Which barrel makers use a Sunen hone machine on their barrels?

[Alex Wheeler]

A bore hone is a great addition to the process, but the groove is 70% of the barrel and the hone wont help the groove. If you study the grooves in a lot of barrels its easy to pick up on the manufacturers that do it consistently.

 

[L.Sherm]

A hone won't over come crap barrel steel either.
Hone or no hone its just one of many processes.

 

[urbanrifleman]

I spoke with Kevin Liebetrau, the pro does the lapping work at Brux, confirmed they do not have a barrel hone

Brux is my favorite cut barrel.

Well, Rock Creek was my real favorite.

 

[urbanrifleman]

A hone won't over come crap barrel steel either.

Preach.

 

[AckleymanII]

what percentage make the grade Ackleyman?

Brux, Krieger, and Muller are some of the very best. Realize that I am not a gunsmith, just a guy who shoots a lot. Hart and Lilja have been fantastic in button-rifle barrels; I have shot out more Hart barrels than all others combined.

There is no excuse for using a rough barrel, no matter who made it. At that point, you learn a hard life lesson on Service After The Sale. Brands mentioned above give top-notch service, and it is an understatement!

A simple investment in a Grizzly rod and about 12-16 Reamer pilots can teach a guy volumes on his barrel. Then, careful examination with a Bore scope leads to very anxious anticipation of getting that barrel on an action ASAP, reminds me of when I was a kid awaiting Christmas Morning!

With the brands mentioned above, if you go through a barrel every one or two years, you may find a cull once in your life, and when you do, those companies will bend over backwards to make it right, leaving you with the feeling that you are dealing with the very best of friends. It is humbling to know that such honest business people are still out there.

Realize, I have not used all barrel companies.

Lean hard on your Bore Scope, assume NOTHING. It is hard to work up a load on a barrel where you need to De-Copper every 3-9 shots, not to mention that it really hurts your pride knowing that you paid nearly $500 for the POS!

 

[L.Sherm]

Preach.

And true or not true?

 

[AckleymanII]

Barrel makers may be their own victims of what the foundry sends to them. Usually, Inclusions in the barrel can not be seen. Dead spots are often found in a barrel that will give strange harmonics.

To detect dead spots, tap a barrel with a 5/8"-3/4" piece of round brass rod. The sound will start at tink, tink, tink, tink. When you hit a dead spot, the sound will go tink, tink, thunk, thunk, then back to tink, tink. Do not cut the barrel off within 2" of the thunk sound, or your accuracy is screwed. You can try this on barrels that you have had that were difficult to tune. An old German Gunsmith taught me this, passed on to him by some old European Master craftsmen.

 

[ELR LVR]

Barrel makers may be their own victims of what the foundry sends to them. Usually, Inclusions in the barrel can not be seen. Dead spots are often found in a barrel that will give strange harmonics.

To detect dead spots, tap a barrel with a 5/8"-3/4" piece of round brass rod. The sound will start at tink, tink, tink, tink. When you hit a dead spot, the sound will go tink, tink, thunk, thunk, then back to tink, tink. Do not cut the barrel off within 2" of the thunk sound, or your accuracy is screwed. You can try this on barrels that you have had that were difficult to tune. An old German Gunsmith taught me this, passed on to him by some old European Master craftsmen.

Nice info there
I did similar looking for equal spacing of nodes but didn't correlate to a "dead spot"
since I didn't find irregular spacing
(take a u-bolt like a muffler clamp) and hang it on the barrel
smack the barrel with a rubber mallet and the u bolt will vibrate and move on down the barrel until it hits a Node, then barely vibrate and will stay there in that zone
Move clamp down and start hitting barrel again until the u-Bolt progresses down to the next node
this of course will correspond to the barrels unloaded resonant frequency
(I clamp the tenon of the barrel in a vise really tight with soft jaws)
---
I'm going to try your trick of looking for a dead spot, I like that

 

[AckleymanII]

ELR, you will love the simplicity of the Brass Rod! I showed this trick to a Master Gunsmith in Dawson, Ga. about 20 years ago, and he started pulling barrels out from under the bench where he had trouble with the tune. He was amazed, shocked, and very, very happy.

