How do I polish my feed ramp?

R

rgoudy1975

Moderator
I am a mechanical guy, good with my hands, not afraid to take my stuff apart and put it back together. I am, however, afraid of screwing up a handgun because I don't know what I'm doing. I've never had to polish a feed ramp, but I'm wondering how to do it...uh, help?
 
:eek:

If you really must, lightly with a cratex wheel!

Polish.....LIGHTLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY....DO NOT REMOVE METAL

Thank you

WildmrwizardAlaska
 
Cratex is abrasive in a rubber matrix. There are other brands, but have a look at the catalog page here. I have also used stones. You need to pick something with the same radius as the original ramp. Final polish can be a felt bob on a Dremel tool loaded with a little Flitz or other metal polish.

Nick

Sorry. PDF attachement didn't work. Will try in new reply.
 
PDF attchement (I hope)

I hope this works.

Nope. System just just says "attachment in process" and leaves all three attachment options open.

I'll see if I can save it as an image? Not necessary. It was some kind of system glitch. I went into my membership panel and deleted the failed load effort from the attachments, then we did O.K.

Nick
 

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If it's your first time, I'd recommend against polishing an alloy frame feedramp (i.e. Kimber CDP).

If, ONTH, it's steel, 'snot hard at all. Cruise on over to Brownell's (dot com) and check the stuff out. Lots of good advice on the site as well.

If I had your background, I might not be dissauded by an easily "reduced by too much" allow ramp. Only you know.

That said(c), has the feedramp been a problem, or is this a "pre-emptive" tuning issue?

The old advice is still the best: If it t'aint broke, don't fix it...

I've got a pantload of Brownell's parts and have been real happy with the results, but there were some, unh, learning experiences in there...
 
Pre-emptive, but no real problem. I've just heard various people say,"yeah, I just bought this ______ and I polished the feed ramp..." I know that certain makes of autoloaders are less prone to feed funky stuff, but I was just curious how it was done and with what tools.
 
I used a Dremel and the finest polishing compound I could get my hands on. Took only minutes and was a mirror finish in no time.
 
tip for you

Start slow using a medium crocus cloth. Wrap it around a wooden dowel about the same size as the ramp is and rub it back and forth blowing off any dust you create often. When you get it to shine fairly well, move on to a fine crocus cloth. You don't need to try to remove any material, just polish the ramp's surface. This is simple to do by hand and does quite well. I use power tools to do the throat area myself, but to just polish the ramp itself, this does just fine. Good luck with it.
 
Then what is "polishing the chamber?" I hear that also...what else do you polish? *buh doomp doomp* Har, har, no dirty jokes please... ;)
 
ramp is fine for now

Since you have said you were having any feeding troubles nor or you experienced at the work, the ramp is just fine for now.

No need to polish the chamber nor would I suggest to a noobie to do any other work to the areas of the gun that feed or help to feed the round.
 
Are you talking about 'polished so you could shave in it' or polish to improve feeding . For feeding improvement all you need is 400 grit paper on a dowel.Don't round things off or change angles . If you want it mirror polished just continue with finer and finer grit and only use a dremel with rouge for the final polish.
 
crocus cloth, emery cloth. Same thing. I tend to forget cross-border terminology. To just polish steel, 'Flitz' will do.
 
polishing feed ramp

Dear shooter:

As CNTRYBOY1289 says use a dowell with some 240 or finer grit and try to polish at the same angle as factiory - DO NOT ALTER THE ANGLE. Then I take a Dremel with a felp tapered bob with the grey Brownells 555 on it and make a mirror finish. Now; as you put your bbl on the naked frame all the way to its stop there should be maybe .030 gap there from coming to the polished fed ramp top surface. If not, consult a smith.

Hope this helps Harry B.

Your bbl ought to have a "throating" reamer run in it to cut the "leade" for cast or hardball bullets. At that time your gap can be taken care of if there is one and the headspace corrected if necessary and the chamber polished in the same way you did the ramp. If you need help my e-mail is on the forum somewhere - or post - NOW IF YOU'RE CAREFUL YOU CAN DO THIS YOURSELF (all but the reamer).
 
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Just make sure it's not an anodized alloy frame. You might cause some real damage if you remove the anodized surface.
 
Had some feed issues with a 1911 so I wanted to polish. As others have said, you do NOT want to alter any of the angles or remove any metal.

I didn't want to use a dremel or even emery cloth on a dowel for just that reason. I just got some 400 and 600 grit wet sand cloth (from the auto parts store) and used it with the ball of my pinky. By not using a hard dowel or other tool to hold the paper you have no choice but to just follow the shape of parts as they are.

After shining it up for a few minutes with the 400, switched to the 600. Then used a little polishing compound (probably overkill, but what the heck) on a rag to really shine it up. I couldn't locate any Flitz around here so I used valve-grinding compound and it worked great.

Did the same thing to the breach face and what I could reach of the chamber. Feeds great now.
 
Dremel is king!

I agree with the others that the Dremel with a fine polishing paste is brilliant for feed ramps.

I had a batch of SIG P230s to work on for our unit in N.Ireland and they were getting a witness mark on the feed ramp from the softer gilding metal jacketed rounds we had [Dynamit Nobel]. The ramp is steep on the 230 and a quick go with the Dremel had it looking like a mirror; it made the rounds feed okay but eventually changing suppliers to a hard jacket solved the problem totally.
 
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