At the chamber, what is the minimum amount the shell should stick out of the barrel?

[mnbogboy2]

Can't argue with results. There was a big name gsmith over in Webster Texas. He did a hand reamer job for a friend. Don't know why he didn't set it up in the lathe, it was a long fluted 308 barrel with 10 rds being reamed to a win mag. It came out like a 5 sided cam. Worst thing i have ever seen.

Think that was somewhere in the middle of that learning curve....lol....a 308 to winmag is a "stretch" to begin with, a lot of material coming out of that one. My bet is he tried it horizontally and was "pushing his guts out" trying to "speed" up the cut.....oh well...his time saver proved the theory that haste makes waste....
Btw: the first A.I. I did many years ago was done "horizontally" and it wallowed out somewhat. Cases didn't stick and that old savage barrel shot fairly decent (25-06 to 257 Bob Ackley) but cases were "stiff" on resizing because of a nominally larger base. Went verticle after that in several different calibers and never had that problem again.
Now in the day of Teslong you can choose your "Guinea pig" barrel and examine the chamber ahead of time.....if it's eccentric to the bore other result will not be either. As tobnpr mentioned it must go into a lathe and a boring bar will straighten the hole before chambering....then is it worth it?

[Texas10]

Yes. Savage rifle.
The chamber has a defect. Looks like a bad reamer. This is a RAI barrel and probably made in Pakistan or whereever.

Anyway, I need to clean up the end of the chamber. It looks like the reamer wobbled and the chamber is wider at the end follewd by a very rough spot.

An empty cartridge wont eject without a rubber mallet.


Although you don't say which end of the chamber is wider, I am assuming you mean the aft (breech) end. If so, in theory you could shorten the chamber to remove the defect, then ream deeper to regain your chamber dimension. Doing this without a lathe would be a challenge, but not impossible IMOP.

But if the defect is near the shoulder end of the chamber, I think it's probably best to plant it in the garden and call it a bad investment.