Slicking up feed ramps

[boliep]

As a summer project, I have been thinking about slightly polishing the feed ramp on my rifles and maybe my auto loading handguns. The easiest and simplest way to do this would be to use my Dremel.


My question is what attachment to the Dremel would work best and what polishing solution. I do not want to remove metal, just smooth it up some.

[Murphy]

The little rubber tips with fine abrasive might work. 400-600 grit valve lap paste is just the thing if you can get it in to the ramp area.

[ADfields]

The little rubber tips with fine abrasive might work. 400-600 grit valve lap paste is just the thing if you can get it in to the ramp area.

That gets the bigger stuff and tool marks out.
Follow that with some jewelers rough on a cotton buffing wheel to slick it off smooth.
Then hit it with some carnauba wax (car wax) as a cohesion inhibitor but it also makes things slit good.

[Kay9Cop]

The above two posts are exactly how I did all of mine.

[Alangaq]

The above two posts are exactly how I did all of mine.

same-same... the little rubber abrasive things are made by Craytex i think. anyway, I used the least coarse one and then follow up with a little felt bob with jewlers rouge

[boliep]

Thanks for the suggestions. This will give me anothe project for the summer.

[pinehavensredrocket]

unless there are obvious tool marks you can skip the heavy abrasives and just use JB paste......this product is great for finishing your ramp and applies evenly to your buffing wheel. further, JB is very useful as a bore cleaner by using it on a bore patch. be sure to use a boreguide and only go one way ( in the barrel ).

[ADfields]

JB is about 1200 grit, jewelers rouge is around 10-50,000 grit. Valve grinding compound comes in grits from 100 to 1400 or so meaning JB would be like a fine valve grinding compound. A 1000-1200 grit surface is plenty slick enough for most but under an eye loop it looks like the Colorado Rockies. All those jagged (rasp like) points are quickly blunted down with the jewelers rouge. Then the wax fills the valleys keeping corrosive stuff out and makes it very slick.

I think of JB in the bore as a lapping agent not a cleaning agent because it’s abrasive. To me it’s a cutting tool that will remove not just the following but also the steel.

[pinehavensredrocket]

JB is about 1200 grit, jewelers rouge is around 10-50,000 grit. Valve grinding compound comes in grits from 100 to 1400 or so meaning JB would be like a fine valve grinding compound. A 1000-1200 grit surface is plenty slick enough for most but under an eye loop it looks like the Colorado Rockies. All those jagged (rasp like) points are quickly blunted down with the jewelers rouge. Then the wax fills the valleys keeping corrosive stuff out and makes it very slick.

I think of JB in the bore as a lapping agent not a cleaning agent because it’s abrasive. To me it’s a cutting tool that will remove not just the following but also the steel.

hi andy; we ( sniper team ) use JB paste while breaking in our rifles....... it has been standard protocol for years. any product can be over used ( or misused ), but JB is the gold standard for bores and bolt lugs.

i just slicked my feed ramp on a new 1911 .45 and it worked great. i recommend it!

[ADfields]

Yes it’s very good tool for brake in lapping, fire lapping, refreshing an old corroded bore that isn’t holding true anymore, or just about any lapping type operation. I wouldn’t use it or any other abrasive as a “cleaner” though and wanted to point out it's not an everyday type of tool, it’s a specialized tool. There are many schools of thought on brake-In that work well and which is best would depend largely on who you ask. But anyway, I came across this when I was looking for what grit JB comes in and it minors my thoughts so I figured I’d post it.

Gary Schneider, Schneider Rifle Barrels
"I'm a proponent of keeping your barrel clean, and cleaning whenever practical. A disciplined benchrest shooter will clean often. But every shooting discipline has a different shot cycle that will dictate how many shots can be fired before it's practical to clean.

I also believe one needs to look at barrel break-in. I believe proper break-in will reduce a barrel's propensity to foul (and hence the need to clean frequently) over the life of the barrel. I recommend doing the one-shot, one-clean routine for 10 shots. Use a good solvent, and brush for ten strokes per shot, letting the solvent soak in and work between each shot.

There are many good solvents--Sweet's, Hoppes, Shooter's Choice. Whatever you choose, you want to make sure to get all the solvent out before you start shooting. You want to shoot a dry bore and a dry chamber. If you leave even small amounts of liquid in the bore, when you fire a bullet, you can actually put tiny dents in the steel. This is caused by the bullet rolling over incompressible droplets.

For the carbon build-up in the throat area, I don't think you need to treat that differently than fouling elsewhere in the bore. I discourage the use of abrasives. JB is a 1200-grit lapping compound"

[Nitroman]

I have done a couple of sidearms and a couple of FAL's using pencils with the erasers on the ends. I couldn't get to the ramps with what was available. I used silicon carbide from a lapidary shop; 600 to start, and 1200 for a final polish. It worked very well. I put the pencil in a drill motor with a little glob of grit paste I made with a couple drops of cutting oil. Same-same as Clover lapping compound, but where are you going to find valve lapping compound in Bethel?

A buddy of mine had a Belgian Hi-Power that occasionally wouldn't feed, but not after I was finished with it.

If you REALLY want a polish, you can buy a 4 oz. container of cerium oxide, which is used as a final polish on telescope mirrors for $20 or so. This compound is a little finer that some of the aluminum oxides. Not necessary but it sure is pretty.