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Run the reamer deep and use standard dies. Any problems?

ImBIllT

Silver $$ Contributor
I’ve been thinking of running a 6BR reamer deep and using 6BR dies. Has anyone done this with a 6BR or any other cartridge? If so, does it work well or did you encounter any serious problems? Thanks in advance!
 
Not really understanding what you are trying to accomplish.... Running the reamer deep will cause headspace issues and your cartridge will be floating in space unless you are trying to create a 6br wildcat that is longer than the parent case.
 
Sounds like your trying to something along the lines of a BRX. Measure the reamer and your brass just ahead of the rim. If you run it in deep more than likely the chamber will end up too fat at the back end.
 
I’ve been thinking of running a 6BR reamer deep and using 6BR dies. Has anyone done this with a 6BR or any other cartridge? If so, does it work well or did you encounter any serious problems? Thanks in advance!


I've done it many times...... it's the thing that got me started down the "fat butt reamers" trail (I now have ALL my reamers made over-sized) and I've made many wildcats by running reamers in both deep and shallow.

This old post on BRC kinda' tells how I designed and had a chamber cut and waiting BEFORE THERE WAS ANY 6.5X47L BRASS in the US of A

I didn't order a new, marked "6X47" reamer until probably 6yrs later.....


http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?58805-Al-s-6x47L
 
BTW, to address your situation, YES there are several case designs out there, the BRX being one, utilizing this idea.

For ME it's not good enough because you end up with a chamber that's too tight, will always click. I've done this exact thing with 6BR, .308Win and variants of the 404 Jeffery case (WSM, RUM, SAUM etc) using factory dies and it's never really worked for me but it does get by.

The only time I've ever stuck a case in a resize die came from a custom I called the 308 Ichabod made from running a 308 Palma reamer in to .200 short ..... skinny skinny skinny butted thang.....

BTW, FACT....... chamber size has NO EFFECT as far as the old myth of "casehead containment" nor on the ability to load hot. Anyone who passes that idea on has simply never tested it :)

Kinda' like the old fart-blossom idea of "load your bullets long to hold the case head tightly against the boltface"...... TOTAL krapp..... but deeply ingrained into the reloading zeitgeist....entrenched into the public consciousness....
 
Longer than the parent case is what I was looking for. I may just settle in on a 6-6.5x47L. I basically wanted to experiment with a long necked version of a 6-6.5x47L to see if I could get a longer lived throat. Considering a 6BR run in deep, or a 6RemAI run in short. The AI would involve “ruining” an expensive set of dies but would have a longer neck and possibly longer lasting brass. Just chasing a hot rod 6mm with BR-ish barrel life along with doing something a little different. I was originally gonna go 6-6.5x47, then decided 6mm Creedmore, then decided I didn’t wanna throw that much powder down a 6mm. Then I started spiraling down the rabbit hole.
 
Longer than the parent case is what I was looking for. I may just settle in on a 6-6.5x47L. I basically wanted to experiment with a long necked version of a 6-6.5x47L to see if I could get a longer lived throat. Considering a 6BR run in deep, or a 6RemAI run in short. The AI would involve “ruining” an expensive set of dies but would have a longer neck and possibly longer lasting brass. Just chasing a hot rod 6mm with BR-ish barrel life along with doing something a little different. I was originally gonna go 6-6.5x47, then decided 6mm Creedmore, then decided I didn’t wanna throw that much powder down a 6mm. Then I started spiraling down the rabbit hole.
The 6-47 neck is within a hairs breadth of being just as long as a 6mmBR's... I think you would do just as well by simply making a 6-47 for yourself..
 
Longer than the parent case is what I was looking for. I may just settle in on a 6-6.5x47L. I basically wanted to experiment with a long necked version of a 6-6.5x47L to see if I could get a longer lived throat. Considering a 6BR run in deep, or a 6RemAI run in short. The AI would involve “ruining” an expensive set of dies but would have a longer neck and possibly longer lasting brass. Just chasing a hot rod 6mm with BR-ish barrel life along with doing something a little different. I was originally gonna go 6-6.5x47, then decided 6mm Creedmore, then decided I didn’t wanna throw that much powder down a 6mm. Then I started spiraling down the rabbit hole.


The 6-47 neck is within a hairs breadth of being just as long as a 6mmBR's... I

True, but its not a hair from the length of a 6mmRemAI.
 
Go for it . After all I don't want to be the only one with over a hundred barrels / actions that I've done the exact thing on , wasted a good portion of good life . Now I can't find anyone wanting one off experiments, even if tack drivers .
I've gone a slightly different way to reamer purchase , I used longer reamers , such as 6x06 Ackley , 6.5 x06 Ackley , then cut the length you want and run in a std reamer after , just to cut the base a few thou.
 
AlinWa- I guess I’m lost on not sizing the base when you run a reamer in short. I get it when you run it deep, the case never goes into the die. If I were to run one in short, I would also grind the base off of my sizing die to match.

