Reaming a .22LR Chamber?

mmattockx

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How hard is reaming a .22LR chamber in a barrel blank? I am handy enough, have decent tools (though no lathe or milling machine) and am a mechanical engineer for my day job. Is it a fairly simple job that can be done with hand tools and the reamer or is this something I need to chuck into a lathe and dial in straight before doing any cutting?


Thanks,
Mark
 
A .22RF chamber can be reamed by hand without difficulty. With care, an excellent job can be done.
 
How hard is reaming a .22LR chamber in a barrel blank? I am handy enough, have decent tools (though no lathe or milling machine) and am a mechanical engineer for my day job. Is it a fairly simple job that can be done with hand tools and the reamer or is this something I need to chuck into a lathe and dial in straight before doing any cutting?


Thanks,
Mark

if you have the manual dexterity of most "PEng" I know ... I very respectfully suggest you give it to a gunsmith or machinist that is appropriately inclined...

:) :)
 
cut a few but using a lathe, also made my own chamber reamer from a drill blank, not hard way easier than the 303 I recently cut, would recommend not doing by hand unless you have something to keep it straight with the bore
 
Just a dumb question: How are you going to fit your barrel blank to anything, if you don't have a lathe?

Chambering the barrel is about the last thing you do.

You still need to profile a blank to give it the shape you want, or, if you're really lucky or very accepting and it has an acceptable shape, you'll still need to crown the muzzle and fit the thing to your firearm ... either threading or some other work. And last, once everything else is known, you'll chamber, with the appropriate head space. Somewhere in there, an extractor cut, and maybe some work on a "ramp"... unless you're building a zip gun.

Can you do all this with an old hand file while squatting cross-legged in the dirt, which is basically the future of machining anyway in NDP Alberta?

Sure.

Do you want to do it this way? I know I don't. With a lathe, milling machine, a handful of other power tools, a TON of bits and cutters and reamers in my shop ... I'm still feeling under equipped.

Just for fun, I did recently buy a 5.7mm carbide reamer from China for $17 (US, shipped, right from Hong Kong). That is the nominal size you need for a .22 chamber. I'll let you know when I find a bit of time to try it out. It could be used with a bit and brace or a power drill and some care, and you have to (OK: should) set a depth-stop. But the little 5-flute gem does look (and measure) pretty well. As a real test, I gently slipped it into a nice chamber I cut with a commercially made .22 chamber reamer and turned it backwards ... a perfect fit, as far as I can tell.

Should everyone rush onto ebay and buy these things, 'cause they're so much cheaper than a $40 proper HSS reamer? Probably not.

As for it being "Carbide", the Chinese reamers are labeled HRC40. I'm not sure what hardness good HSS cutters are, or what my commercial HSS reamers are, but some of my cheap cutters test at HRC60. The HRC40-labeled reamer is hard enough to make a dull spot on a no-name shop file though. We'll see how it does...
 
if you have the manual dexterity of most "PEng" I know ... I very respectfully suggest you give it to a gunsmith or machinist that is appropriately inclined...

:) :)

While I do know a few that fit your description, not all of us are useless with the tool side of things. I have never met a good mechanical designer who wasn't also a gearhead of some sort and had spent time swinging wrenches and learning how things are on the other side of the drawings.


You can use my lathe if you want. I just don't want to do the work for you or otherwise deprive you of the experience of reaming your own barrel. :)

I do appreciate the offer and may take you up on it at some point. This is a tinkering project and not at all on the front burner at the moment.


Just a dumb question: How are you going to fit your barrel blank to anything, if you don't have a lathe?

That is a fair question and there will be other bits to machine along the way as well, so the barrel issue may solve itself as part of a larger batch.


After some more tinkering and thinking I have decided that a commercially available 10/22 barrel will work just fine for my purposes so I won't have to try chambering it myself, at least this time around.


Thanks to all for the replies,
Mark
 
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