.22 chamber reaming report

[Ivan the Butcher]

I used a square cake pan under my vise as a "Bed" to catch the oil and chips. I used a shot glass to hold my cutting oil and a new flux brush (about 15-25 cents) to apply oil.

My 17-3 and 34-1 were like new when I bought them, because extraction was terrible! While reaming I had chips accumulate like crazy. (so my chambers were way too tight!) Now both guns are a pleasure to shoot. BTW: the 34's cylinder seemed much harder than the 17's.

Since I only needed to buy the ream and the oil, I have less money in this project than shipping one in for service! (2 different local gun smiths quoted a price of $60 in 2019 to do one cylinder PLUS REAM) so the hour to 1.25 hours per cylinder was well worth it. The quart of cutting oil still has 30.5 ounces left, so I have several lifetimes supply left!

One important piece of advice: Do not return any oil to the original can! The possibility of grit contamination isn't worth half an ounce of oil!


Ivan

 

[Ron IL]

Really good thread. If I still had my 18-4 I would do it. It had tight chambers. A lot of this is good do-it-yourself if you are mechanical at all. You can't be a bull in the china shop. I bought a throat reamer and reamed my 357 and 45 cylinders in my Ruger revolvers. They are known for having different chamber throat sizes. I think they use three drill holes at a time so you can have three different size throats in a 6 shot. Take your time and use plenty of oil. Good thread with pics.

 

[AzShooter]

I just picked up a 4 inch 617-6 and couldn't get 4 loaders out of it before I got very sticky extraction so today I took my Clymer Finishing Reamer to it and did all 10 chambers.

It didn't take long at all but I could definitely feel the difference and could see a lot of chips when I pulled the reamer out. I used a welding brush to clean the tool every so often and used plenty of cutting oil. I think my bottle is going to last a lifetime.

When done I cleaned everything wiwth carburetor cleaner and canned air. I than ran a .22 clean mop through it to make sure nothing was left over.

I wanted to test it today but the rain on my side of town was so vicious that getting to the range was an impossibility. Also there was a wrong way driver at my entrance to the freeway preventing me from taking the trip. All in all, a good day to stay home.