A member from another forum I'm on has graciously offered to loan me a .22-250 AI reamer and head space gauge to do the work on my Savage .22-250 Rem. What I'm looking for is the info on how its done. I'm quite mechanically inclined and have done a lot of different type detailed work. I'm pretty sure I can handle the work once I find out exactly whats involved and what steps to take. Does anyone have a link to an article or video on rechambering? I'd like to give this a try. I was going to have it done but locally there's not a gunsmith I'd let even clean my gun.

Thanks
Tim

Do you have a lathe suitable for chambering? Do you have the tooling and knowledge to do it? Do you have a person to show you at least once?
If you can't answer yes to all of these, you should pass.
Butch

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:
Do you have a lathe suitable for chambering? Do you have the tooling and knowledge to do it? Do you have a person to show you at least once?
If you can't answer yes to all of these, you should pass.
Butch

But Larry Potterfield says...........

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:
Do you have a lathe suitable for chambering? Do you have the tooling and knowledge to do it? Do you have a person to show you at least once?
If you can't answer yes to all of these, you should pass.
Butch

I have access to a full machine shop so I can pretty much answer yes to all except having someone to show me once. That's why I'm trying to find out exactly what is evolved.

Thanks
Tim

I had a machineshop before I chambered a barrel for myself. You will need tooling that is not in that shop unless your shop was already doing barrel work.
Mike, he may check with Larry.
Butch

If this was not a Savage I would say first you pull the barrel, set the barrel back as much as one full turn if you have open sights. Then using a lathe cut the champer setting the headspace for your action. At least in simple terms.

As to the Savage I have never worked on one but I would think to cut the chamber correctly you need to shorten the orginal chamber first. Maybe there is enough clearence between the barrel and bolt to simply screw the barrel in further. I don't know. Anyway the new chamber should be cut on a lathe. Since the headspace is set via the barrel nut I don't know how deep.

After the new chamber is cut install the barrel and nut remove the internals to the bolt slip the guage in place screw the barrel until it hit sht guage and tighten the nut.

Little over 50 words. I'm sure several can give you all the details and dimensions.
Not knowing just how mechanical you might be and the tools you have access to I would suggest. Assuming you have a barrel nut wrench remove the barrel have some cut the chamber and then reinstall and headspace.

If your rifle has sights send it to a professional.

I know people have left the barrel in place the hand cut the chamber deeper until the guage would fit. This is just not the way to do it correctly.

For my 2 cents this is somethng that is far better shown in person.

Like Paul Simon said in the song, there are 50 ways. IMO you'll need, at a minimum, a lathe with either:

a large headstock hole with 4-jaw chuck and centering spider on the back side of the headstock, or

a distance between centers at least 6" greater than the length of the barrel and also a good steady-rest.

Either method is perfectly acceptable if done properly. For a good description of one good procedure, I suggest you purchase or borrow a copy of John Hinnant's Precision Rifle Barrel Fitting from Brownell's. (They also offer another largely worthless book called Advanced Rebarrelling of the Sporting Rifle by Willis Fowler, IIWY I wouldn't waste my money.) The Hinnant book, however, is so good that I recommended it to Green Mountain for their proposed chambering setup, rather than travel up there myself for show-&-tell.
Regards, Joe

Get the Hinnant book...after reading it you'll be able to ask specific questions. The subject is too involved to cover here, but it isn't rocket science.

Despite what some gunsmiths would want you to believe...

Greg Tannel at GTR tooling has some very nice videos that cover the subject...you can see what is involved.

There are several gunsmiths that have pictures on their websites that show the process.

You just have to do the research and spend some time viewing, surfing other forums and wading through all the "stuff".

Brownells has a good selection of "how to" books.

Any competent machinist will/should have the knowledge of how to do it...none of the steps are anything more than what is normally done in a machine shop, i.e, precision setup, threading, drilling/reaming, cutoff and facing...nothing very complicated...just a bit of specific to gunsmithing fiddling.

Reamers are hard and breakable so you should use a reamer holder which are available for a nominal price.

Just do your homework, get some lathe practice on something you don't mind messing up...you do need to be proficient with the lathe...what to do, where the controls are and be able to run the machine while you concentrate on cutting the chamber.

Lathes are designed to chew up metal, don't stop turning very quickly and don't care if it is a head, hand or metal rod they are lunching on.

While the process of chambering isn't complicated or very hard, being comfortable with running a lathe takes time and practice and a few broken toolbits along the way. It's no different than driving a car...getting it to move isn't the hard part...making it stop and turn and miss all the other things that get in the way all around you is the hard part.

Besides the fact that reamers are expensive and I wouldn't let anyone who I knew didn't know much about lathes or the whole process, "borrow" one of mine.

quote:

But Larry Potterfield says..

Can'tcha just weld a piece of rod on the the back end of that reamer-thingy, then chuck it in a Black and Decker cordless drill? If ya need to hold the gun still while you work on it, you can always just tie it down purty good with baling wire. Use duct tape under the balin' wahr so as you don't scratch the blue or dent the wood. But it helps if you have an air compressor so you can blow the metal chips out when yer done.

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:
Can'tcha just weld a piece of rod on the the back end of that reamer-thingy, then chuck it in a Black and Decker cordless drill? If ya need to hold the gun still while you work on it, you can always just tie it down purty good with baling wire. Use duct tape under the balin' wahr so as you don't scratch the blue or dent the wood. But it helps if you have an air compressor so you can blow the metal chips out when yer done.

I thought the chips just came out all on their own when you fire-formed the brass?

If you are anywhere near Orilla, Ontario, you might want to call Directory Assistance, get the phone number of the Elwood Epps shop, and give them a ring.

He is deceased, but the last I heard the shop is continuing in business and they have done really good work for the last 50+ years or so.

If it was my gun, and I was still in Canada, that's one of the places I would choose to have my own work done on hunting rifles. I can readily recommend them. They have done a lot of highly skilled, excellent work for me in the past.

Thanks AC.....with the very limited amount of useful info I've gotten in replies I'm beginning to think I might search around and find some one to do it for me. On the other hand since it's also a Savage I can pick up a prechmabered barrel for it for about the same as what I've had a couple of 'smiths tell me they'd change to do the rechambering so I may also got that way and do a swap myself.

Thanks

Tim

Or you could spend a night at the Holiday Inn Express.