 

[ELR LVR]

ELR, you will love the simplicity of the Brass Rod! I showed this trick to a Master Gunsmith in Dawson, Ga. about 20 years ago, and he started pulling barrels out from under the bench where he had trouble with the tune. He was amazed, shocked, and very, very happy.

Cool, I just tried this on 3 barrels
---
So I found that by hanging vertical from the tenon, this produced the best resonance/sound
2 Kriegers I didn't find anything
1 Rem 7/08 Bull barrel found a slight dead spot about in the middle
---
I noticed it's harder to differentiate sound the closer you get to the chamber
since it attentuates the thicker it gets
but I guess the chamber end doesn't matter anyway right?
we're concerned with where the muzzle is cut off at

 

[AckleymanII]

Correct, and mark the dead spot, then measure the length from the breach. Now, examine that area with a bore scope to see if an inclusion is large enough to get to the bore dia.

Quote: "we're concerned with where the muzzle is cut off at"

Yes!

 

[hoz53]

Correct, and mark the dead spot, then measure the length from the breach. Now, examine that area with a bore scope to see if an inclusion is large enough to get to the bore dia.

Quote: "we're concerned with where the muzzle is cut off at"

Yes!

Thanks Much for all the info Ackleyman—- I appreciate it

 

[Janeau]

Maybe, just maybe because he wants to know?

How is this ‘knowledge ‘ doing any good ? How useful to anybody ? Small talk for nothing in my book. Do not get anybody to shoot better..

 

[PatMiles]

How is this ‘knowledge ‘ doing any good ? How useful to anybody ? Small talk for nothing in my book. Do not get anybody to shoot better..

So what you are saying is that members here should not ask questions unless it meets your requirements.
How is your critiquing of other forum members questions doing any good? How is it useful to anybody? Small talk and criticism is nothing in my book. Does your criticism get anybody to shoot better?
Let members ask questions as they see fit, if it irks you...move on.

 

[jackieschmidt]

One hone a hone will not do is make the ID of a barrel “straight” within it’d on axis.
It will sense tight spots left by the reaming process. This insures a consistent bore diameter before either the button is pulled through the blank or the hook tool is incorporated in cut rifled barres.

This whole thing about steel and inclusions should not be happening in barrels made from 416R.
416R is a specific alloy developed by Crucible years ago that not only dictates the exact chemical composition of the steel but also the manufacturing process, which is very stringent.

If a you find a barrel with some type of inclusion, I would question where the manufacturer is getting his “416R”.

 

[L.Sherm]

Jackie ive seen inclusion happen after heat treat.
I also saw a very well know cut barrel happen after 200 rounds none were there before I suspect the heat did it.
Mercy of the steel

 

[L.Sherm]

I found the pic of the cut barrel.

 

[L.Sherm]

That pic is not a knock on the barrel maker either im 100% sure they had no idea because brand new it looked perfect.
My guess there was micro air bubbles in the steel some how got trapped in the steel during processing and the heat from shooting it popped the metal.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

One hone a hone will not do is make the ID of a barrel “straight” within it’d on axis.
It will sense tight spots left by the reaming process. This insures a consistent bore diameter before either the button is pulled through the blank or the hook tool is incorporated in cut rifled barres.

This whole thing about steel and inclusions should not be happening in barrels made from 416R.
416R is a specific alloy developed by Crucible years ago that not only dictates the exact chemical composition of the steel but also the manufacturing process, which is very stringent.

If a you find a barrel with some type of inclusion, I would question where the manufacturer is getting his “416R”.

