Alternative tool for crowning a barrel.

[Tackleberry41]

Not everything fits in the lathe, so cant always be crowned that way. Problem I have is the cost of some of these tools. Brownells gets $174 for a single caliber cutter, handle, and guide. If you price it out thats $75 for the handle, seems a bit steep. And of course it has to be a special set up where only their handle will work. And $25ea seems a bit much for their guides. The PTG cutter uses a standard tap handle, but seems to be out of stock everywhere. I considered buying Brownells 11degree cutter and making my own guides and handle.

Is there some non gun tool out there that will do the same job? Just like 'marine' doubles the price of a part, 'gun' seems to do the same thing.

[leebuilder]

I have used counter sinks with removable pilots, made proper pilots to fit the bores. Seen guys use lee case trimmers. I got the brownells 11 degree cutter now, made a handle and pilots for it.

[Tackleberry41]

Yea I guess a lee trimmer might do a somewhat decent job well as much as the cutter could get to anyways. Ill look into some piloted counter sinks. I didnt know if there was some sort of cutter sold for lathe use that I just didnt know the right name for.

I ordered a PTG from their site, but may have to ask when they will be sending it. If its gonna be the 8 weeks they showed for back ordered stuff, but no way to know if its back ordered, might invest in just the brownells cutter and lathe out some guides.

[EMC45]

I had a bad burr in my Enfield muzzle and I deburred it with a Wilson case deburring tool and then finished with a Dremmel round stone spun between my fingers. I had put a piece of blue "shop towel" about 2 inches into the bore so when I was done I used a cleaning rod from the breach end to knock the paper towel plug free of the bore. Also kept any and all grit/shavings out of the action. It worked well.

[Tackleberry41]

Usually I do it in the lathe, not a big deal if the barrel comes out easy or is long enough to come thru. But I have mosin I cut a bit short, wont go all the way thru, not so much a bubba thing. Cut it short using cast bullets subsonic, so a specialized thing, old war production gun. Need to put some sort of crown on it, dont see the barrel coming out very easy at all. And would involve tools to get it out, might as well buy the crowning tool.

I know its a handy thing to have, no need to set up the lathe. But they sure think if it says 'gunsmith' its suddenly worth 2x the cost, and brownells is really proud of their stuff anyways. $100 for a handle that doesnt work with any other tool is a bit steep. Have 2 of the lee tools, see if it can get me by in the short term. Dig around for some other conventional piloted tool that can do the job. Guess it doesnt need to be 11 degree, just cut true.

[SOFMatchstaff]

I use to scrounge push rods of different sizes and use the hardened ball end to do simple crowning repairs. Coat the ball end with valve grinding compound and go at it with a hand drill on slow speed. simple , cheep and effective. with all the newer engines being OH cam , push rods might be a thing of the past soon..

[pietro]

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I've successfully re-crowned several different barrels (in a variety of bore sizes) for an out-of-pocket cost of less than $10, using a hand-held variable-speed power drill and a 2-part (fine/coarse) can of automotive valve grinding compound.

For whatever bore needs re-crowning, I buy two each of several sizes round-head brass screws from a hardware store, with different diameter round heads of almost, but not exactly, the same head diameter..

Each different size head polishes a slightly different section of the crown.

For each pair, one screw should be used with the coarse compound, the other with only the fine compound.

I plug the bore, about an inch back from the muzzle, with a cleaning patch (that gets shoved out of the muzzle from the rear when the job is complete).

I do each screw head size with coarse compound, before cleaning out the area & proceeding to the fine compound with the other same-size screw(s).

In use, each screw is chucked in the drill with the head exposed; the screw head dipped into whichever compound, then held against the muzzle while the drill's running - at the same time moving the drill body up/down, back/forth, etc, until that part of the crown's done.


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[country gent]

Use a preccision square or a good protactor and file to get it true then a brass ball and fine lapping compound to finish crown. Push a patch into muzzle below surfave 1/2"-1" leave there to plug bore. Work around side of barrel with square or protractor and file high spots to square , when square or protrator reads the same from 3 ponts aropund barrel with consistent finish its square. Use a round headed brass screw or brass ball and start with medium valve grinding compound and work the stem of the screw in a figure 8 pattern with light pressure forming a light ring between flat and bore. Clean and go to fine lapping compound with the same figure 8 pattern to polish. If you want use flitz or simichrome after this time.

[Tackleberry41]

I think between the tools I have, and a lee trimmer could probably do a decent 90 degree crown on the mosin. No point in spend more for the tool than the rifle.

I was just looking at how many times I have crowned barrels recently and thought it would be so much better to have a proper tool to do them easier.

[HollowPoint]

If you also have access to a mill with a third-axis you can turn your own cutters and pilots on the lathe, then cut the flutes of the cutters on the mill using the turn-table to index the flutes. You just need some tool steel to make your own.

