Good Floating Reamer Holder

[Rubicon Prec.]

Have any of you fellas ever had a chamber where the reamer was super tight while reaming and even a little hard backing the reamer out after a cut? Your thoughts as to why this would be?? Lee

Years ago I had one do that. It cut great chambers but it was hard to push and hard to remove from the chamber on a couple jobs. I sent it back for inspection/repair and it came back and no longer had the problem. I didn't ask what was wrong with it. My best guess was it didn't have quite enough relief behind the cutting edge.

 

[SpghettiWestn]

I was weighing up options awhile back for a floating reamer holder, knowing my preference was for something with both lateral & axial float. After looking at the commercially available options & cost etcwas possibly always going to make one myself. Was tempted to work from my own design, however had done alot of reinventing the wheel around that time & just wanted to get it done, so instead purchased one of the "Hemingway" designs & kits.

Did take some liberties, opting to TIG weld instead of loctiting the arbour assembly, then finish machine its outside thread.
So far it was worked flawlessly following a pre-bored hole & delivered a min spec chamber everytime.

I know some will preach the evils about using a floating holder @ all, and instead using a fixed reamer in absolute alignment with the spindle axis, however i feel to my mind i'm well justified in having gone the route i did.
My lathe a (Colchester mascot) chalked up 50 years a while back, is in daily use for a eclectic mix of general machining jobs & has some slight wear, and our workshop definitely isn't climate controlled i.e ranging from 50 degrees to -9.

I'd dearly love to have some wizzbang machine solely for gunsmithing, however it just won't happen, so i as the operator use all my skill and guile to mitigate those factors that contribute to inaccuracy and get the best results from my venerable old machine. Also to purchase a new machine of equivalent build quality to my existing lathe, isnt one that you recoup the cost of doing barrel work in a short time.

A few of my other "homemade" barrel work fixtures/items:
A slender contact point for my centricator, that allows me to reach 3" in & get either side of the throat & leade for most chamberings. Obviously a longer point, desensitises the inherent resolution all i do to counter this is swap in progressively finer dial indicators, i.e .01mm now reads as .001" resolution and then i change to a .0001" clock for my final setup.

And also this is my finely adjustable gimballing collet fixture, the collet nose can be changed out & i fit a universal action attachment in its place for truing work, for non cylindrical actions.

 

[parshal]

...but some of the chambers are tight enough at the back end that my sizing dies don't size them enough to eliminate the click....

Can you elaborate on "the click"?

 

[Zebra13]

Years ago I had one do that. It cut great chambers but it was hard to push and hard to remove from the chamber on a couple jobs. I sent it back for inspection/repair and it came back and no longer had the problem. I didn't ask what was wrong with it. My best guess was it didn't have quite enough relief behind the cutting edge.

Skeet,

Pretty much ditto on the above. As shipped, it was a miserable, binding, hard to get in, hard to get out, SOB that didn't cut worth a damn. It went back to the manufacturer who re-ground it, stating, IIRC, that the "margins" weren't ground correctly. I took that to mean not enough relief behind the cutting edges. Once I got it back, it cut good...once I got through the work hardening...

Justin

 

[TRA]

Did these reamers cut tight chambers from day one, sporadically, or developed this over time?

 

[Zebra13]

Did these reamers cut tight chambers from day one, sporadically, or developed this over time?

TRA,

In my case, it was brand new and the first chamber it had cut. It was a .270 Winchester, by the way.

Justin

 

[skeetlee]

I have experienced this a couple times. In my experience i am not so sure its the reamer. Reason i say so is that the reamer in question has cut other blanks without any trouble. I guess the one reason why i even brought this up is that there is a very common denominator in each of my experiences. Every time i have experienced this "tight" reamer ordeal the run out in the throat and at the back end of the finished chambers were deat nutz zero. I mean not a wiggle on my indicator.
I indicate Gordy style and each time i have experienced this tight reamer ordeal, the barrel run out on the muzzle were very low. The only other thing to probable mention is that i prebore all my chambers. I cant remember a time when i first started chambering barrels when i was using the reamer to cut the hole chamber, of ever having a tight reamer?
Perhaps none of this has any correlation to anything? I just thought it might be interesting to mention.
I did have a very respected old timer tell me one time that the reason this happens is because my reamer was cutting a perfect chamber???

