This is my 35 Whelen barrel for my NEF Handi-rifle.

This is the chamber of the barrel. You can see the rings in the chamber and in particular the shiny grove which is where the case broke. These ridges and grooves can be easily felt with a toothpick slid along the chamber wall.

The other side of the chamber wall is fairly smooth.

Any thoughts on this?

You should never be able to see rings in a chamber. Put some emory paper on a split stick in a drill and polish it out a bit. 220, followed by 320. Hone it cross hatched like an engine cylinder.

I'm a turner not a gunsmith so bear with me. If these score rings are polished locally and it will remove a

few thou to do that looking at them. The op will have an out of round chamber and similar shaped brass

which could be tight to chamber when fire formed.

What + tolerance could the chamber stand to be reamed /bored without goosing the brass when fireformed ??

Genuine question..jc

If it is round now, it will be round after he polishes it. Tolerance? SAAMI allows a chamber to be .002 over the stated dimensions, BUT allows .011 tolerance between min brass and max chamber. So, they allow quite a bit of slop in the interface of brass to chamber.
He should full length resize for this rifle anyway, but not push the shoulder back any more than necessary for good action closing.

The rings in the chamber didn't cause the case to separate. If the cartridges come out of the chamber with no trouble, don't polish it. If you want the cases to stop separating start neck sizing the cases and throw the brass away every 3rd firing. There is a great deal of flex in those actions so the cases are going to go to hell-in-a-handcart pretty fast anyway.

Rod is right. If extraction is OK, the visible rings are of no consequence. The case head separation is a result of (a) headspace or (b) deflection of the barrel/breech.
A .001" groove is very visible yet will have little effect at normal pressures.
The small amount of gas cutting which resulted from the case separation, while obvious in appearance, will also be likely to have little effect, functionally.
As mentioned, these rifles are flexy (technical term) and can't be loaded like a bolt action if you want decent case life. Factory equivalent loadings (250's at around 2250) will probably give good case life. If you want to load to 2500, use a bolt action or a Ruger Number One.
By the way, I have tried a ball hone to polish a flawed chamber and it worked surprisingly well. You have to work a bit to remove a thou. Regards, Bill

Thanks guys. I think I will run some emery paper through it as suggested and then just shoot mild loads and see how it works.

I have some 250's I 'll just do starting loads with.

I have made all my cases from 30-06 brass. I shot them first with pistol bullets then the second loading was 250's and Varget at 2600 FPS. I think this was a 3rd firing with this brass.

I use the ball hones a lot too Billy. Like you say, they are a bit gurly and you have to pack a lunch and put up a tent if you want to remove any measurable amount of material. They do work well for removing plastic and lacquer that gets impacted into the chambers or light rust.

Will here say that I once knew a gurl who got loaded a lot. She was bendy. When she was really loaded she was REALLY BENDY ! Those damned technical terms huh?

ball hones by Rod Henrickson, on Flickr

I have a question, not questioning the posts here, big difference.

I was always taught to only polish a barrel while spinning it in a lathe.

It appears others are stating it is fine to hone/polish the chamber with a hand drill etc.

I have honed brake cylinders and engine bores with the hand drill method before as well.

So, it appears to me that it is perfectly OK to polish a rifle chamber with a hand drill and not spinning the barrel in a lathe?

Is that the case?

Either way, Spinning is spinning; you aren't controlling the hone in either case. We aren't talking about actually cutting metal.
Yes, the rings are not the cause of the case separation for sure. Polishing it will just make you feel better.

I shot these three tonight. They were 180 single shot pistol bullets by Hornady loaded with IMR SR4XXX reduced load powder.

The first one came out slick but the next two both had to be forcibly ejected.

What am I doing wrong here?

Maybe the cases are wore out.
According to my bullet count I have fired about 70 of the 250's and 30+ of the 180's. The 180's were the first loading. The 250's were working up loads with R-17 or R-15, IMR 4064 and Target.

All using the same 40 cases. Most of the shooting May have been with just 20 cases.

Once the brass gets hard and springy even full length sizing may not squish them back down to workable dimensions. The sides of the case will grip the walls of the chamber tightly and that little wussy ejection spring will not be able to kick them out. The simple test is factory loads. If it kicks them out then you know where to place blame. If the factory loads stick, them it's a chamber or extractor problem.

If it is the cases you can try annealing and full length sizing but your case separating problem is really going to get bad.

Try what said, and do that polishing thing too; can't make it any worse.

I did the polishing before I shot tonight. I have more once fired 30-06 cases I can make a new batch of loads from.
I do want to try some factory ammo and see what happens there.

Update:

I bought some 35 whelen brass and loaded up some 180's and 250's with a starting load of BLC-2. The load for the 250 was too hot and the one for the 180 really low. The 250 primers were flattened and the 180 were bulging out.

The rifle had several missfires as well.

The good news is all the cases extracted easily.

Sounds to me like you have ahead space problem.

If I have a modern gun with a ringed chamber, I would install a new barrel, needed or not it would make me feel better, if I had headspace I would get a new barrel as setting it back messes up the forend bedding, unless your satisfied with that or intend to glass bed it., just my two bits..

I have an opinion here however I must qualify that I am not a gunsmith so sorry if I step on toes but before going to any rash modifications and even "polishing" why wouldn't you contact the maker of the product.
I've found over the years that friendly firm pressure in person or over the phone gets a lot of stuff taken care of.

quote:

Snellstrom

OH MY ! ! !

Don't say anything that silly Snellstrom. The PROPER way, would be to send it back to the manufacturer or bring it to a gunsmith. But that is is the easy way.
The first rule of guy stuff clearly reads:
"Hell a monkey should be able to do that. And if a monkey can do it, I can too!"

LOL

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:

quote:

Snellstrom

The first rule of guy stuff clearly reads:
"Hell a monkey should be able to do that. And if a monkey can do it, I can too!"

LOL

I fall victim to that mindset more frequently than I care to admit!
Then I proceed to show my sons the hard way to get something done.....

quote:

Originally posted by Snellstrom:

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:

quote:

Snellstrom

The first rule of guy stuff clearly reads:
"Hell a monkey should be able to do that. And if a monkey can do it, I can too!"

LOL

I fall victim to that mindset more frequently than I care to admit!
Then I proceed to show my sons the hard way to get something done.....

Steve Smith would be damned proud of you for that.

If the family don't find you handy, they should at least find you edumacational ! ! !

By the way, do not use light loads to fireform brass. Do so and you will produce cases which are short in headspace. Regards, Bill