Heat treating tool steel is pretty easy; especially on a small part like the cutters. A small torch and some patience will do the trick. A 36" length of 3/4" tool steel can be used to make most common caliber-cutters and you'll still have enough left over for other stuff too.

HollowPoint

[NY_Treeguy]

Google whiteside pen mill. For $30 you get a cutter and some pilots. I turned a brass pilot for a MN and gave a slight crown with brass bolt.

[Tackleberry41]

I would like a mill but dont see it happening any time soon.

[NY_Treeguy]

I would like a mill but dont see it happening any time soon.

It's not that kind of mill.

[DougGuy]

Neway makes the cutters that you see in good automotive shops for valve seats. They have a mandrel that fits down the valve guide, and you just find one that fits snug, OR you can get an expanding mandrel that works like an adjustable reamer and it will center itself in the valve guide. Then you drop the cutter down on this mandrel, and turn it by hand until you get the seat you desire. This same principle works WELL for crowns that you can do without a lathe.

Dave Manson sells a nice kit to do this with, it uses the Neway cutters and Dave supplies the expanding mandrels. You can choose whatever mandrels (they call them pilots) you need. It is NOT cheap if you buy the whole kit, but you can get by with one cutter and one mandrel for maybe $90.

If you go directly to Neway, you can get their small series cutters in 0° 11° 15° and 20° varieties. These are a billet aluminum body, with 3 adjustable and interchangeable carbide teeth, and a hex bushing in the center that rides on the mandrel. I like a 20° cut myself as you can clean up an 11° crown without losing any length off the barrel.



The teeth are adjustable, you can put them right up against the mandrel which I think is .287" or something like that. Not sure what the smallest bore diameter you could crown with this, I am thinking 30 caliber might be the smallest.

[Tackleberry41]

$50 gets a 11degree cutter from Brownells, dont imagine the guides are hard to lathe out, a handle not to big a project. Going to call PTG to check on my recent order, their going to get it to me in timely manner just use it.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Wasn't it Abraham Lincoln that started the phrase "ten-dollar words"? He could probably have made a good living out of "gunsmith", but crafty operator can slip in another place of decimals with "tactical".

The brass screw and grinding paste trick does work, with a rifle that isn't going to be thrown around much, and in which the rifling with therefore be adequately protected by a shallow crown. I'd use a hand drill (i.e. hand-cranked, not hand-held electric, and you should move the rear of the drill in a circle, so that different parts of the round dome are used, rather than have the steel cut a groove in it.

If you have a lathe, you don't have to do much in the way of setting up, if the front sight allows the barrel to pass through the headstock bore. (Yes, I know most of us never need a front sight, or lapels on our jackets either, but we still prefer to have them.} A totally flat crown, recessed about 1/20 in., will do its job perfectly satisfactorily, regardless of whether its centre is off the bore axis.

My preference is to use a ball-shaped tungsten carbide burr, of a size to contact the bore edge at around half past four and half past seven on its circumference. One Lincoln word's worth of money may well cover the cost on eBay. It cuts quickly and leaves a clean, bright surface, but because of this speed, a fast=rotating burr is extremely liable to wander off-center. Just about all electric hand drills vibrate laterally. One alternative is to fit a chuck to an electric screwdriver, which rotates slowly enough to avoid this. But I would hold the burr in a vice, and rotate the barrel or barreled action against it by hand.

[paul h]

I have used counter sinks with removable pilots, made proper pilots to fit the bores. Seen guys use lee case trimmers. I got the brownells 11 degree cutter now, made a handle and pilots for it.

Same thing I did, and it's worked great for various rifles and handguns I've re-crowned or cut the barrel down and crowned over the past 15 years.

[John 242]

For those that are interested-
Shows Potterfield using a 11-degree cutter and a tap handle:
http://youtu.be/b43odFm0mrI

There is another video of Potterfield using a brass screw and lapping compound, but I can't find it.

This looks cool, too:
http://youtu.be/b23lfzpZrJ4?list=PLADC9C11C3FE5C0B7

And this:
http://youtu.be/-Xpzv1Spsnk

[Spector]

I have the unit shown in the last video, but l got the unit some years ago from the designer before Dave Manson became involved. I believe l bought 5 or 6 pilots with mine. Easy to use and does a nice job of recrowning barrels. The power driver attachment was not available then, but now that I've seen one, l want one......Mike

[RickinTN]

The problem with screws is that the head is curved but not round. Moving the drill motor around while lapping only gives a "wobbled" crown. If you want to do it on the cheap and right.....Tape around the barrel in the location you want to cut it and use a tubing/pipe cutter for a couple of turns and etch a line around the barrel. Remove the tape and hand file the barrel down to the line you have etched. Then find or buy a ball bearing (they are round) and use the lapping compound on a bearing which is larger than the bore. I have glued the bearing into the end of a piece of cut off barrel and rotated it between my hands. Since the bearing is round the handle doesn't have to be held concentric to the bore, which is impossible.
Rick