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Pricing to chamber barrel and install

Edd said:
Reamers have gotten so expensive that a Gunsmith with the reamer has some extra value.
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I've gone back and forth on this. I have collected a lot of "common" reamers, and several specialized (IE, F-Class- I have 4 different reamers for an FTR rifle) I've debated with myself if I should charge a nominal 20-25 bucks to use my reamer. I've settled on not adding any cost for it...

Rule of sales... don't interrupt an impulse purchase. If I tell someone it'll be 6 months to get the reamer they want... they'll change their mind or go somewhere else.

I figured this part out pretty quickly... I'd rather use my reamers because I know their condition. It's not a lot of fun to explain to someone else that their reamer is worn, chipped, whatever.
 
Larry has a video on how to do it with a file. I just got a new file for Christmas and will try it on my next barrel.
Do you clamp them in the vice vertical or horizontal to keep them square?
This thread is why I started to do my own chambering 14 years ago.
Joe
 
There has been many an accurate crown done with files and a brass ball. Or whatever variation of the above that happens to be on hand.
I was reading a while back of the absolutely astounding accuracy that some of the schuetzen rifles were capable of. I think it was some of Harry Pope's sales literature. I can't remember what the price was, but it would have been really steep for back then. His accuracy guarantee was 10 shots into 2 inches at 200 yards, iirc.
Top notch work has never been cheap.
 
I've got a bone stock Savage 17hmr heavy barrel rifle that you can clearly see the "slant" of the crown with your naked eye. It shoots well under moa, about 5/8 with factory Hornady ammo! Go figure!
 
Norman Johnson had an interesting article in Precision Shooting where he cut the muzzle of a 243W Model 70 Target rifle at different angles and finished it with the brass screw/lapping method. The POI changed with the different angles but the accuracy remained the same. He then squared the muzzle up and did a recessed crown with a brass pilot on a counterbore. The accuracy picked up nicely.

Norm was a pretty crafty guy and helped me quite a bit with things.
 
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Been away for a couple days spending time with friends in Florida.

This is a case where I shouldn’t have expressed my opinion guys. I’m sometimes not that good at keeping my thoughts to myself. That’s served me both really well and really poorly over my life. Character flaw. Sorry to anyone I’ve offended when I tossed the grenade in the room. Merry Christmas to all.
 
LVLAaron said:
I've debated with myself if I should charge a nominal 20-25 bucks to use my reamer. I've settled on not adding any cost for it...
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You aren’t alone. It must be a basic human emotion to object to paying for the use of an object already owned by the person doing the work. In another profession I tried a few times to charge a “rental” fee for carbide cutters I had in stock and that was not well received. Then I tried for a while to charge a wear and tear fee for carbide cutters, very fair, and only enough to actually cover wear and tear, but it was also not well received.

Finally, at least for me, the approach that served well for nearly a decade was itemizing it as a sharpening fee. Clients still questioned a flat fee for sharpening, but seemed satisfied when it was explained even a small job can chip a carbide edge and then can’t be sharpened, leaving me eating the whole cost. Others in my profession wrap that expense into their hourly rate, but many of my jobs involved multiple profiled carbide cutters and the cost adds up quick.

The last few years before retiring, I started charging full replacement price for every job, but that was a period of more cherry picked clients than I could ask for and a full year of projects in the pipeline so nobody complained when I said that’s just the way it is.

Just showing clients reamer resharpening cost is surprising to them.
 
I just found this thread and I don't really know where to start or how deep to dig. I think Alex Wheeler summed it up well with a quick description of basic equipment costs and as many have stated already, not everyone is capable of doing this well no matter how much tooling or machining experience they have. I've trained or attempted to train several over the last 15 years and only one guy was good enough for me to trust doing it without me hovering him. He was a life long manual machinist and he frequently talked about how barrel work is so different from anything else he's ever done. Setting up and working off of the center line of the bore axis and treating it carefully is nothing like grabbing a piece of material, spinning it fast, cutting deep and ripping it down into a part with some varying degree of tolerances. I think this is one reason why some guys that have a long CNC background then decide to start building guns give us a bad reputation.

I indicate all of my barrels, at both ends, down to where I can barely see movement on half thou indicators which is about 2 tenths. I do that with tapered range rods with a close fit bushing and two indicators. One right up against the barrel and the other one 2" or 3" out at the end of the rod. I drill out the bulk of the chamber material then single point a small amount with a boring bar to clean that up and control the exact dimensions and taper of the false chamber. The finish reamer doesn't have much work to do after that. High pressure coolant pushes through from the muzzle and flows through each reamer flute. Then I finish it up with a light polish using a 3M fiber cloth product in both forward and reverse. That's mainly to soften the sharp edges left in the throat area.

