Lone Star 40x build, what chamber reamer?

[N21911S]

I intend to use this for club benchrest matches. I see a number of .22LR chamber reamers. Which one should I use?

 

[Deellwood]

Kinda depends. Some reamers are targeted towards different ammo brands like Lapua or Eley. Some reamers use a rigid guide and some use a rotating guide. I use Manson reamers match chamber reamer with a rigid guide and 1/4" shank. Also kinda depends on your reamer set up in your lathe. I can use a rigid reamer because I do a tailstock alignment before reaming. I use a #3 Morse taper X 1/4" tap holder for my tailstock to rigidly hold the reamer. No issues. I just cut a chamber in a 2 groove Benchmark barrel destined for my LoneStar build.

You can see my current LoneStar build on RFC here: Chambering a 2 groove Benchmark barrel.

One reason I used a rigid reamer set up like this is that I had heard that two groove barrels are difficult to chamber straight with a floating reamer holder. After performing the alignment check, getting the barrel as centered as I possibly could using indicator rods and dial indicators, and using a rigid reamer holder and reamer guide, the chamber came out nicely centered.

Other barrels I have chambered on my guns with the Manson match reamer have shot both Lapua and Eley ammo with no problems. Both brands engage the rifling before the rim butts up to the breech face, requiring the bolt cam action to finish engraving the rifling into the bullet. This also aides in extractor engagement,

Just my thoughts.