Chambers on one go gauge but not another.

skkeeter · Mar 8, 2014

First post on here but I've been lurking for quite some time. So I just finished up chambering a Bartlein in .308 on a trued Remington receiver. I set the headspace using a Forester go gauge while chambering. After tightening the barrel to 100 foot lbs the rifle still chambers the forester but it's on the tight side. I then proceeded to throw in my Manson .308 go gauge and it won't close. I chambered some of my reloads and some Fed match 175's. They all chamber but on the tight side. Do you guys think this will cause any issues? I wanted to check before pulling the trigger for the first time. Thanks in advance.

wesg · Mar 9, 2014

Ah, the old 'wearing two watches and they don't show the same time' conundrum.

Did you allow for crush when you set the headspace?

Assuming it's your own rifle, I don't see a problem. Your reloads can be sized to fit, but better to have it right to begin with. But if you're planning on shooting a lot of GMM, there may be some small chance you could gall the lugs.

skkeeter · Mar 9, 2014

wesg said:
Ah, the old 'wearing two watches and they don't show the same time' conundrum.

Did you allow for crush when you set the headspace?

Assuming it's your own rifle, I don't see a problem. Your reloads can be sized to fit, but better to have it right to begin with. But if you're planning on shooting a lot of GMM, there may be some small chance you could gall the lugs.

I tried to allow for crush but obviously not enough. Yes this is my personal rifle so I guess I'll go pull the trigger when the rain clears. Thank you very much for your knowledge.

skkeeter · Mar 9, 2014

Or should I pull the barrel and set the chamber back another .001?

rws · Mar 9, 2014

Make an extension for the reamer and turn it by hand through the action. the back of the reamer is 1/4-28, so you could make up something, won't take much to get .001".

Jim Kobe · Mar 9, 2014

100 lbs torque? Why?

glbreil · Mar 9, 2014

With it that tight on the gauge you may find that your resize die doesn't give you any shoulder bump and then you have to shorten your die. I would open up the chamber another .001" or more.

Gary

Vladymere gr · Mar 9, 2014

I'm with Jom Kobe. 100 foot pounds torque? Why so much. I'm not experienced with Remington recivers but I've worked a few Mauser rifles over. Proper torque on them, and I assume most other brands of rifle is to take up all slack and then give the wrench a good "bump".

Vlad

300sniper · Mar 9, 2014

Your personal rifle, run it.

I would.

Edit: your reloads, were they factory new brass or fired/sized from another chamber?
Edit again: I missed the Federal ammo closing tight too. If you can just feel the bolt close on them, I'd run it. If you have to use effort to close the bolt on them, you are going to eventually gall your lugs/lug abutments. I would cut it deeper in that case.

kendog · Mar 9, 2014

Jim Kobe said:
100 lbs torque? Why?

This.
Back off the torque. Just snap it in tight on clean, lubed threads. It wont go anywhere. If it is still a bit tight, hand ream as rws posted.

skkeeter · Mar 9, 2014

kendog said:
This.
Back off the torque. Just snap it in tight on clean, lubed threads. It wont go anywhere. If it is still a bit tight, hand ream as rws posted.

100lbs because that what I read on the internet

Im in the sticks so I have no real actual (from the horse's mouth) resources. I'll back it off and go with what Kendog said. Many thanks all.

mfim · Mar 9, 2014

Hi Having made a living making tools, gages, and fixtures, I can explain the differences in the 2 brands of gages, . Just say SAMMI specs say there is
.005 spread beyween go and no go on a given caliber. There will be a tolerance for the gage builder for the go and the no go. Say the tilerance for each is plus or minus .0002. If one maker erred the full tolerance plus,,, and the other maker erred minus,,, you could have a differance of .0004,,
nearly a half thousandths of an inch. So, when SAMMI engineered these specs. they take circumstances like yours into account. I would feel completely safe shootinf my own handloads. I have rebarreled a number of rifles. Some I make a little snug when closing the bolt, others are not so snug, depending on what I am usein the rifle for. You are using way to much torque when "crushing" Don

skkeeter · Mar 9, 2014

mfim said:
Hi Having made a living making tools, gages, and fixtures, I can explain the differences in the 2 brands of gages, . Just say SAMMI specs say there is
.005 spread beyween go and no go on a given caliber. There will be a tolerance for the gage builder for the go and the no go. Say the tilerance for each is plus or minus .0002. If one maker erred the full tolerance plus,,, and the other maker erred minus,,, you could have a differance of .0004,,
nearly a half thousandths of an inch. So, when SAMMI engineered these specs. they take circumstances like yours into account. I would feel completely safe shootinf my own handloads. I have rebarreled a number of rifles. Some I make a little snug when closing the bolt, others are not so snug, depending on what I am usein the rifle for. You are using way to much torque when "crushing" Don

Thanks for the explanation Don.