 

[Wilbur]

SpghettiWestn posted above and the post somehow fell into "moderation". Telling y'all this so you won't miss it......!

 

[Ian_Owen]

I was weighing up options awhile back for a floating reamer holder, knowing my preference was for something with both lateral & axial float. After looking at the commercially available options & cost etcwas possibly always going to make one myself. Was tempted to work from my own design, however had done alot of reinventing the wheel around that time & just wanted to get it done, so instead purchased one of the "Hemingway" designs & kits.

Did take some liberties, opting to TIG weld instead of loctiting the arbour assembly, then finish machine its outside thread.
So far it was worked flawlessly following a pre-bored hole & delivered a min spec chamber everytime.



I know some will preach the evils about using a floating holder @ all, and instead using a fixed reamer in absolute alignment with the spindle axis, however i feel to my mind i'm well justified in having gone the route i did.
My lathe a (Colchester mascot) chalked up 50 years a while back, is in daily use for a eclectic mix of general machining jobs & has some slight wear, and our workshop definitely isn't climate controlled i.e ranging from 50 degrees to -9.

I'd dearly love to have some wizzbang machine solely for gunsmithing, however it just won't happen, so i as the operator use all my skill and guile to mitigate those factors that contribute to inaccuracy and get the best results from my venerable old machine. Also to purchase a new machine of equivalent build quality to my existing lathe, isnt one that you recoup the cost of doing barrel work in a short time.

A few of my other "homemade" barrel work fixtures/items:
A slender contact point for my centricator, that allows me to reach 3" in & get either side of the throat & leade for most chamberings. Obviously a longer point, desensitises the inherent resolution all i do to counter this is swap in progressively finer dial indicators, i.e .01mm now reads as .001" resolution and then i change to a .0001" clock for my final setup.

And also this is my finely adjustable gimballing collet fixture, the collet nose can be changed out & i fit a universal action attachment in its place for truing work, for non cylindrical actions.

Spghettiwestn just wondering what the indicator attachement you have shown in the above pics is?

Thanks Ian

 

[JerrySharrett]

For a chambering reamer, or any reamer, to ream to its diameter its axis must be in the center of rotation, otherwise it is a forming tool.


.Perios.

.

 

[CharlieH]

For a chambering reamer, or any reamer, to ream to its diameter its axis must be in the center of rotation, otherwise it is a forming tool.


.Perios.

.

Precisely.

 

[Dave Tooley]

Precisely.

Gosh, three old farts agreeing on something.

 

[JerrySharrett]

Gosh, three old farts agreeing on something.

Old? Old? Old! What is an old?

.

 

[brickeyee]

Old? Old? Old! What is an old?

.

How about 'gray beard'?

Like the elf in your response.

 

[Danny1788]

Has anyone ever used these on the ends of there screws in the spiders/cathead? it would give some swivel but still have some clamping pressure??? just an idea?

Nonmarring Swivel Gripper
https://www.mcmaster.com/#84875a43/=17sap9q

Or something like this? https://www.mcmaster.com/#91925a163/=17saqj7

 

[Pete Wass]

Do any of you check your reamers for spec?

I had a reamer made years ago and the chamber it cut was obviously way out of spec. The Smith I was using at the time happened to have an optical compairator so he took a look @ the reamer and found it was waaaay out of spec. After seeing that, He looked at some of his reamers and found they were way out of spec as well.

He sent them back and they returned ground correctly.

I think I have found barrels to be the same way and why we see so few hummers, I believe. One of the best shooting barrels I have owned though appeared not to have been finished reamed or reamed at all. Took it some time to shoot well but it is still winning matches today. I have seen a few barrels, over time, that appear to have been damaged in the rifling process. I have often wondered how and why they get out of the door??? None of em have shot very well,as I recall.

Pete

 

[TRX]

t I dont like the fact I have to control torque with my hand,

I prefer that kind of reamer holder It lets me tell if I'm crowding the reamer, if there's a hard spot in the barrel, or if a chip is caught under a flute.