Precision Matthews 5C Collet Chuck: Review 

A more than good enough video for me to subscribe. No needless talking, unnecessary music, pleas for likes and to subscribe, and just what your testing found. Overall it looks to be fairly well made chuck. I would have loved to go with the 5C collets but wasn't willing to trust to luck for what I'd get with the average and generic brands of collets. And a full set from Hardinge is out of my budget. Instead I bought a set of Bison ER 40's for my BP clone and get dual use on the lathe. Much slower to change sizes or parts and far less capable as far as all the additional options 5C has of course.

Excellent review. I recently purchased the same PM Chuck but unlike yours mine was way out of alignment. The backplate had to be reground parallel and the boss was so tight in the Chuck that the set true screws had no effect and I had to turn it down a few thousands. Then when I could adjust the set true to center a dowel close to the nose the end of the dowel would precess almost 25 thousands. I am currently working on re grinding the back of the Chuck. On inspection while set up I find the back of the chuck surface is 5 thousands out. While going through all of this I also found that only a few of my collects were accepted into the chuck. After careful measurements the back of the receiving hole was only 1.249" or 1 thou too small. Enough to make a difference. That has been honed out. Like you I found the fit and finish to be excellent. I was disappointing to learn that these chucks are made in China. But unlike you the chuck that I received was not as precise as what I expected from Precision Matthew's. Color me disappointed.

Video starts off "Welcome to the Shop". White coat, gloves, that's not a shop, that's a freaking lab, or a surgery center. Although the next time I have surgery, if the surgeon breaks out a collet chuck, I'm out.

regardless of how good this chuck is, I'm sorry I ever got one (different brand, but that's not the point), these things have way too much overhang, so they will vibrate because of the overhang regardless of how low the TIR is, also too much weight on the spindle. its mind boggling that bench top size lathe spindles have morse taper rather than 5-C.

Not at all interested in the insides of the thing, what I want to know is how does it perform...........I get better runout with my Chinese 3 jaw chuck and that is now 40 years old.

I think you did a nice job on video just for my curiosity I looked up PM chucks not bad for price not sure if they are hardened at the collet nose if so they should work well for a home shop. You will probably have some variance from collet to collet and will have to rest chuck for each size you use. Even my $3,000 dollar set of Hardinge collets will have .0003 run out in a Harig spin indexer just the way collets are.

What a wonderful review you did on this 5C lathe chuck . Considering the final runout accuracy and the reasonable price point , I would purchase one . Great video

First time seeing your content. Very nice take apart and evaluation! Liked & subscribed and looking forward to more interesting videos.

thanks for the video. that looks like a very well made chuck at an affordable price. I'm looking at the ER-40 collet chuck because i already have a collection of ER-40 collets for my mill.

Thank you for this. 👍 Since I saw Clough42's teardown video of his cheap Ebay collet chuck I was wondering if the PM version was really a step up in quality (certainly a step up in price) or just another cheap clone with PM's logo and the set-tru adjustments being the only "enhancements" for the price difference. I see that it definitely is a big step up to justify the difference. I wished your teardown went a bit slower to show a better shot of the ring gear, but I paused it and it appears to be MUCH more evenly machined/ground than what was in the cheap one in Clough's video. I also wished you had checked the hardness of both the pinion and the ring gears. Clough's reason for tearing his down was that he noticed it's action was getting worse and on teardown it appeared the pinion gears were too soft and getting deformed. Outside of those nit picks, great video and now this 5C chuck is on my list as the one to get. Again, thank you.

Looks like you got a sweet example - it has the quality of my Bison 5C chuck. From the comments it doesn't look like all of the PM units are this good.

Excellent video…I’ve seen so many people bashing the nose trying to split the body, instead of using the screws…

I read comments about ER collets. I started out with ER 25 collets because of the feed through limits of my lathe.

I purchased a similar chuck but without the "set true" feature. My Myford lathe has a screw on mandrel so I machined my own base plate on the machine. When it came to machining the nose section that fits into the recess of the chuck I made it about 0.010" smaller in diameter. The chuck was then mounted with the three bolts from the front, snug but not tight. Using a small soft hammer I tapped the appropriate side until a DI on the inner bore read zero. The bolts were tightened to about 50ft/lbs with a torque wrench and runout checked again. Still virtually zero. A clean 1/2" 5C collet was mounted with a 1/2" end mill inserted. Runout on the shank of the mill was less than 0.0003" at the mouth of the collet. Quite acceptable for what I need.

Excellent video, thank you!

I would love one of these chucks…

Very nice review.

Thank you. Very good video.

I received my 5C Matthews chuck today.

I wonder if they make for ER collet sizes.