I'm About to Chamber My First Barrel; Any Advice?

[Toolbreaker]

1) Slipping the barrel in the chuck

2)Sticking a bushing and/or scoring the rifling

3)Wrong thread angle, fergot to square the tool, set to wrong side of 30*

4)What I'm really trying to say it, GO FOR IT!

Bully, Al has some good material here. His three pieces of advice I quoted above are the goodies that (IMO) might likely sneak up on ya.

1) You're probably going to be fussing with your barrel dialing it in while making sure that you aren't honked down on it too much. Take bites on the lighter side.

2) Oil is your friend. Use it by the bunches .

3) This is so easy to get sideways on, it's silly. Double-check your compound travel angle, then double-check your compound travel angle.

4) Best piece, here. You're being cautious & asking questions. You got this .

 

[Bamban]

The first bolt gun I ever re-barreled was a glued bench gun. Downloaded the action manufacturer tenon print. Did well, measured the PD exactly to the print tolerance, un-chucked the barrel feeling proud. No cigars, the barrel would not screw in.

Butch Lambert to the rescue, first of all I never chased any thread before, he had to guide me through the process via phone. Secondly, he suggested that I measure the old barrel thread PD and use that. Talked about nerve shattering episode, my brother who owned the bench gun was watching the whole time and certainly I did not want to ruin a nice barrel.

Got through it, using all the jigs Butch loaned me, the cone bolt jig, and the headspace jig. Brother left the garage with his toy and barrel performed well at the next VFS match.

Re-barreling a glued gun for a first project is not the way to start.

 

[rgc54]

You have done your homework you should do fine. Lower rpm is good to start you can increase speed as you build confidence. Use lots of lube clean reamer often. you will feel the reamer cutting don't feed to slowly. It is not rocket science just basic machine practices. When you have completed your task you will wonder what you were worried about.

 

[Bully]

A quick thank you to all for the advice. I appreciate it more than you know.

I am well aware of the shortcomings of my set up. It adds some apprehension to be sure. However it's what I've got until I am able to build my set up which is a cross between GreTan's and Viper's. And that will do until I'm able to upgrade further.

I will be moving slowly on this one and taking my time. I don't have any plans today and will be starting to chuck the barrel in. I don't expect to finish it for a day or two. But, we'll see how it goes.

 

[hogpatrol]

My two cents, I would take a piece of 1&1/4" cold rolled round stock, drill a hole a little larger than the pilot and practice chasing the threads, chambering and checking with the gauges. Do this at least three or four times to gain confidence. Then put the good barrel in your machine. From this chair, having loosely done ONE barrel over a weekend is a recipe for a screw-up. YMMV.

 

[55fairlane]

Hey bro, I so wish I could send you all my tool maker know hows.....take a deap breath, go one step at a time, you have the skills.....we are here for ya if you run into a problem.

One big advise.....remember to keep your area clean and tidy, no having to hunt for tools.....

Send me/us pictures of your work

Aaron

 

[boltfluter]

I think you will be fine. As mentioned, if you get mentally tired take a break. This is when most mistakes happen. You have done your home work and have a solid game plan. It is very easy to finish the last .010 of chamber depth by hand and usually produces a very nice finish. Best of luck and don't forget, you have the entire forum at your disposal if you have any questions. Once you do your first you are off to the races. Have fun and take your time. Measure twice and cut once.

Paul

 

[Bully]

Hey bro, I so wish I could send you all my tool maker know hows.....

Aaron

Me too!

 

[carlsbad]

It should take as long to set it up as it does to do the work on your first one.

 

[mikecockcroft]

Don’t let anyone else in the shop while you are working. Tell your family to stay out too.
For some reason all your buddies want to come watch and distract you.
I was working on a barrel and my son beat on the shop door, I about jumped over the lathe.

 

[tobnpr]

Micrometer reamer stop well worth the coin to me.
Like a DRO, you can accurately rely on hitting your dialed depth and not going too deep.

Don't forget, allow for thread crush beyond contact for when the action is fully torqued.

 

[Hal]

Like tibnpr said a reamer stop IS nice.
Cut the outside diameter -.005 of the tenon, smaller than the listed diameter, to insure the top of the threads don't jam in the action.
Thread crush is .002 .
Take the time to number and write each step down. Go over the list a couple times.
Make sure you don't turn your reamer backwards.

Hal

 

[alinwa]

............
Make sure you don't turn your reamer backwards.

Hal

Yeahhh,

this is the sort of stuff you learn in a class but self-taught you may not realize.

I remember telling one of my kids..... he was making an aluminum loading press for black powder revolver cylinders as his first ever metal project on the mill...."drill and tap everything 1/4-28 that way ya' can't break any taps....."

"snap"

TO ME, with 30yrs of tapping holes in my fingers I "couldn't" break a 1/4 inch tap, but obviously a 15yr-old kid "could" ....

Same applies to the lathe bit tooling, how many of us have rolled back a carbide toolbit to look at something and watched the edge crumble. Ya' just don't drag cutting edges backwards! And how many reamers don't cut right because ONE TIME they got rolled back?

Just remember Hal to insert the reamer with a clockwise twisting motion and pull it with a clockwise twisting motion.

 

[alinwa]

The first bolt gun I ever re-barreled was a glued bench gun. ..............

Re-barreling a glued gun for a first project is not the way to start.

HOlee HANGin' KLANKers Batman.... and I thought I was prone to diving into the deep end.

You did reset the bar right thar!

But'cha saved it din'cha

 

[BenPerfected]

My thought is to see if you can find a local gunsmith who would allow you watch and take pictures (?) as he completes your barrel with your reamer.
Ben

 

[55fairlane]

Bully is in good hands.....I stared my apprenticeship as a tool & die maker 30 years ago, I have made way more mistakes and crashes then you guys combined....but some who I learned a lot, and this is how we learn.....we learn to double check the chuck mount, how use a dial indicator (I stated a lathe up at 700 rpm and threw on against the ceiling) double check our micrometer readings, so we don't miss a dimension by .025 or .100 thou......offer him the info we learned the hard way......

Aaron

 

[Bully]

Just in case anyone on here is wondering:

The lathe setup is considerably more rigid when the chuck (d1-4 camlock) is actually tight on the machine.
Yup, lost my parting tool blade. I was trying to do the cool guy thing and part off the inscription on the barrel. Screwed the pooch on that, that's for sure.

Everything is tight and running well. I spend another hour and a half indicating in the barrel again. Cut off all the nastiness and got the chamber end faced off. I'm now saying prayers and shaking my "

 

[alinwa]

OHhhhhh, and EVERYTHING you've ever dreamed about parting (making nuts, making resizing gizzies, making resizing dies and bushings, making perfectly square chambering sleeves and bushes, back-facing parts in one go, etc etc) is WRONG!!

Parting is HARD, maybe the hardest job on the lathe.

 

[Ggmac]

Well ?

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Dont even replace that parting tool. Get you a portable bandsaw. I had to make parting tools running a high speed 5 spindle davenport screw machine. Its an art you learn real slow, but faster when you have to file a nub off of a few thousand threaded inserts.