Jonnyofalltrades
Regular
- Location
- North-central Saskatchewan
There's lots of drill rod out there that's plain old 1095.
Where to buy reamers? Should I make one?
- Thread starter sask3500
- Start date
There's lots of drill rod out there that's plain old 1095.
yes but its readily available, been making custom taps, milling cutters and tooling out of it for years, never a issue hardening and cuts freely, last reamer was for chambering a 303 British round and 9mm Luger
- Location
- WMU247 near Edmonton
so any pointers that you can give in making reamers?
These folks will make anything you want and I know their quality is good.
There are others out there as well.
9x57 Mauser finish Chamber Reamer HCS C.I.P.Opens in a new window or tab
Brand New
C $159.75Top Rated SellerTop Rated SellerBuy It Nowreamer-ua (613) 98.7%Free shippingfrom Ukraine17 watchers
Sponsored
There are others out there as well.
9x57 Mauser finish Chamber Reamer HCS C.I.P.Opens in a new window or tab
Brand New
C $159.75Top Rated SellerTop Rated SellerBuy It Nowreamer-ua (613) 98.7%Free shippingfrom Ukraine17 watchers
Sponsored
If you make one I would suggest working from a SAAMI chamber drawing. https://saami.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/6mm-Creedmoor.pdf
Pro reamers are usually turned on a lathe to rough size, hardened, then finished/sharpened on a universal grinder.
You'll need to be able to hold 2 thou tolerance on diameters, 15 thou on lengths and .1* on angles.
Pro reamers are usually turned on a lathe to rough size, hardened, then finished/sharpened on a universal grinder.
You'll need to be able to hold 2 thou tolerance on diameters, 15 thou on lengths and .1* on angles.
I would suggest double checking the dimensions from a factory loaded shell. The base diameter of 30-30 family of cartridges shown in loading manuals is quite a bit smaller than the dimensions shown in loading manuals
cheers mooncoon
Well some oil hardening drill rod is on its way. It's a 3 foot chunk so I can get it wrong a few times. I'm likely going to go with a saami cartridge as there are drawings available.
My only hesitation is if it's not within saami tolerance and someone down the road chambers a factory round it may not go as planned for them. The alternative is change the shoulder or length enough that a factory round won't chamber and have a wildcat and mark it as such.
The problem with a wildcat is what to do about dies. Can lee dies be reamed to a slightly different shoulder or what would the process be there?
I'm planning on turning between centers to size and then set it up in the mill in a square or hex Collet block with a center steady rest for the pilot end and cut 2 or 3 flutes with an endmill, grind relief and clearance angles, then learn how to harden. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
That's the plan so far but subject to change, thanks for the discussion.
My only hesitation is if it's not within saami tolerance and someone down the road chambers a factory round it may not go as planned for them. The alternative is change the shoulder or length enough that a factory round won't chamber and have a wildcat and mark it as such.
The problem with a wildcat is what to do about dies. Can lee dies be reamed to a slightly different shoulder or what would the process be there?
I'm planning on turning between centers to size and then set it up in the mill in a square or hex Collet block with a center steady rest for the pilot end and cut 2 or 3 flutes with an endmill, grind relief and clearance angles, then learn how to harden. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
That's the plan so far but subject to change, thanks for the discussion.
Jonnyofalltrades
Regular
- Location
- North-central Saskatchewan
Sounds like a lot of fun! Generally, grinding is done after hardening. You will find that tool steels need absolutely zero excuse to warp all over the place. Grinding after the fact allows you to hold really tight tolerances.
crazypilotman17
New member
This is all great info but how come no one has pointed in the direction of Barrels and Actions or The Machinist bed side reader Vol 3? Which has everything you could ever want to know about making reamers. This is were I learned how to make them and sharpen them. The hardest part personally is being happy with what you made, wether it’s a D-bit reamer or a 6 flute ###y precision ground reamer. If you have a time limit on your project buy the reamer and live with the 200$ usd bill (which depending on who you buy the reamer from and if it’s in stock or a 2-6 week lead time) or spend 1-3 days learning a dying skill. Super cool to see there is others still making reamers and wanting to learn.
Great point. This is really common with a lot of the older cartridges. Best is to compare the min and max Chamber size dimensions, to the min and max Cartridge sizes. Most of the newer designed cartridges are a LOT closer in size when you compare the Max case with the Min Chamber. Usually it's a couple-three thousandths. As opposed to stuff like, say, a .303 British, which can be on the general order of 10-15 thousandths.
