Chambered my first barrel today!

[Erik Cortina]

Chabered my first barrel today. It is a 32" Brux 1.250" straight in 300 WSM. I will more than likely be shooting it at the F-Class Worlds Championship in August. The chamber turned out perfect, .0000" runout!

But I could not have done it without the help of some great friends like Mark Spencer from Spencertoolandgrind.com for answering all my machining questions and even emailing me pictures to help me understand what he was talking about.

My good friend Ronnie Santhuff (claymore on this forum) for taking the time to show me my way around the lathe.

And last but not least, my good friend Speedy Gonzales for teaching me the art of chambering championship winning barrels!

 

[Keith Glasscock]

Just curious,

What lathe did you use?

I've always wanted a small lathe for doing my own work, but never have been able to fit it into the house. Maybe I can now. I only want to make sure that whatever I get is big enough to chamber barrels.

 

[Erik Cortina]

Just curious,

What lathe did you use?

I've always wanted a small lathe for doing my own work, but never have been able to fit it into the house. Maybe I can now. I only want to make sure that whatever I get is big enough to chamber barrels.

Mine is a 14" x 30" WEBB

Minimum I would recommend is a 12" x 36"

 

[Keith Glasscock]

Thanks!

BTW, nice job!

 

[japple]

Perfect should be good enough!

 

[Tozguy]

Great looking job, congrats on your fine work.

 

[Nomad47]

Congrats, Erik. If I had a house, a lathe would be high on my list.

 

[Erik Cortina]

Thanks Bill!

 

[Thorbird]

That is great. No runout.

 

[Hal]

Looks great. The big test is putting it on paper.
Sounds like you had some great teachers.

Hal

 

[timbertoes]

Sweet

 

[jscandale]

Looks very nice! From some of your past contributions on this forum, I was surprised to read that this was your first chamber job. It looks very nice. Wait till you get a few more under your belt, it's pretty easy really if you are willing to apply proper machining techniques, which it looks like you have.

Bravo!

JS

 

[Erik Cortina]

Looks very nice! From some of your past contributions on this forum, I was surprised to read that this was your first chamber job. It looks very nice. Wait till you get a few more under your belt, it's pretty easy really if you are willing to apply proper machining techniques, which it looks like you have.

Bravo!

JS

Thank you. I actually knew how, I was just gathering all my tooling to do my own. And like previously stated, I did have some great teachers to which I attribute most of my success.

I chambered another barrel just like it (I always get two for my guns done at the same time) and runout was again .0000" and headspace variance between the two was also within .0005"

 

[skeetlee]

what method did you use to dial your barrel in? did you drill and bore the chamber before you used the reamer? .0000 sounds like you have some machining back ground. thats not easy to do by even the very best. good job. lee

 

[Erik Cortina]

what method did you use to dial your barrel in? did you drill and bore the chamber before you used the reamer? .0000 sounds like you have some machining back ground. thats not easy to do by even the very best. good job. lee

Thanks Skeetlee, but out of respect to my chambering mentor I can not tell you what method I use to chamber my barrels. I just feel lucky to learn from the best.

 

[jscandale]

Here we go....the magic pixie dust method.......

JS

 

[Erik Cortina]

Here we go....the magic pixie dust method.......

JS

 

[smitty525]

Congrats, I did my first earlier this year also, it's a great feeling.

 

[Eddie Harren]

It's refreshing to know that in this day of openness and transparency, that someone can still keep a secret.
I think the biggest secret is the left handed lathe.

 

[Erik Cortina]

It's refreshing to know that in this day of openness and transparency, that someone can still keep a secret.
I think the biggest secret is the left handed lathe.

LOL, I don't know why the picture did that when I loaded it. I figured I would leave it as is as it really didn't matter. But it does look weird doesn't it? ;D