Anyone ever ream a Winchester throat?

[Canuck Bob]

Considering reaming my 32-20 Winoku 92 and 32 Special pre-64 Winchester 94.

Anyone done this? Cast shooters sometime recommend this for better cast performance.

Thinking a short freebore 2 thou larger than groove and a 1 1/2 degree leade ramp to bore. Again a common suggestion on cast forums.

Any advice on tooling, methods, and tricks?

[Terry Murbach]

YOU MEAN....UUUUUHHHHHH.....LIKE AAAAAAAAAAHHHH....MRS WINCHESTER'S..........................??

[kimwcook]

Uh, Terry, I don't think that's what he's asking.

[Canuck Bob]

I'm a happily married man gentleman!

Looking to shoot cast bullets not my own foot or worse!

[Mainehunter]

Not on a Winchester but I rented a reamer from 4D this past spring. Re-thorted my Marlin 336 35 Remington with excellent results! Have good cutting oil on had, go slooooowwwwww and check your work often.

Mainehunter

[Canuck Bob]

Not on a Winchester but I rented a reamer from 4D this past spring. Re-thorted my Marlin 336 35 Remington with excellent results! Have good cutting oil on had, go slooooowwwwww and check your work often.

Mainehunter

Did you fuss over pilot fit or did it work out ok?

[Mainehunter]

Not on a Winchester but I rented a reamer from 4D this past spring. Re-thorted my Marlin 336 35 Remington with excellent results! Have good cutting oil on had, go slooooowwwwww and check your work often.

Mainehunter

Did you fuss over pilot fit or did it work out ok?

No I didn't loose any sleep over the pilot fit but if I was building a custom bolt action that's a different story. I just wanted to widen and lengthen the throat on Marlin, it was just too darn short and narrow! One thing that helped me was an indexed stop collar to adjust my depth. I had one from my other projects and I think you can rent those too. You could also try Pacific Tool if 4d doesn't work out.

Mainehunter

[Canuck Bob]

Thanks Mainehunter, the rental outfits don't mail to Canada.

[Mainehunter]

[quote="Canuck Bob"]Thanks Mainehunter, the rental outfits don't mail to Canada.[/quote]

Ahhhh forgot about that Most places don't ship them up there. One thing to try is Ebay, I see a few of them for sale but you just don't know what shape they are in. Worse case is to buy one and sell it when you get done with it. Good luck!

Mainehunter

[JFE]

In my levers with short throats I managed to get around the loading flexibility and seating problems by using Lee FCD dies - I seat the pills where they chambered and functioned properly and then crimped them in place. Functioning was fine and accuracy unchanged.

[Mike D.]

YOU MEAN....UUUUUHHHHHH.....LIKE AAAAAAAAAAHHHH....MRS WINCHESTER'S..........................??

[hfcable]

yes, on two different 1886 brownings, and on a model 92 44 magnum. the throats are some of these would not even allow use of most factory ammo. just rented reamer for the 45/70 and bought a throating reamer from brownells for the 44 mag. worked great!

[foxtrapper]

No Winchesters but all my Marlins have had the throats lengthened

[Canuck Bob]

Moutain Molds does an article about lever throats specifcally;

http://www.mountainmolds.com/helpRifle.htm

[J Miller]

That article was written with my Win 1950 in mind. Sloppy extra long chamber neck with no throat. Here's a pic of the chamber cast I did:

First cast full view.JPG

You can see where the rifling starts right at the end of the extra long neck. What a pain. This is also the one that splits case necks about 28% of the time.
I have a replacement barrel and I think I'm gonna do a chamber cast before I put it in. Just to see what the chamber is like.

Joe

[Canuck Bob]

That article was written with my Win 1950 in mind. Sloppy extra long chamber neck with no throat. Here's a pic of the chamber cast I did:

First cast full view.JPG

You can see where the rifling starts right at the end of the extra long neck. What a pain. This is also the one that splits case necks about 28% of the time.
I have a replacement barrel and I think I'm gonna do a chamber cast before I put it in. Just to see what the chamber is like.

Joe

Thanks Joe, never realized you were from Mountain Molds!!! My 94 is a '51. My Winoku 92 in 32-20 has an identical abrupt ramp from the chamber end. The difference is that the 32-20 chamber is only slightly longer (.020 maybe) than the case.

Once I slug the 32 Special I'll post a picture of the slug.

