707electrician
Silver $$ Contributor
After having a couple of rifles built off of factory Remington 700 actions, and having built several AR pattern rifles, I decided my next rifle would be a full custom bolt action along the lines of a PRS rifle.
I started doing my research and making a list of parts, and I have been slowly gathering the parts on my list. I purchased an Impact 737R to kick off this build, and knowing I wanted to do a 6mm, I ordered a Bartlein 6mm barrel blank. Eventually, I had narrowed down my caliber choices to 6CM and 6Dasher and ordered a case of Berger 109 LRHT after waiting and waiting for them to show up in stock. Even though 6CM brass was available while Dasher brass was nowhere to be found, I was still trying to decide between the two when, one day, I got a stock notification on Peterson 6 Dasher brass, so I made up my mind and ordered a case while I had the chance.
Now here I am, I have the action, barrel blank, bullets and brass, the next thing I want to do is send the blank off to be chambered, and this is where I am hitting a road block. Since my gunsmith only has one Dasher reamer, and wanting to take full advantage of this being a custom build, I have decided that the best thing to do would be to order my own reamer. Unfortunately, the more reading I do on the matter, the more the waters get muddied.
I started reading the forum to try to ascertain what freebore works best for this bullet, but it seems everyone has a different answer so it sounds like the best way to go about having a reamer made would be to make up some dummy rounds to send to the reamer manufacturer. My question is, where do you start? Isn't this just a chicken vs. the egg situation?
Where do you start? When you are making up dummy rounds to send if to have a reamer made, how are you determining where to seat the bullets at? I don't want to seat too deep and take up case capacity, but too shallow and there wont be enough neck contact to keep the bullet seated properly, and I am assuming this could easily lead to inconsistent ammo. So how much neck contact is enough?
What came first, the chicken or the egg? So after you have determined the best compromise between case capacity and neck contact, how does that information help you? I assume if you were to just send these dummy rounds off to your reamer maker, they would grind your reamer to fit that dummy round, but we know that some bullets shoot better jammed into the rifling and others prefer to jump some distance to the rifling, of course you need to test seating depth by actually shooting the rifle. Thus the paradox is that I need the reamer to be able to shoot, but I need to shoot to figure out the best reamer dimensions.
Long story short, I need some guidance from those on the forum with experience on how to order my reamer properly. I appreciate any advice you have to offer.
I started doing my research and making a list of parts, and I have been slowly gathering the parts on my list. I purchased an Impact 737R to kick off this build, and knowing I wanted to do a 6mm, I ordered a Bartlein 6mm barrel blank. Eventually, I had narrowed down my caliber choices to 6CM and 6Dasher and ordered a case of Berger 109 LRHT after waiting and waiting for them to show up in stock. Even though 6CM brass was available while Dasher brass was nowhere to be found, I was still trying to decide between the two when, one day, I got a stock notification on Peterson 6 Dasher brass, so I made up my mind and ordered a case while I had the chance.
Now here I am, I have the action, barrel blank, bullets and brass, the next thing I want to do is send the blank off to be chambered, and this is where I am hitting a road block. Since my gunsmith only has one Dasher reamer, and wanting to take full advantage of this being a custom build, I have decided that the best thing to do would be to order my own reamer. Unfortunately, the more reading I do on the matter, the more the waters get muddied.
I started reading the forum to try to ascertain what freebore works best for this bullet, but it seems everyone has a different answer so it sounds like the best way to go about having a reamer made would be to make up some dummy rounds to send to the reamer manufacturer. My question is, where do you start? Isn't this just a chicken vs. the egg situation?
Where do you start? When you are making up dummy rounds to send if to have a reamer made, how are you determining where to seat the bullets at? I don't want to seat too deep and take up case capacity, but too shallow and there wont be enough neck contact to keep the bullet seated properly, and I am assuming this could easily lead to inconsistent ammo. So how much neck contact is enough?
What came first, the chicken or the egg? So after you have determined the best compromise between case capacity and neck contact, how does that information help you? I assume if you were to just send these dummy rounds off to your reamer maker, they would grind your reamer to fit that dummy round, but we know that some bullets shoot better jammed into the rifling and others prefer to jump some distance to the rifling, of course you need to test seating depth by actually shooting the rifle. Thus the paradox is that I need the reamer to be able to shoot, but I need to shoot to figure out the best reamer dimensions.
Long story short, I need some guidance from those on the forum with experience on how to order my reamer properly. I appreciate any advice you have to offer.