Ggmac-I doubt I’ll sell the barrel, but if for some reason I decided to, if I ran a reamer short, I’d just finish the chamber before I sold it, and if I ran it deep, I could just cut the barrel back and re-thread. Or just run a different reamer in all together.
 
AlinWa- I guess I’m lost on not sizing the base when you run a reamer in short. I get it when you run it deep, the case never goes into the die. If I were to run one in short, I would also grind the base off of my sizing die to match.

Ggmac-I doubt I’ll sell the barrel, but if for some reason I decided to, if I ran a reamer short, I’d just finish the chamber before I sold it, and if I ran it deep, I could just cut the barrel back and re-thread. Or just run a different reamer in all together.


OK..... I need to define "base."

And "not sizing the base."

Most folks start using "small-base dies" or trying tighter dies when the gun starts to click or bind......... that binding, "the click," is the result of expansion of the CASEHEAD and it's appurtinant thicker brass expanding below the junction of the thin casewall brass and the thicker brass tapering to the virtual brass disc of the true casehead. ie, the area often referred to as "the web". Basically, the thin casewall brass is easily sized down for clearance and it also shows a nice propensity for "springing back" or letting go it's grip after firing, whereas the thicker brass in the tapered portion and the disc of the casehead DOES NOT spring back like the case walls. Nor is it easily sized back.

But sometimes one can "size the base more" by using a different die. Not a lot more but sometimes enough to correct the problem. I say "sometimes."

Depending on the design of your action (recessed ALA Rem700, flat like Savage, or tapered like a coned bolt Panda, or other) and depending on machined clearances, the actual "end of the chamber" will be somewhere in that thicker brass. And running the reamer in short generally means you're going to make your cases by hacking some brass off the front of the case, shoving the shoulder back on your cases and modifying your sizing method to accommodate (as you mentioned above, "grinding off the base of the die")

So, again, the "click" or sticking cases occurs when that thicker portion of the case which is inside the rifle chamber and begins to stick or bind. Most often the sticking, binding, "click" begins to occur after a few firings and it's BECAUSE the heavy casehead portion gets hammered (peened? expanded?) to larger diameter and starts to bind in the end of the chamber. If it's only the very topmost portion of the "web" that's binding, often a "small base die" will fix it. But it will not fix it if the design of your rifle sets the case deep enough into the chamber that you get into that brass you CAN'T size.....

Now since this thick casehead brass _can't_ be resized (certainly not easily) the only logical answers are to use smaller diameter cases (harder, new, different brand) or make the chamber bigger, increase chamber diameter.

The problem which occurs when you run a reamer in short is that the resultant chamber is SKINNIER at the back, it starts out smaller than a stock or "SAAMI spec" chamber because it's reamed smaller...... because the reamer is tapered.

Running a reamer in short, grinding off the die to match is just making a situation which is nearly guaranteed to start clicking very early in the life cycle of the brass.

Yes, it "works" it just doesn't work well IME

BTDT
 
Very good information here. So would a Mauser be one of the worst options possible in the case?
 
Very good information here. So would a Mauser be one of the worst options possible in the case?

Ain't sure :)

Since the protrusion of the casehead is basically the thickness from the boltface to an acceptable clearance on the extractor, it seems a Mauser would net out around .110 casehead protrusion whereas the Rem 700 minimum is around .150 which, if run a little deep and coupled with a large chamfer could be .180 unsupported........ it does seem reasonable that the Mauser _could_ be a little stickier but I doubt it's an issue.

In retrospect, the "small base die" doesn't work very well IME but when it does it's probably more about being right on the edge where the web area is expanding only up where it's thin, where the die hits it. In thinking it through I feel it's probably inappropriate of me to mention "design" as a factor since every design I'm picturing does in fact contain all the thin "web" brass. And most of my work has been with the Rem 700 design. And even Rem 700's with their long protrusion certainly will get very sticky/clicky.

Stickin' and clickin' DOES come from casehead expansion, but I think I hared off down the wrong rabbit hole when I mentioned "design"...... Right now I can't even find the rabbit hole, I mighta' just MADE myself a hole,

and pulled it right in after me :)
 
BTW MY fix has been to make my chambers larger........ I order all my reamers with a fat butt, I want my chambers .005 to .007 larger than the base of the case and my designs NEVER click.

Until the primer falls right out......

but never a click.
 
BTW MY fix has been to make my chambers larger........ I order all my reamers with a fat butt, I want my chambers .005 to .007 larger than the base of the case and my designs NEVER click.

Until the primer falls right out......

but never a click.
Since I’ll be grinding the die short to my own spec, would lowering the deck height of a shell holder, to allow more of the case head into the sizer improve the situation?
 
And, I just remembered that back a decade or so when I first started messing with the 338 Lapua I DID grind off a shellholder.

And I later yanked the Finns right off it...

I had fergotten LOL
 
And, I just remembered that back a decade or so when I first started messing with the 338 Lapua I DID grind off a shellholder.

And I later yanked the Finns right off it...

I had fergotten LOL
That was my first thought regarding where a problem might lie with that solution.
 

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