[J Miller]

That article was written with my Win 1950 in mind. Sloppy extra long chamber neck with no throat. Here's a pic of the chamber cast I did:

First cast full view.JPG

You can see where the rifling starts right at the end of the extra long neck. What a pain. This is also the one that splits case necks about 28% of the time.
I have a replacement barrel and I think I'm gonna do a chamber cast before I put it in. Just to see what the chamber is like.

Joe

Thanks Joe, never realized you were from Mountain Molds!!! My 94 is a '51. My Winoku 92 in 32-20 has an identical abrupt ramp from the chamber end. The difference is that the 32-20 chamber is only slightly longer (.020 maybe) than the case.

Once I slug the 32 Special I'll post a picture of the slug.

Bob,
I'm not from Mountain Molds. But as I read that article about the long necks and short throats it looked exactly like my 94. So I posted it.

Looking forward to your chamber cast.

Joe

[Sixgun]

Its a lot easier to make the ammo fit the throat.

[J Miller]

Sixgun,

What if, as my chamber cast shows, there is no throat?

How then does one proceed?

Joe

[JFE]

What if, as my chamber cast shows, there is no throat?

How then does one proceed?

Exactly as I suggested earlier. The chambers of my Browning M71, 1886 and Marlin 35 Rem have exactly the same problem, ie slightly longer neck but no throat at all. Ignoring the crimp location on the bullet, you simply seat the bullet to fit your chamber so that the cartridge cycles and chambers, then crimp in place using Lee FCD. Couldnt be simpler.

The risk you run by trying to open up the throat is that if you run the throating reamer slightly off centre, accuracy is likely to suffer. My rifles exhibited fine accuracy in stock form and I didnt want to take the risk of having the throats altered.

[J Miller]

What if, as my chamber cast shows, there is no throat?

How then does one proceed?

Exactly as I suggested earlier. The chambers of my Browning M71, 1886 and Marlin 35 Rem have exactly the same problem, ie slightly longer neck but no throat at all. Ignoring the crimp location on the bullet, you simply seat the bullet to fit your chamber so that the cartridge cycles and chambers, then crimp in place using Lee FCD. Couldnt be simpler.

The risk you run by trying to open up the throat is that if you run the throating reamer slightly off centre, accuracy is likely to suffer. My rifles exhibited fine accuracy in stock form and I didnt want to take the risk of having the throats altered.

JFE,
I have some of the Lyman 311041 bullets (.310") loaded and some plated 170? (.308") gr bullets loaded as well.
Even though the chamber is a bit too long, the rifling still starts about where it would normally and both the cast and the plated bullet run right into the rifling.
The cast bullet is seated to and crimped in the crimp grove and the plated bullet is seated to the same length as the normal jacketed bullets.

Now what? I can't seat them longer, and I don't want to seat them too deep.

Joe

[JFE]

Forget about the crimp groove location on the bullet - simply seat the bullet into the case until the front driving band (on your 311041) clears the end of the chamber and functions in the rifle, then crimp into place using a Lee FCD. I usually seat just a little deeper to ensure trouble free use of hunting ammo. In my rifles it generally means I'm crimping the bullet in the middle of the front driving band, which is about 50 thou deeper than the crimp groove location. You can do the same with jacketed or plated bullets.

[Sixgun]

Joe,
Our Austrailian friend JFE could not have said it better.! (Good job JFE ) That is exactly what I do--ignore the crimping groove and crimp with a LFCD. Hey! Its not a "fashion contest" on how the loaded round looks. Most of my "dash caliber" rounds have a lube groove showing, or maybe one and a half a groove showing.

I don't care what the manuals say about maximum overall length. It varies greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer. For an instance the manuals say 1.600 is max for the 44-40. In my 1873 I seat 'em 1.630. This measurement just clears and allows me to seat 'em into the rifling. In one .257 Roberts, its almost a disgrace on how far out I seat 'em--but............they feed and I can add 2 more grains of IMR 4895-------------oooooohhhhhhhh (or how ever you spell oooohhh) this .257 Remington Classic will bust clay pigeons all day long at 500 meters.

Common sense prevails here--always test first as you might not be able to chamber a round. Is what I do is "ever so slightly" size a case and then (without powder or primer) ----insert a bullet and send her home into the chamber---slightly===easily....----(remember when you were young)---oooohhhh ............then --------easily withdraw ..........and that will do it-----as long as its not too long to feed-----------------in that case, go to the max. that YOUR rifle will feed. -----------Whew, I need a drink.......and a ..............well, lets not say--------------------Sixgun

[J Miller]

Thanks JFE and Sixgun. I got it now.

Joe