I just went and reamed out .002 off the chamber. I spun on the receiver by hand until it just locked on the recoil lug. The bolt will chamber the no go gauge but it's really tight. I then re-torqued the barrel to around 60 foot lbs. Now the bolt close feels normal, possibly a tad on the looser side but both go gauges will chamber. The no go will not chamber now. I'm thinking I'm all set at this point. Now I just have to figure out how to profile my brake without leaving a seam!

rws · Mar 10, 2014

This crush thing sucks. Even actions that have been trued, recoil lugs that have been surface ground, barrel shoulder dead nuts square, you still get the crush using a lug. Headspace is one thing, you do have some wiggle room with the depth of the chamber. But what really chaps my backside is installing a fluted barrel. You can't torque a barrel tight enough while in the lathe to accurately time it once torqued. So you take a guess, finish the barrel, take it out and tighten things up to find it went past the point you thought. There is no wiggle room timing a fluted barrel or a brake.

skkeeter · Mar 10, 2014

rws said:
This crush thing sucks. Even actions that have been trued, recoil lugs that have been surface ground, barrel shoulder dead nuts square, you still get the crush using a lug. Headspace is one thing, you do have some wiggle room with the depth of the chamber. But what really chaps my backside is installing a fluted barrel. You can't torque a barrel tight enough while in the lathe to accurately time it once torqued. So you take a guess, finish the barrel, take it out and tighten things up to find it went past the point you thought. There is no wiggle room timing a fluted barrel or a brake.

I just experienced this while timing the brake yesterday. It finally lined up perfectly after torquing the barrel for the third time. I anticipated this so I left the bbl a tad bit long before I started cutting. Now with a fluted barrel it's got to be a bitch to set the high spot and line up the flutes with the top of the action! I guess I'll find out eventually. What I am glad to hear is that there isn't a set foot pounds to torque down a barrel. THat at least gives a little wiggle room when trying to line things up properly.

ButchC · Mar 10, 2014

Been reading along here and have a couple suggestions, You are not supposed to force the bolt closed on the headspace gauges. First it does neither the gauge nor the chamber any favors but secondly you are not receiving credible information when you force it down and call it "go" when indeed it could be a no-go. The is especially important on actions with a lot of camming advantage like the 98 Mauser, lessor with the Remington action but still bad technique. When barrel timing is critical and you dont know the action well enough to know how it is going to react two trips to the lathe most often beats guessing wrong. Thread it and time it prior to chambering. When everything is square and true a barrel will tighten to the same spot after it has been installed once. Some easy calcs tell you how much to remove to give a certain number of degrees turn. If barrels are advancing every trip to the vise there are other problems in the process that need addressed. I use to record how different actions and barrel materials reacted on the gauges to being tightened vs snugged for two reasons. One, if I had a stand out I new there was a problem, something wasnt square or true or was soft. The other reason was it saved trips to the vise. I could snug the actions up in the lathe with a lug-way wrench. Then close the stripped bolt on a go gauge and with an indicator I would check bolt movement for and aft. Notes from previous work told me where I needed to be to have things right-on the first time to the vise. Keeping notes will save you time and trips between the lathe and vise in the future.

skkeeter · Mar 11, 2014

ButchC said:
Been reading along here and have a couple suggestions, You are not supposed to force the bolt closed on the headspace gauges. First it does neither the gauge nor the chamber any favors but secondly you are not receiving credible information when you force it down and call it "go" when indeed it could be a no-go. The is especially important on actions with a lot of camming advantage like the 98 Mauser, lessor with the Remington action but still bad technique. When barrel timing is critical and you dont know the action well enough to know how it is going to react two trips to the lathe most often beats guessing wrong. Thread it and time it prior to chambering. When everything is square and true a barrel will tighten to the same spot after it has been installed once. Some easy calcs tell you how much to remove to give a certain number of degrees turn. If barrels are advancing every trip to the vise there are other problems in the process that need addressed. I use to record how different actions and barrel materials reacted on the gauges to being tightened vs snugged for two reasons. One, if I had a stand out I new there was a problem, something wasnt square or true or was soft. The other reason was it saved trips to the vise. I could snug the actions up in the lathe with a lug-way wrench. Then close the stripped bolt on a go gauge and with an indicator I would check bolt movement for and aft. Notes from previous work told me where I needed to be to have things right-on the first time to the vise. Keeping notes will save you time and trips between the lathe and vise in the future.

Very good info, thanks for taking the time to write it up. The only gauge I put more force on than normal was the no go gauge. So in the end I went back and re indicated the barrel in and set back the shoulder .5 thousandth and everything now functions perfectly. Very slight resistance on the go gauge while engaging the bolt minus the firing pin. Both go gauges chamber and bolt locks right up immediately on the no go. I'm heading out tomorrow afternoon to test fire it for the first time and then shoot some groups. I'm thinking four rounds fired with 20' of fishing line before I get behind it, just in case. I'm 99.9% sure everything is perfect but you never know. Plus I have nobody with knowledge to inspect it. THanks again everyone for all the help and I post up what happens.

sicero · Mar 12, 2014

If I was afraid to shoot it the first four times. I would also be learry of shooting it the next four. Kenny

boucher · Mar 12, 2014

A headspace measuring tool like this is worth the time and effort to make it.

The Lambeth-Kiff reamer stop is one of the best ideas to produce accurate chambering cuts.
PTG Micrometer Adjustable Reamer Stop You can take small cuts without the danger of cutting too much. I have the priveledge of watching a high level benchrest shooter chamber. He is at one with his machine. He installs the go gage with the lug, action and stripped bolt and measures the needed cut with feeler gages.
If things are cut properly the barrell, lug, action will stop suddenly and repetablely. Proper tightening is to rotate another 0.1 to 0.125 relative. Crush value should be 0.002. Timing of barrell should be done before the chambering.

keydiverfla · Mar 12, 2014

All this timing, crush, headache stuff makes us gun builders look good

For anyone interested I have a full set of the Kiff chambering stop set ups for sale.

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