IF
YOU GOT HERE VIA A SEARCH ENGINE THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO THE WAGNER HOME,
THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO PAGE 1
Bob's Rifles, or Sporterizing
some Turks - 6
The truing of the receiver, and the removal of metal from the barrel shoulder, will result in the chamber moving closer to the bolt face when the barrel is reinstalled. This is because the barrel will screw into the receiver more that it did before the truing, cutting. This has the effect of decreasing the headspace distance, and is a common cure for excessive headspace. In the case of Bob's rifles I intentionally removed enough metal so that the headspace distance was decreased too much, in fact so much so that a "Go" would prevent the bolt from closing. I could correct this by unscrewing the barrel a little, but no one likes to have the barrel fall off during a shooting session, so I elected to ream the chamber.
This time I am measuring the distance from the face of the receiver to the bolt face.
Now I have a "Go" gauge in the chamber and am measuring the distance from the end of the "Go" gauge to the barrel shoulder. I will ream the chamber until this distance is 0.002 inches less that the distance from the receiver shoulder to the bolt face.
I like to ream the chamber on the lathe but another way is to install the barrel on the receiver and ream throught the boltway.
Either way, I prefer to "feel" the "Go" gauge at about this point when closing the action. This action has a "Go" gauge in the (Very Clean) chamber, the extractor has been removed, and I am closing the bolt with my thumb. At the point shown, I can feel the bolt trying to squeeze the headspace gauge. I could force the bolt closed but I might damage my gauge. Since these three rifles will be sharing ammunition and cases, and the ammunition will be reloaded, I tried to make the chambers as identical as possible. See my thoughts on Headspace.