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StarMetal
08-27-2009, 11:58 AM
Fellows, there is a good article in the latest Shooting Times by the gunsmith Reid Cotterfield. He gave an idea for a niffy barrel vise. Instead of using the bolted clamp type with the various barrel inserts, or same thing with pressure applied with a big screw, he has a design using a hydraulic jack. Envision a slab of steel say 2-3 inches wide and 8-10 long and about 1 inch thick. Then there are two steel rods threaded into that slab near each end and they are anywhere from 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter and threaded at the top for another plate like on the bottom. Now take one more plate but drill the two end holes larger then the diameter of those two rods so it slides easily down over them. You also place two spring that fit over rods first so the sliding plate doesn't go all the ways down against the bottom place. Now Reid took a big chuck of aluminum and bored a 2 inch hole through it, then cut it in half in such a way that each half looked like a bearing clamp. You make your barrel bushing sleeves to fit this clamp arrangement. Reid makes the bushing sleeve from either oak wood, brass, or his favorite epoxy. He uses rosin with the epoxy one. Now here's what you do. Clamp the bushing sleeves of proper fit around the barrel, put that aluminum bearing clamp around them, then you put the whole thing between the sliding plate and bottom plate of the first gizmo mentioned. Now you see why those springs are on those rods so to hold up the sliding plate. Now the interesting part. Reid put a little 4 ton hydraulic jack atop the sliding plate. You then pump up the jack and it forces great pressure against the sliding plate thus clamping the barrel securely. To simplify envisioning this contraption it looks like a bearing press in miniture. In fact Reid says you can use it for pressing operations. I know I made the instruction seem difficult, but get the magazine and look at it. It's ingenious.

Joe

swheeler
08-27-2009, 05:04 PM
As far as I know Wilcox has been making this barrel vise for 30 years and it has been in the Brownells catalog as long as I can remember. # 959-400-000AA Wilcox all-pro barrel vise 82.50, # 368-359-004AA 4 ton hydralic jack 38.76

swheeler
08-29-2009, 04:29 PM
Good idea, but nothing new