Rifleman1776
Member
While making the partridge wood pen shown elsewhere, I ran into a previously unknown problem, at least to me. After glueing the tubes in, the upper barrel (this is a 7 mm European kit) simply would not slide onto the mandrel. I tried chamfering the ends, no luck. I tried cleaning the tube interior with acetone, no luck. Eagle happened to call me, I cried a lot 
, listened to his advice, tried it. No luck. I took a 15/64's drill bit on a drill and tried hogging out whatever the offending, but not visible, obstruction might be. No luck. Using both a machinists reamer and a cartridge reloading reamer, I re-champfered the ends. No luck. Finally, I spotted a small tool in my reloading equipment. It is a special reaming tool for cleaning out the primer pockets on ammunition. That worked. Somehow, I acquired a small ridge of brass, possibly from the pen mill head. Don't know. Had that not worked, the blank might have had to be soaked in acetone, the tube removed and another inserted. [for you reloaders out there, this was a reamer for size large rifle/pistol primers]
, listened to his advice, tried it. No luck. I took a 15/64's drill bit on a drill and tried hogging out whatever the offending, but not visible, obstruction might be. No luck. Using both a machinists reamer and a cartridge reloading reamer, I re-champfered the ends. No luck. Finally, I spotted a small tool in my reloading equipment. It is a special reaming tool for cleaning out the primer pockets on ammunition. That worked. Somehow, I acquired a small ridge of brass, possibly from the pen mill head. Don't know. Had that not worked, the blank might have had to be soaked in acetone, the tube removed and another inserted. [for you reloaders out there, this was a reamer for size large rifle/pistol primers]