I transitioned to CNC about 8 years ago but I still use my manual lathe for a lot of my work depending on exactly what it is. Regardless of which machine I use I always stop and measure each step of the process before moving to the next and I bore scope each chamber before removing it. Everything is done to completion in one set up. I chamber at 250 RPM's and rarely go over 800 because I overthink everything and worry about centrifugal force throwing a slight bend into the barrel therefore destroying my efforts to get it my work section perfectly straight.

I do them all this way from hand fit BR barrels to Savage and Ruger RPR's and pre fits which I measure with thread fit micrometers to less than half thou tolerance. It's the only way I know how to do it so they all get the same methods.

My price is $370 for a barrel job including a recessed crown which is carefully single point cut in the way that Boots Obermeyer taught me. That price is the same on all of them I don't care what kind of action or cartridge until it gets up to the really big ELR cartridges and actions. Muzzle threads are an additional $130 so my PRS shooters, hunters and snipers are usually $500 total. BR and F class shooters obviously never get muzzle threads.

I have employees to help with the front desk (which can be overwhelming at times!) disassembly, reassembly, bedding, shipping and receiving etc. My neighbors in my shop complex are automotive guys that rebuild transmissions and work on diesel trucks. I doubt I make half of what they make. If you aren't passionate about precision rifles then you'll be miserable in this line of work because there are many ways to make a lot more money.

Marc Soulie
Spartan Precision Rifles
 
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TaperPin said:
You aren’t alone. It must be a basic human emotion to object to paying for the use of an object already owned by the person doing the work. In another profession I tried a few times to charge a “rental” fee for carbide cutters I had in stock and that was not well received. Then I tried for a while to charge a wear and tear fee for carbide cutters, very fair, and only enough to actually cover wear and tear, but it was also not well received.

Finally, at least for me, the approach that served well for nearly a decade was itemizing it as a sharpening fee. Clients still questioned a flat fee for sharpening, but seemed satisfied when it was explained even a small job can chip a carbide edge and then can’t be sharpened, leaving me eating the whole cost. Others in my profession wrap that expense into their hourly rate, but many of my jobs involved multiple profiled carbide cutters and the cost adds up quick.

The last few years before retiring, I started charging full replacement price for every job, but that was a period of more cherry picked clients than I could ask for and a full year of projects in the pipeline so nobody complained when I said that’s just the way it is.

Just showing clients reamer resharpening cost is surprising to them.
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Maybe you need to look at it from the opposite direction.

Put your price out there for everyone to see then offer a discount for customer supplied reamers.
 
I almost wont use customer supplied reamers anymore. Unless they supply a JGS with a print so I know its speced well. The only time I have had issues with chatter has been traced to the reamer, and the few times its been close to me having to buy the customer a new barrel its been with a customer supplied reamer. I'll gladly buy a reamer before a barrel. I may use it just one time but I never had a problem investing in a tool for my career. Still have my box with snap on and mac tools in it and Im glad I bought good stuff. Its still there if I ever decide to go back to that line of work, and its probably worth what I bought it for new. I will die with a lot more tools than toys.
 
Alex Wheeler said:
I almost wont use customer supplied reamers anymore. Unless they supply a JGS with a print so I know its speced well. The only time I have had issues with chatter has been traced to the reamer, and the few times its been close to me having to buy the customer a new barrel its been with a customer supplied reamer. I'll gladly buy a reamer before a barrel. I may use it just one time but I never had a problem investing in a tool for my career. Still have my box with snap on and mac tools in it and Im glad I bought good stuff. Its still there if I ever decide to go back to that line of work, and its probably worth what I bought it for new. I will die with a lot more tools than toys.
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Well said.

As more things are supplied by the customer, the probability of problems goes way up.

I’ve noticed some barrel blanks online that sure look counterfeit - when the only thing keeping a thief from doubling or tripling their money on a cheap blank is the cost of a set of number/letter stamps, it’s bound to happen.
 
TaperPin said:
Well said.

As more things are supplied by the customer, the probability of problems goes way up.

I’ve noticed some barrel blanks online that sure look counterfeit - when the only thing keeping a thief from doubling or tripling their money on a cheap blank is the cost of a set of number/letter stamps, it’s bound to happen.
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Trusting the gunsmith always comes into play. If you don't trust him, he shouldn't have any of your stuff. Once cut, it's pretty difficult to prove who made any bbl. If we're that bad as a society, there's no hope left.
 
jimmymac said:
This is a case where I shouldn’t have expressed my opinion guys. I’m sometimes not that good at keeping my thoughts to myself. That’s served me both really well and really poorly over my life. Character flaw. Sorry to anyone I’ve offended when I tossed the grenade in the room. Merry Christmas to all.
Click to expand...
Jim, your comments are not only welcome but right on the 'X'. The accuracy game isn't for the thin skinned or soft and smooth.

Merry Christmas! :)
 
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