his name was Bill Gammon??? (I think he's no longer with us though???) He told me i would never cut a smaller chamber than was possible with the floating reamer holder, and Thats all i've used for more than 20yrs. I have no doubt he was correct as it does not put any side tension on the back of reamer with dead straight forward thrust.(it' held in the tail stock which may have a little snaking motion on advancement which is negated by using the floating reamer holder). .

I have no doubt you will hear others say different as many people think the way they do it is the best and only "right" way to do it.. I had used another fine holder from Greg Tannel, that is static, but still prefer the floating holder for my work. Alan Hall used to suggest James Messer who held his reamers with a crescent wrench (or so i was told). He built excellent rifles.

my floating holder only "sags" with the reamer withdrawn from the progressing chamber for clearing away chips.. As a matter of fact, i think its impossible to cut a chamber off center with one. This don't mean you can't cut the tenon off center from the chamber however, which makes the chamber appear off center, though this is actually poor set up technique, & has nothing to do with the reamer holder.

Try the floating holder, If you can chamber & fit a barrel properly with a static holder, or as you have been doing, you won't be disappointed with the "floating" holder is my bet. & will probably do better. Incidentally, i cut my entire chamber with a finish reamer held in Bald Eagle floating reamer holder. I also use Greg Tannels muzzle flush system which makes mirror shiny chambers the norm. (which should be roughed up a bit with sandpaper to allow the brass to grip the chamber wall minimizing bolt thrust with the shot. )

Kirk
 
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Suggestion. Go to bryantcustom.com. Then to "articles". Then to "barrelling". Much good info there but the first pic's at the bottom is a great floating reamer design. Mike uses a Jacobs chuck to hold his hollow pusher. I use a live centre where I have removed the centre point and replaced it with a similar hollow tube. The tube pushes the reamer handle. Note that the hole in the pusher needs to be about 0.020" larger than the reamer shank.

This hollow pusher allows the reamer to seek the center of the barrels rotation in case your tailstock is not perfectly aligned with the headstock spindle. For example, a reamer forced off center by, say, 0.002" by an out of line tailstock will make a chamber 0.004" over sized.

.
 
I made a Bald Eagle design pusher, while it served me well, I thought maybe it could be improved by coupling the holder to the pusher. In one of my conversations with Joe Henderson we talked about the coupled reamer holder/pusher. This is what I came up with. I actually had to engage Butch Lambert to guide me how to do internal threading. This project was my first attempt at internal threading. I sent the approval sketches to Butch and Joe as I went through the project.

The reamer holder floats on the 1/2 inch ball bearing.

It is just a project by a rookie, so much could be improved.


https://youtu.be/NwuX6uKc0EI
 

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NezRongero said:
I made a Bald Eagle design pusher, while it served me well, I thought maybe it could be improved by coupling the holder to the pusher. In one of my conversations with Joe Henderson we talked about the coupled reamer holder/pusher. This is what I came up with. I actually had to engage Butch Lambert to guide me how to do internal threading. This project was my first attempt at internal threading. I sent the approval sketches to Butch and Joe as I went through the project.

The reamer holder floats on the 1/2 inch ball bearing.

It is just a project by a rookie, so much could be improved.


https://youtu.be/NwuX6uKc0EI
Click to expand...

Looks fancy. Well designed. Well made. But doesn't the ball tend to influence the reamer from the tailstock location by seating in the reamers grinding center? Or, does the ball not contact the reamer?

Just asking.
 
JerrySharrett said:
Looks fancy. Well designed. Well made. But doesn't the ball tend to influence the reamer from the tailstock location by seating in the reamers grinding center? Or, does the ball not contact the reamer?

Just asking.
Click to expand...


Jerry,

Thank you for the comment

The ball does not contact the reamer, the stem behind the reamer holder contacts the ball and on the other side of the ball is the flat surface (the pusher for lack of better word) of the stem held by the collet. The ball is in between 2 flat surfaces

The reamer is held in place by a set screw and at the same time bottomed out in the pocket.
 

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I will not say one is better than another because everyone has their preference. I will say the JGS worked great for me and I was very happy with their customer service. After I wore out the first one, I called to see about having it rebuilt, fully expecting to pay for the service. They told me it had a lifetime warranty and for the price of return shipping they'd repair it. I got it back quickly and the majority of the unit had been replaced with updated parts.

I'm full rigid now so that holder has been sitting for a couple years. I'm hanging on to it in case I need it again someday.
 
NezRongero said:
Jerry,

Thank you for the comment

The ball does not contact the reamer, the stem behind the reamer holder contacts the ball and on the other side of the ball is the flat surface (the pusher for lack of better word) of the stem held by the collet. The ball is in between 2 flat surfaces

The reamer is held in place by a set screw and at the same time bottomed out in the pocket.
Click to expand...

That will work. Thanks.


.
 
I use a JGS as well and it has produced some very nice chambers with no notice run out on my 0.0001" DTI. I use a flush system and clean the reamer off with the flush system and a small paint brush when I retract the reamer. I have never had any problems with it and I would recommend it if your going to try a floating reamer holder that is hands free.
 
I believe strongly that some designs are better than others.

You can push a dump truck down the road, around corners and up hills WITH NO DRIVER IN THE CAB.....by pushing it with a bulldozer. The width and rigidity of the 'dozer blade steer the truck to center.

A properly designed pusher fights for center and will cut identical chambers.

Most pushers just "push" and "float" which is like trying to steer that same dump truck down the road pushing on an old tire in the middle of the tailgate....

(Of course some here will wonder why I'm talking about dump trucks when the rest are talking about fine tooling....)
 
alinwa said:
I believe strongly that some designs are better than others.

You can push a dump truck down the road, around corners and up hills WITH NO DRIVER IN THE CAB.....by pushing it with a bulldozer. The width and rigidity of the 'dozer blade steer the truck to center.

