doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Honing/polishing chambers?

Ok, I have a confession to make. My wife and I are Cowboy Action Shooters.

But I run contrary to the norm. While I have "coach guns", they were bought that way. I don't go wacking barrels off.

Another deviation, I'm not obsessed with funneling and polishing the chambers as most Cowboy Action Shooters seem to feel is mandatory. I've restored at least a dozen old doubles to shooting condition and only cleaned the chambers and bores in the process.



I just put up this video of a Hopkins and Allen hammer double that I transplanted a second set of barrels that were cut before I bought it. The black powder loads are loaded in Federal hulls. Yet the fired hulls fall right out.

I've seen chambers in high quality shotguns that have what I'd call a rough chamber with a crossed pattern. I have some memory of reading that a purposely roughened chamber makes for easier extraction as it provides less surface contact with the hull.

Another part of the Cowboy Action Shooting code is to use smooth hulls. They are sure hulls with ribs are going to stick in the chambers. AA Winchester and STS Remington are the top choices.

The old Hopkins and Allen firing Federal hulls goes against all these principles yet still works fine.

So.. For the purpose of extracting, what's the opinion on polished vs rough chambers?

A characteristic of cartridge brass is that it expands to fill the chamber and seal pressure at the instant of firing, but then it contracts slightly to permit extraction. If your fired shells are extracting without sticking, I see no good reason to polish the chambers aside from the fact that polished steel will not rust as easily as unpolished steel. But if you are cleaning and oiling your guns after use, then that isn't likely to be a real problem either.

There is sort of a mantra on this side of the pond, gunsmiths with hones reamers and polishing is what put guns out of proof not just shooting them! So why remove precious metal if you don't need to. Guns that are just used and regularly serviced will and should last at least two lifetimes or even more sometimes.

I realize the Cowboy Shooters demand or expect the fired emptys to fall from the chambers of a SxS when the gun is opened and tipped back. Speed is the thing.

But I don't know that that is something of a test of optimum performance of either chamber specs and polish or hull construction..or a secret combination of the best of both.

Looks good in the movies and impresses onlookers at the cardboard range. Certainly speeds things up in the reloading dept.
But again I don't think that if a SxS in question does not perform in that manner that it is broken or not up to some standard,, other than theirs.
Extractors,,extract.
Ejectors,,eject.

Stuck cases in the chamber come from a number of issues starting with crusty gunk in the chambers.

Beyond that getting into removing metal, funneling out chambers, worrying about wether a hull with ribs on it grabs the walls of the chamber more than a smooth case,,and on & on.
That's just too much for me and my friends Arizona Slim and Spaghetti Bill to get in to.
Besides if the hulls get dumped on the ground, I'd just have pick them back up again.


Your H&A seems to work just fine. Nice work..

ibbyman,
never though about it,
but if its true that a rough chamber has less grab on a cartridge case (due to less surface area contact on the scratches), wouldn't a ribbed case have the same, or even more "less grab" from the grooves between the ribs?,& if used in scratched chambers would give the best of both worlds...enquiring minds etc
i have ejectors
franc

Kind of searching for my own satisfaction, I loaded 10 each Remington Nitro, Remington Gun Club, Winchester AA and Winchester Super X hulls with my "cowboy load" and made a video of shootin' and shuckin' the hulls.

The test gun was a out of the box stock CZ-USA Hammer Coach Gun that I use in cowboy action shooting. The chambers on the CZ are definitely and obviously rough. The above video is a recording of the firing of these hulls.

The Cowboy Action Shooting gang are obsessed with polishing and enlarging the chambers in an effort to improve "shucking" of hulls. I haven't drank the Kool-aid.