Rechambering

[Sniperhandle]

I just did this 6.5x55AI and fire-formed about half of them the other day, I use the COW method most of the time because a lot of the cartridges I do are stuff hardly anyone else would do and aren't true Ackley's and most are barrel burners.

I just fired Lapua 136 gn bullets to fire-form these.

 

[Sniperhandle]

A buddy of mine had a guy rechamber two of his 243 rifles to a 243 Ackley. He took them out to fire form some brass and immediately knew something wasn’t right and brought them to me to fix them. I’ve chambered several rifles but never rechambered one so I have a couple questions. When getting the barrel straight in the lathe do I still use a range rod or put the reamer in the chamber and measure off the shank of the reamer? I am wanting to put blue layout dye in the chamber before I start so I can put my bore scope in there after I ream the chamber to make sure it is all a fresh cut. Will that work or will the filings remote the dye? Have read the barrel needs to be shortened only one thread to go from 243 to 243 Ackley. That really enough? I did castings of the chambers as they are now. Easy to see they aren’t right. I’m thinking the guy that did these the first time must have been using a standard 243 headspace gauge instead of an Ackley gauge. Thanks!

Also you asked if you could use a range rod to indicate the barrel in, A range rod is not long enough to indicate an existing chamber, Indicator rods are used for that, But they don't work that well, I usually indicate off of the old chamber and the muzzle when doing a re-chamber, I only indicate the breech end on new barrels. The reamer will follow the old chamber. I'm sure other folks do it different, But I have had good results on re-chambers doing it that way.

 

[Sniperhandle]

In 2002 I used a piece of 257 Roberts brass as the go gauge for a 257 Roberts Ackley reamer in a Lothar Walther barrel.
The Yahoo gunsmithing forum had real gunsmiths that explained I was 0.004" too long.

Those Gunsmith's were right, You were too long, Had you used the 257 Roberts case as a no-go, You would have been close to right, But that's not the way to do it, You use the 257 Roberts go-gauge as a no-go, Not a piece of brass.

 

[EasyShooter]

I got them done. I ended up indicating off the existing chamber then sticking the reamer in and checking off the end of the reamer. Castings measure good.

 

[Sniperhandle]

I got them done. I ended up indicating off the existing chamber then sticking the reamer in and checking off the end of the reamer. Castings measure good.

Looks like you did a Hell of lot better job than the first guy!

 

[johnfred1965]

Looks like you did a Hell of lot better job than the first guy!

I ran a lathe once in school 40 years ago and I could do a better job than the first guy!