Professional Documents
Culture Documents
For material I used a M12 bolt which turned out good and was easy harden as long as it wasn't stainless (which I
Then it was just a matter of turning it to the correct dimension and polishing the area that would have the cutting
areas milled out so they where smooth. Before removing it form the lathe I tested that the pilot would fit in the
barrel and kept going over it with emery paper till I had a nice tight fit.
Then I set it up in the vice and using the dial indicator made sure it was perfectly level with the mill. and cut the
chamber area down to it was exactly to the middle. With this set up in the vice I had to take very light cuts to
avoid flex, the max I took was .01 in a pass.
Then I milled flats in the other end so it could be turned or held by a wrench.
After the milling was done I honed all the edges with a very fine stone.
Here it is ready to be hardened.
For hardening I put it in a small drill press, and heated it with a propane torch till it was glowing orangy red and
turned non magnetic.
Then it was down in the can for cooling while still turning in the drill press to get an even cooling on it. I used
coolant from the lathe to cool it in. A mixture of water and soluble cutting oil.
Next up was polising it and a new check that the pilot would go smooth in the barrel. Honing all the cutting edges
with the stone again and temper it. Put the reamer back in the drill press and used the torch on it til I got a very
light straw color, Had to turn down the lights to be able to see the changes.
These reamers are quick and easy to make, they are not as durable as the regular ones but will last for a few
barrels.
Will soon make some larger ones as I have been thinking of a new project for about a year now and have a spare
50BMG barrel laying about and looking to make a short round for it. Which means I will have to make both
chamber reamers and reamers to make forming and loading dies.
Metric threads are often expressed that way, like M6x1 etc.
But metric bolts come in different grades just like inch bolts. They got some system with numbers stamped on the
heads -- I don't know the details off hand.