A properly designed pusher fights for center and will cut identical chambers.

Most pushers just "push" and "float" which is like trying to steer that same dump truck down the road pushing on an old tire in the middle of the tailgate....

(Of course some here will wonder why I'm talking about dump trucks when the rest are talking about fine tooling....)
Click to expand...

Clear to me
Now does anyone know if the JGS does that (fight for center)?

I was asking same question awhile back.
I would like a good floating holder that does that fight for center so to speak. I made a pusher type that has a holder and a pusher I made out of a tie rod end with the rod turned down and the piece with the ball in it faced off and it works fine but my left thumb has been broken and jacked up a few to many times and doesn't like holding it.

I haven't tried the JGS yet but will soon
 
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Some folks have asked I post a pic of the type I use (NOT MY IDEA, just someone else's idea that IS SO FLIPPIN' GOOD that I bought my lathe over it)

Really, I bought a lathe just because of this reamer holder idea and Gordy's indexing system. The ones I saw that caused me to build mine were simply tap handles that someone had faced fairly true and clamped to the reamer.....so I bored and trued a hole in a hunka' and squared this iteration up and voila'. .... from day one, chamber one have easily turned out identical chambers. This is something I've never been able to buy. Identical chambers that is.

This is my first floating holder, I'm now several generations away from it and the latest one has NO HANDLE to get tangled in but this one still shows the concept. And I still use it. This hannle that is.

I've since added a series of threaded holes around the perimeter for more handles and thumb rests, it's just easier to run it dead slack with two handles or using a thumb rest but it'll still center up with just the one. Altho I don't use it this way, this thing will cut smaller resting on the ways than any other method I've tried. Set up as it is it's swing clears the ways but I first ran it with an extension because I value my fingers. And BTW I've never even been tempted to let go, I've never gotten chatter I couldn't just "wipe out" with my fingers and I've never jammed nor hung such that I feared it slipping from my grasp. This is one of those ideas that actually works BETTER in practice than in concept.

I've chambered dozens of large 338's (RUM, Edge, 378, Lapua) with this one and never had the handle slip from my oily grasp but for wildcatting the 50BMG case decided I wanted one with no handle hanging off. Just In Case....one where if it does jam and I let go IT JUST STOPS THE REAMER. Immediately.

The driving ring on this first one is the diameter of the fully opened chuck face in the background. I swept the chuck face for perpendicularity and just push with the same chuck I drill with....you can see the wear mark around the outer edge or rim of the driving surface. So as you can see, the outer edges of the "dozer blade" are way wide from center. When this reamer tries to leave it immediately transfers the push to that outboard or opposite side which herds it back to the middle...it's got a 3/4" lever arm pushing back to center, you can just barely feel the throb in the tailstock on a long skinny (say 300RUM) reamer that's humping and twisting like, well I cain't think of a clean and pleasant descriptor so we'll say "like working a rope thru a knothole"

this pushes the rope nicely

And you can see from the slightly polished driving band that it is working....as in "working".... as in flexing/transferring/circling the wagons


pusher clear.jpg
 
memories

looking at that pic brings back memories....I'd just gotten the lathe, just hacked out that pusher and I chucked up that old barrel that had been chambered, re-chambered and set back 4 times and proceeded to cut a chamber so friggin' small that MY SIZER QUIT WORKING!

I hadda' call Harrell's and try decode their numbering system. And keep up with Lynnwood. I hung up more cornfuzed than before and ended up just sending them some cases...

This was long before my current Fat Bottomed Girls phaze. That chamber was sticky-tight.
 
There are several professionally offered and private made reamer "pushers" in use. The main consideration of outcome is not the chamber runout, this is very rare and is caused by more serious problems. The main consideration of outcome is the chamber finishing oversize of what the reamer is designed to produce.

In the competitive environment where the brass is used many, many, times the problem is that an oversize chamber will cause overworking of the brass thereby 1) shortening the life of the brass, and 2) work hardening of the brass thus causing inconsistency of accuracy.


.
 
Alinwa...

Thanks for posting your pusher. is the surface we're looking at in the photo concave? Perhaps I'm dense, but I can't tell. Perhaps a stupid question, but if you want center, why aren't you using a semi-rigid center reamer holder like the Gre-Tan? Not trying to be obstinate, just want to make sure I understand.

Thanks again!

GsT
 
GeneT said:
Thanks for posting your pusher. is the surface we're looking at in the photo concave? Perhaps I'm dense, but I can't tell. Perhaps a stupid question, but if you want center, why aren't you using a semi-rigid center reamer holder like the Gre-Tan? Not trying to be obstinate, just want to make sure I understand.

Thanks again!

GsT
Click to expand...

It is not concave. But it's being pushed by a large ring, the outside ring of the opened chuck. And the large ring is important.

I DO NOT cut my chamber with the reamer.....I rough out and center the chamber to just a few thou under my final size. All I want from the reamer is that it follow the established centerline and not waller the hole a'tall. Understand that I build the entire rifle around the two-inch section of the bore where the throat centers up.

I simply do not "chamber between centers" nor do I even attempt to "hold the reamer in alignment" or plan on anything being rigid and inflexible. I pick the section of bore I want to start with and align everything to that little section. I feel very confident that I can remove most of the metal behind that and cut a very neatly aligned hole for the reamer to follow. I also map the muzzle movement and point the muzzle where I choose, to where I feel it will vibrate in the most consistent fashion. I couldn't care less about "indexing to gain free elevation" I'm all about vibration control.



why aren't you using a semi-rigid center reamer holder like the Gre-Tan?
Click to expand...


Because it wraps up? I don't know how to describe why.....my 'dozer on the truck analogy is the best I can do.
 
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