Reamer
- Thread starter Jeffly
- Start date
Jeff,
Chamber reamers aren't made for specific bullets. They are made to cut a case dimension and a taper into the rifling, all to SAAMI tolerances. There is a section immediately in front of the case neck that is free of rifling. That area is called, variously, the throat, leade or freebore. In front of that begins the taper into full depth rifling.
I have seen the term "leade" used to describe that area of taper from throat to rifling only, but most reloading manuals use the terms above interchangeably to mean the unrifled area between the case mouth and the beginning of rifling OR both areas combined: the unrifled area and the taper-to-full-rifling area together.
You can have made a chamber reamer to exact specifications, within very small tolerances (tighter than SAMMI tolerances). You can have a reamer cut with a long throat or short throat. You can have it made with a fast taper to full depth rifling or a more gradual taper.
Many times this requires a custom ground reloading die, since they are usually made to allow for the chamber variations allowed by SAMMI specifications.
This goes on and on. So, you see, there is no BULLET specific chamber. There is a length from case mouth to end of freebore and a length from case mouth to full rifling that can be specified. But that only limits (or permits) how many different bullets can be used, because of overall cartridge length limitations, but never limits it to just one.
If the taper of the rifling is very close to the case mouth because of a short throat or a combination short throat and fast taper-to-full-rifling, then you could be severely limited in the number of different bullet weights you can use, since for a given caliber, different weights mean different lengths of bullets! In this case you would be limited to the lighter bullets because you would be limited to the shorter ones.
Hope this helps. You may have skipped over some of your reloading manual. Go back and look this stuff up. Most of this is there, if you have one by a bullet maker: Sierra, Speer, Hornady ...
The one thing that you have the least choice over is the headspace. SAAMI defines a range of values for each cartridge and you MUST stay inside that range of values or you may be picked up and questioned by the BATF for trying to disguise a pipe bomb as a rifle.
[This message has been edited by sensop (edited April 11, 2000).]
Chamber reamers aren't made for specific bullets. They are made to cut a case dimension and a taper into the rifling, all to SAAMI tolerances. There is a section immediately in front of the case neck that is free of rifling. That area is called, variously, the throat, leade or freebore. In front of that begins the taper into full depth rifling.
I have seen the term "leade" used to describe that area of taper from throat to rifling only, but most reloading manuals use the terms above interchangeably to mean the unrifled area between the case mouth and the beginning of rifling OR both areas combined: the unrifled area and the taper-to-full-rifling area together.
You can have made a chamber reamer to exact specifications, within very small tolerances (tighter than SAMMI tolerances). You can have a reamer cut with a long throat or short throat. You can have it made with a fast taper to full depth rifling or a more gradual taper.
Many times this requires a custom ground reloading die, since they are usually made to allow for the chamber variations allowed by SAMMI specifications.
This goes on and on. So, you see, there is no BULLET specific chamber. There is a length from case mouth to end of freebore and a length from case mouth to full rifling that can be specified. But that only limits (or permits) how many different bullets can be used, because of overall cartridge length limitations, but never limits it to just one.
If the taper of the rifling is very close to the case mouth because of a short throat or a combination short throat and fast taper-to-full-rifling, then you could be severely limited in the number of different bullet weights you can use, since for a given caliber, different weights mean different lengths of bullets! In this case you would be limited to the lighter bullets because you would be limited to the shorter ones.
Hope this helps. You may have skipped over some of your reloading manual. Go back and look this stuff up. Most of this is there, if you have one by a bullet maker: Sierra, Speer, Hornady ...
The one thing that you have the least choice over is the headspace. SAAMI defines a range of values for each cartridge and you MUST stay inside that range of values or you may be picked up and questioned by the BATF for trying to disguise a pipe bomb as a rifle.
[This message has been edited by sensop (edited April 11, 2000).]