After Chambering, how would you polish the leade angle

[AckleymanII]

Always wanted to know how to polish the leade angle in a freshly cut chamber. Would appreciate any insight.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

I just run bullets over it. If you have a good reamer you're not going to improve anything with polishing your just going to round off your nice sharp edges

 

[Will Henry]

The leade angle is left as cut. If the reamer is a bit dull, there may be a feather edge on the back side of the lands. If a person is concerned about this, it can usually be cleaned off with steel wool on a jag. Any feather should be so minor as to not be an issue. In fact, before we started looking at everything with a damn borescope, it wasn't an issue!
The Lothar Walther people recommended polishing the throat in their barrels but that was because their stainless doesn't cut worth a damn. WH

 

[DaveTooley]

I've polished the throat on every barrel that's passed through my shop for over 20 years. Not all reamers cut the same. At the very least the finish will degrade with reamer use so why not.

 

[SBLH10]

Never felt a need to polish the throat or leade angle of a newly cut chamber. But like Ackleyman said in his post. (Always wanted to know how to polish the leade angle in a freshly cut chamber.)

Chet

 

[butchlambert]

Remember guys, Tooley has done more barrels than all of us combined. Take it to the bank.

 

[Will Henry]

Dave, what technique do you use to polish the throat or would you rather not say? Like I said, I have used fine steel wool, back and forth, to remove burrs and have added JB to the mix on occasion. I have always thought a Cratex cylinder, of appropriate size,on a rod, would be perfect if serious polishing was required. WH

 

[Alex Wheeler]

I have experimented with this, steel wool, iosso/jb, scotch brite, ext. I found the break in time and amount of coppering early on was no different than ones I did nothing to. Some copper a little for the first few shots, others will never copper from the first shot on. I couldnt control that with throat prep. But I do keep very sharp reamers and if I see any degradation in the cut, they are retired. One thing I do know is that the shape of the throat is critical to accuracy. A good way to take a great barrel and make it a good barrel is to get after it with some iosso and round the edges of the lands on the lead. This is why setting back a barrel a couple turns can bring back that top accuracy, its the sharpening of the lead. A few strokes with with steel wool or iosso is not going to hurt, but you do not want to get carried away.

 

[Radar]

You are going to be there for a long time to polish a throat with Iosso or JB much less round off the lands.