I disagree with the premise that honing doesn't straighten the bore a bit, but the hole has to be a tad undersized beforehand, which it is. Here's a good read on align honing engine blocks. I've done a bunch of them. The article explains it in pretty good detail. Maybe you haven't seen the type of hone used. If not, I can see why you'd say what you did. I think when you see this you'll get what I'm saying though. It's not like you're running a "flex hone" through the rifle bore. This is very important to understand. It's not just polishing to a desired finish. It's actually just like THIS article says! So, as long as the bore is undersized when you start, as in, reamed before honing does, the honing process will do 3 things,. It'll bring the hole to size prior to rifling, hone out the high and low areas(straighten relative to center) and leave a specific finish, which has a HUGE affect on button pull force. Too smooth is a real thing here and can greatly increase pull force. I'm sure you'll understand.

Again, I think the article explains it well but you can google videos of the process by just searching "engine align boring and honing". With this type of hone, also made by Sunnen, honing is pretty much just like boring. It's a lot like pre boring a chamber before reaming to do away with runout after drilling. A whole lot like it, really. The whole premise of align honing is that cast iron engine block, after hundreds of thousands of heating/cooling cycles shifts when it's disassembled and the stresses are relieved. It's called core shift, fwiw. Yes, it has a name but that name has nothing to do with gun bbls., per se. @AlNyhus

EngineLabs' Blueprint Series: The Keys to Proper Block Align Honing

The proper alignment of your main bearings is a critical factor when building a high-performance engine. We talk about the nitty gritty of align honing.

www.enginelabs.com

 

[jackieschmidt]

I disagree with the premise that honing doesn't straighten the bore a bit, but the hole has to be a tad undersized beforehand, which it is. Here's a good read on align honing engine blocks. I've done a bunch of them. The article explains it in pretty good detail. Maybe you haven't seen the type of hone used. If not, I can see why you'd say what you did. I think when you see this you'll get what I'm saying though. It's not like you're running a "flex hone" through the rifle bore. This is very important to understand. It's not just polishing to a desired finish. It's actually just like THIS article says! So, as long as the bore is undersized when you start, as in, reamed before honing does, the honing process will do 3 things,. It'll bring the hole to size prior to rifling, hone out the high and low areas(straighten relative to center) and leave a specific finish, which has a HUGE affect on button pull force. Too smooth is a real thing here and can greatly increase pull force. I'm sure you'll understand.

Again, I think the article explains it well but you can google videos of the process by just searching "engine align boring and honing". With this type of hone, also made by Sunnen, honing is pretty much just like boring. It's a lot like pre boring a chamber before reaming to do away with runout after drilling. A whole lot like it, really. The whole premise of align honing is that cast iron engine block, after hundreds of thousands of heating/cooling cycles shifts when it's disassembled and the stresses are relieved. It's called core shift, fwiw. Yes, it has a name but that name has nothing to do with gun bbls., per se. @AlNyhus

EngineLabs' Blueprint Series: The Keys to Proper Block Align Honing

The proper alignment of your main bearings is a critical factor when building a high-performance engine. We talk about the nitty gritty of align honing.

www.enginelabs.com

Every big block Chevy I ever raced had the block align honed. It has been a rather common practice since the early 1970’s.

But there is a lot of difference between the align hone used in the automotive field than that limber ittle thing used to hone barrels. First, the automotive align hone is massive and stiff. Its function is specifically to not only insure all the main saddles are the same size, but they are also in perfect alignment.
In short, it took the place of the old quick way align boring machines. You can just skin the caps, torque them down, insert the hone and go to town.

I have seen several videos of the honing of barrels. All were computer controlled and the hone appeared to automatically adjust for tight spots in specific areas of the bore.

The best evidence that it does very little in straightening out the ID is I chambered a new gain twist 6PPC Barrel two weeks ago for my LV and let’s just say the hone did a pretty poor job of straightening out any of those “squirrelyjigs” in the ID that is present in most barrels.

Just my opinion, but the biggest stride that could ever be made in high end barrel manufacture would be to figure out a way to gun drill a perfectly straight hole in a blank, since every operation that follows, including reaming, honing, bulling the button, or dragging a hook tool through will follow that initial hole.