Nowadays it's pretty much in the realm of folks seeking the ultimate accuracy, or whatever they may have a pet theory about, that are working with reamers outside the normal specs, but if you understand why the changes are made, they may be worth it to you. If you go very far smaller a chamber, for example, the trade-off may well be that not all factory ammo will just drop in. Same with neck thicknesses, you may be in a position where the factory ammo may actually fit in the chamber, but the pressures get out of hand, if you do not use the matching neck-turned brass. Or so I have understood it.
Thanks for the book recommendations, the bedside readers are out of print but I'll try to find used ones.
Shop carefully, there are a LOT of rip-off operators out there charging STUPID expensive prices.
FWIW, I have a couple sets of Guy Lautard's writings, between what I bought, and inherited. Had three full sets but gave one away.
There is not a lot of dark art being given away in them, really.
If you are half assed at Trig, or have an actual calculator that can do the stuff as you thumb in the details, you can calculate the angles to make a honing jig that will put the right angle on the reamer to allow it to cut well.
Most of the accepted angles can be got from a used copy of Machinery's Handbook, or any other reference that covers Tool and Cutter grinding.
Mostly, the magic is in the choice of which abrasive stick you use, and what angles you choose to use.
And, you can go down some DEEP rabbit holes, on choosing abrasive sticks!
FWIW, if you have NO background with this stuff, start by looking at the various videos that show how to use guided abrasives for knife and axe sharpening.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=knife+sharpening+jig
I posted a Knife sharpening Jig link, because that is a lot closer to the above referred Lautard info, than the tool and cutter grinder videos that come up if you look for reamer sharpening stuff.
You are on your own, as far as determining the appropriate heights, thus angles, (Trig!, difference between height of rest for the jig, vs. diameter of the portion of the reamer you are working on).
IIRC, Lautard (by his own admission) drew the general arrangement drawing in his books, as if the reamer was a Left hand reamer, rather than RH. Use that as you may.
Not too tough. Center heights are fixed. Build a pivot in to allow accurate raising of the center height of the 'guide' for the abrasive. Do some careful math, and once the proper height has been got, proceed to dressing the edges. Index the reamer, repeat!
Sounds easy dunnit? Not really, as you need to track the amount of material removed (count full strokes of the abrasive stick) and that it is not overdone.
That's most, if not all, of what you will get if you decide to pay a hundred bucks plus for a copy of Guy Lautard's books.
As a side note, from a fan of his collected works, my understanding was that he essentially got screwed by his Ex, preventing any further development of his Bedside Reader series, or even re-printing his previous works, which is why the prices for old copies are so stupid.
Barrels and Actions was a fantastic read, thanks. I found another good pictorial guide. You have to use the Wayback Machine to see it but it's definitely encouraging to see a made at home reamer.
The machine had scraped it in 2010 or so and all the photos are there.
http://personal.geeksnet.com/soderstrom/ReamerMaking/HowImakechamberreamers.htm
If you click the link above it's dead. Go to the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) then put the link above into its search bar. It has archived that site with all the pictures too.
The machine had scraped it in 2010 or so and all the photos are there.
http://personal.geeksnet.com/soderstrom/ReamerMaking/HowImakechamberreamers.htm
If you click the link above it's dead. Go to the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) then put the link above into its search bar. It has archived that site with all the pictures too.
Last edited:
I'd like to find a full set of these books if anyone knows of availability. Spent an hour trying to find them with no luck. Other than the jerks looking for $300 per book...
I wonder why books like this aren't available in digital format? Excuse my ignorance, but is it difficult to convert physical pages into digital copies? I'm old and I just assume the world is way more advanced than I could possibly understand.
They are, if you are willing to troll through a half dozen sketchy websites looking for them, as well as taking the chances on whatever bugs they may be carrying, when you download them.
Most of these books well pre-date the digital revolution, and were not ever targeted towards the techie crowd either, so if you find a bootleg version, it is like to be the product of someone's illegal efforts and upload.
From a Publisher's shoes, the first Digital copy they sell, may well be the last one, because, as the saying goes, a Digital copy, is a Perfect copy...
Conversion to digital is not difficult, but you need to choose between manually scanning each page, which is tedious as all get out, or cutting the books spine off so the pages can be fed through a document feeder on a scanner that is equipped to read both sides at once.
