Thread: chamber polisher

If you don't mind having an oversize chamber then polishing may be successful. The only proper solution is to pull the barrel and set it back one turn, then carefully re-chamber with a good reamer. The cuts should be fairly short, withdrawing and cleaning the reamer and chamber and applying plenty of cutting oil between cuts. Rough chambers are the result of blunt or chipped reamers being using too fast and the swarf build-up on the reamer edge scores the chamber wall.

Its a h&r hani so I can't set the barrel back without spending more than the rifle or a new ones worth worst case scenario is I don't use the 243 barrel I'm polishing it at the moment and I'm getting I lot of carbon coming out

Originally Posted by northdude

Its a h&r hani so I can't set the barrel back without spending more than the rifle or a new ones worth worst case scenario is I don't use the 243 barrel I'm polishing it at the moment and I'm getting I lot of carbon coming out

Being a H&R Handi can the barrel be spun in a lathe? To polish the chamber all you need is a piece of round wooden dowel (can use a round pencil) and some lapping paste. You may not need to polish much to fix the issue. In fact it is not desirable to have a highly polished chamber - apart from ending up oversize a highly polished chamber is less "grippy" and increases bolt thrust. It would help if you know someone with a borescope so you can identify the defect area properly.
Hopefully just cleaning as you are doing now may fix the issue.

It is real bad start with steel wool wrapped around a price of dowel. Put that in a cordless drill and go for it.

thanks for the replies its an interesting discussion ive just finished polishing it up not sure how familiar people are with the h&r handi they have a cult following in the us before I started the chamber was black in side I ended up using a shotgun patch holder with a patch wrapped around it and some toothpaste I found that said it had tungsten carbide in it I screwed a rod adaptor onto the patch and put it in the drill its quite handi as you can take the barrel off and hold it in the vice and get straight at it I kept at it for ages until the chamber is nice and shiny lots of carbon came out I thought toothpaste would be the safest bet as it wont be an aggressive polishing compound and that's why it took a while I didn't want to remove any extra metal just remove the high spots I did a bit extra just around the cut out where the extractor goes incase there were slight burrs from when the machining was done theres a lot of stuff ive read so far on the internet about the problem a mechanical extractor would be the go ive got some rounds loaded up to do some load development on it so that will be the test it to windy here today tho

Originally Posted by northdude

thanks for the replies its an interesting discussion ive just finished polishing it up not sure how familiar people are with the h&r handi they have a cult following in the us before I started the chamber was black in side I ended up using a shotgun patch holder with a patch wrapped around it and some toothpaste I found that said it had tungsten carbide in it I screwed a rod adaptor onto the patch and put it in the drill its quite handi as you can take the barrel off and hold it in the vice and get straight at it I kept at it for ages until the chamber is nice and shiny lots of carbon came out I thought toothpaste would be the safest bet as it wont be an aggressive polishing compound and that's why it took a while I didn't want to remove any extra metal just remove the high spots I did a bit extra just around the cut out where the extractor goes incase there were slight burrs from when the machining was done theres a lot of stuff ive read so far on the internet about the problem a mechanical extractor would be the go ive got some rounds loaded up to do some load development on it so that will be the test it to windy here today tho

Sounds like your making progress.

Let us know how you get on with your test shots.

Cheers
Pete

tried it out on the weekend groups were shit but no more sticking cases

it looks like a half pie conversion but it still relies on the spring to extract try giving it a polish its the cheapest easiest place to start they are a good little rifle for what they are