.257 Chamber Reaming and Fire Lapping
UPS is scheduled to deliver my .257 AF Condor tomorrow. Excited a bit to say the least. Have 2 questions.
1st. Could someone please sketch some pics on reaming the chamber to 257 and provide a bit more detail. My local gunsmith wants $75 to do this. From what I’ve read it is not impossible to do myself. Just don’t want to screw it up. It is coming with the 700mm TJ’s barrel in .257 from R&L. I have been told to use a dremel and be very careful and grind and fit repeatedly until it accepts my Lyman 65gr slug snugly. Also, what does it mean to cut it to 2 degrees? Can I just get by with grinding and sanding or can I run a “F” drill into the barrel by hand?
2nd. Roachcreek posted fire lapping instructions which are quite thorough. He recommended not to use the 260 grit from the Wheeler kit but only the finer two grits. Will it hurt to run 5 or 10 down the bore with the 260?
Thanks for your help
Ray
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Glad to see that worked. looks like you do my version of hill billy gunsmithing also.
Just finished the chamber on my new Condor. I poked a pencil into the muzzle end of the barrel and chucked it into a rechargeable drill. I placed the barrel on my aluminum arrow straightener so it would spin freely and raised up the drill on a pile of magazines until it was running true. I ran the drill about slow to medium speed and used my new Wen (dremel) tool with flex shaft at slow speeds and used mostly the small oval shaped stone bits. Ran the two tools in the opposite directions. Continued to grind and push a bullet into the chamber until they started to fit quite snugly. Then I used emery cloth by rolling a small square up tightly and holding into the chamber by hand while spinning the barrel with the drill. Used 220 then 320 then 400 then crocus to polish it. Then a thorough cleaning with JB’s and Ballistol. Wow does this thing shoot. One pellet on top of the next at 50 feet. Anxious to get to the range.
Only drawback is that my groups with 25gr JSB’s opened up some but guess you can’t have it all. Plan to shoot mostly cast bullets anyway.
I really appreciate all of the advice and encouragement that you guys offer on the forum.
What if maybe you could swage the leed in.
Stone file is round or square stone. Like a sharpening stone for a knife but in the shape of a file.
Barrel needs to be spun on a lathe to use one though.
Stone file sounds nice what is it?
Shamu,
I cut the lead in my rifles using several 1/4 inch Craytex dremel bits that I got from Midway in a flex shaft dremel.
It is a tedious job and like Doug says you can screw it up. I also had Doug cut the chamber on two of my barrels just undersize and I finished them up with the Craytex bits, and I did this to avoid getting them off center.
If you have a smith available, that 75 bucks could be a bargain. I personally have no fear of doing it myself, but I have done several at this point, but I have to say I did the first one with more than a little apprehension.
I have fire lapped with the course grit and followed up per the instructions with the finer two before, but I eventually went to just using the two lighter grits because using the course grit meant I had to use more of the finer grits to remove the marks left by the course grits. Using the course grit and then using enough of the finer grits to get it polished out will result in a very polished bore, but in the end I did not see a lot of difference in the two methods as far as leading, other than just using the finer two was faster.
Also I cleaned between each shot instead of 5 as per the Wheeler instructions, as I noticed leading after the first grit shot and there is no need to polish leading is there?
I personally wouldn’t use a Dremel. There is no way to know how you are removing metal evenly. Should be done in a lathe.
I Reem the barrel and then use a stone file to hand fit a slug. Only using a slug one time.
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Thanks for the complement Roachcreek…….I accept that. I wasn’t so afraid of the $75 that my local gunsmith wanted to charge but the fact he wanted my new gun for 2 to 3 weeks was way out of the question….plus I had no guarantee that his mod would work any better than mine.
Next step for this week is to get out my new wheeler firelapping kit.