Second Custom Rifle Build
Marlin Action
Green Mountain Barrel
Caliber 204 Ruger
March 17th, 2017
The barrel and reamer arrived in January shortly after the stock arrived.
As with the 17 Fireball project I once again bought a Manson reamer.
Everything was going great and I was in the process of putting the rifle together when I noticed that the chamber looked funky. I decided it had to be chatter but since I had never seen it I wasn't sure. The only thing I understood at this point was that I would have to start over on the chamber and the only way to do that is to cut off the ugly.
So I cut off the end of the chamber and called Manson Precision to talk to their support person. I explained what I was looking at and asked what I had done wrong. He asked a few questions and thought it sounded like my procedure was ok. He asked if I had felt chatter while reaming but to my knowledge I had not. He went on to explain how to detect it through the floating reamer holder. I had already cut about 1-1/2 inches off the muzzle after I was done with the lathe so he asked me to try chambering that piece of the barrel and then let him know what I find.
The barrel stub was chucked and centered and I started the reaming process again. Now knowing what to look for, I found chatter. I sent the stub and the reamer back to Manson and waited to hear from them. Then I waited some more and finally gave up and called them. I waited on the phone while he tracked down my package and he said he would take a look at it and call me back, which he did within a couple of hours.
They never really came out and said it was a bad reamer but they sent me a new one.
The new reamer worked nearly perfect but at this point in my education program I will refrain from placing blame. The new chamber has a very small amount of chatter in the neck and it is slightly visible on a fired case.
I did test fire 3 rounds and lived to tell about it so that is always a good thing. So I will proceed as planned which is to finish the stock, blue the barrel etc. Then do some testing to see if it will actually shoot well.
