Anyone have .32ACP reamer?

Tom2

New member
Any gunsmiths out there have a .32 ACP chamber reamer? I got a .32 barrel that is sticky for cartridges and the chamber needs cleaned up, apparently. Would send you barrel so you can clean it up. Anyone got one of these presumably rare tools? Will pay reasonable fees.
 

Doyle

New member
Before I tried a reamer, I'd try some aluminum oxide sandpaper (maybe 400 grit followed by 600 grit) wrapped around a wood dowel. I'm guessing it can't need more than a tad bit of cleanup and the sandpaper should do the job.
 

Tom2

New member
I tried a tapered cratex bit that just fit in the chamber and was just contacting the edge of the throat. Well did not help much. Funny thing, blaser rounds will usually not stick and extract OK but brass cased stuff hangs up even though the rear of the chamber is not a tight fit. I also buffed the inside of the chamber a little bit with cratex previously. I don't need the tool to change the headspace and that would be undesireable, just to clean up the throat.
 
Before you do all that, do you see shiny rings on the brass after you extract it? This is not normally a round with enough pressure to stick brass to the chamber. Do you get an extractor mark on the case rims indicating sticky extraction? Do new cartridge cases drop in easily? If the chamber is big enough, you don't want it made bigger necessarily, though you could certainly polish it with a felt bob on a Dremel tool and some JB Bore compound without significantly changing its dimensions. Do the walls of the chamber look rougher than your other guns have? Depending on the action you are shooting it in, you might have a timing problem where the case tries to extract too soon? Since a lot of these little guys are straight blow-back actions, some examples of which depend more on their recoil spring's strength than others, a weakened recoil spring that has taken a set could be responsible for that.?

If you have ring marks and it seems certain the chamber surface is responsible, assuming the chamber hasn't been ringed by an overcharge, the rough surface was probably caused by chips in the original reamer that wasn't kept adequately cleaned and lubricated during chambering, the deep spots may therefore be too deep for a chamber reamer of correct dimensions to clean it off. It is worth noting, however, that this little chambering is almost straight, tapering just two thousands from stern to stem. It is also short enough that any tool maker with a good lathe and an inside toolpost grinder should be able to center the chamber in a 4-jaw chuck, set his toolpost to 0.22° (what the half angle of the SAAMI chamber drawing works out to) by indicator and just clean the peaks off the rough spots by running an abrasive point in and and out to resurface it. You'll want to avoid exceeding the maximum dimensions.

32acpchamber.gif
 

Scorch

New member
Yes, call John Taylor at Taylor Machine. He has a 32 ACP reamer. He is open M-F, 8:30-5ish 253-445-4073
 

Tom2

New member
OK on the shop with the tool. As for the other poster, the chamber is fine. The bullet is sticking to the lands or something when it is chambered. Therefore the problem is extracting a live round, as in clearing a loaded gun. The bullet sticks at the throat and the extractor pops over the little .32 rim thus not unloading the gun. I can drop a cartridge into the chamber with the barrel out of the gun. But if you put a little thumb pressure on the back of the cartridge it then hangs up and you have to pry it out. I would think a cartridge should just about fall back out of the chamber of the barrel out of the gun. Bullet ought not be contacting the lands like that enough to stick to them, when chambered? I know with rifles, that you make handloads with bullet seating, so the bullet does not quite contact the lands, otherwise, the bullet might stick and you would pull it out of the case when extracting the live round, in extreme cases.
 
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