Re-chambering A Rifle

By Author: Razvan Jr
Total Articles: 273
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The chamber of any type of rifle is situated within the barrel, which is threaded into the rifle receiver. The process of re-chambering a rifle consists of selecting a larger cartridge in comparison to the one you have used before so that you can be able to remove the metal, enlarging the chamber in order to fit the new cartridge. It is advisable not to change calibers because by doing so, you will have to re-bore the barrel of your gun. In the vast majority of the cases, the process of re-chambering requires replacing the ejector on the bolt. This article will teach you in five simple steps how to re-chamber a rifle. Here are things you will need for this: gun vice, a rifle barrel wrench, a head-space gauge for the new cartridge, drill bit matching the new chamber specifications, calipers (accurate to within 1/10,000 of an inch), drilling lubricant/coolant and a new ejector pin that matches the new cartridge.

The first step you need to accomplish is to remove the rifle's barrel from the receiver by using your rifle barrel wrench we talked about before. For this step, you will need extreme torque and with a gun vice, ...
... the receiver of the rifle must be held securely and firmly.

Step number two would be to center the rifle chamber, exactly dead center by using your personal drill. The recommended tolerance when completing this process is in most cases 1/10,000 of an inch (or better).

Next, you must be very attentive when measuring the amount of depth necessary for the new chamber and make sure that you lock the drill stop in order to avoid the situation in which the bit exceeds the maximum chamber depth for your new cartridge. During this rather difficult step, the tolerance is approximately 1/10,000 of an inch, or better.

Step number four consists of slowly drilling the receiver while at the same time using a lubricant/coolant in order to maintain the temperature as low as you can. If the metal temperature is too high, it will reduce the strength of the chamber walls and most likely produce a chamber that is incapable of withstanding the very high pressures that are produced by a normal rifle cartridge.

Your last step would be to reattach the rifle barrel/chamber to the receiver by using the head-space gauge located into the chamber, in order to be certain that the adequate head spacing is guaranteed with the installation of the new cartridge. After doing so, you must tighten the barrel right until the head-spacing gauge permits the bolt to close securely. This head-spacing gauge will guarantee that the bullet shot by your rifle is supported by the bolt which means that the possibility of excessive expansion of the bass cartridge will be highly unlikely.

After completing all of the above steps, it is now time to test your new chamber. We recommend that you start with light loads and gradually work your way up to more powerful ones. The process of re-chambering any type of rifle is quite demanding as it requires the person that does this to stay within the very tight tolerances we talked about at the beginning of the article. For those of you that are not able to complete this task, it is recommended to take the gun to an experienced gunsmith.

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