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Thread: Further my education - barrel making

  1. #1
    Boolit Grand Master Nobade's Avatar
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    Further my education - barrel making

    I want to learn how to drill and rifle barrels. Is there a standard book or collection of books people use to learn this? Or is it all learned in person? I'm going to be setting up my own shop soon and should have plenty of time to gain some new knowledge.

  2. #2
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    deep hole drilling isnt cheap to get into .... believe it or not there is a marine core manual on this very subject .
    unfortunately i am no help in how to find it

  3. #3
    Boolit Master
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    I have experience in manufacturing with what is referred to as gun drilling, but most of what I've done was under 10 inches. I will say, from what I've read, you can get a pretty straight hold by spinning the bar stock with the drill not rotating. As long as you don't go in at an extreme angle, it appears it will stay straight. Look up some of the fixtures used in pre-1900 small volume gun manufature.

  4. #4
    Boolit Master
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    There are multiple publications on barrel drilling with some meant for the home shop. There was a set of VHS tapes that showed how to build a boring machine and bore and rifle a barrel. It was many years ago (VHS tapes?) and was from a magazine call the Home Shop Machinist or similar from the Village Press. There is(was) another book that covers barrel making from the Track of the Wolf or Dixie Gun that illustrated and discussed early barrel barrel boring and rifling. Every so often there is a publication about barrel making but it is not a mainstream subject. Amazon listed multiple tomes under a search for RIFLE BARREL MAKING under the Books category.

  5. #5
    Boolit Bub
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    I’ve used gun drills to go up to 24” deep on CNC lathes and mills. They will stay straight within a couple thousandths. You need a high pressure coolant system and the ability to sharpen them. It’s not cheap or easy but it can be done. The rifling and getting it the same diameter end to end is what gets me.....


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  6. #6
    Boolit Master

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    After drilling the hole the bore is reamed to size. There are several ways to put rifling in, cut, broached, button and hammer forged are the most common. S&W was using EDM for some pistol barrels.

  7. #7
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    When I was at Ruger revolver barrels were vertically broached while immersed in oil. This was done after deep hole drilling. Reaming wasn't necessary as the first gang of cutters on the broach removed the circumferential tool marks from the drill and then brought the bore up to finished size, while the following cutters did the rifling. A .357 revolver or 9mm pistol broach is about 3 ft. long and has 24 to 30 sets of progressive cutters on it. EXPENSIVE tooling and machinery.
    The ENEMY is listening.
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  8. #8
    Boolit Master
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    If it were me, barrel boring and rifling would be the very last thing I would do/learn if I were a setting up a commercial gunsmith business. As an example probably the late Doug Knoell on of the best gunsmiths ever in the San Diego area did not do his own bore or rifling. He would install breech plugs, install an action, cut a barrel to add a false muzzle and such but no rifling. He even made a complete 1874 Sharps 45-70 that won the national championship at Raton NM when he was younger. Anyways, I'd spend time finding the tapes, books and such as you do other things and get great at them.
    John

  9. #9
    Boolit Master
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    There is a book "Barrels and actions' by Harold Hoffman, my book has a number 034 lower right hand corner so I gather they may have a limited publishing run. Today they would be called Boutique books.
    published by H &P publishing
    7174 Hoffman road
    San Angelo,Texas 76905

    There is another one written by a guy named Hinnant don't have a copy of his book handy. Think he did two books,the second one had Gunsmithing and barrel making. Go to books a million,Barnes and Noble they may have it in their files might have both if your lucky and ate all your veggies. Hope it works out for you. Frank

  10. #10
    Boolit Master
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    You might also see if a copy of Rifling Machines and Methods is still available from the author (and noted barrelmaker) Clifford F. LaBounty.

    LaBounty Precision Reboring, Inc.
    P. O. Box 186
    Maple Falls WA 98266

    riflingmachinemethods.com

    Mr. LaBounty is now retired, I believe, but he offered reboring and rebarreling services for many years, and he’s no slouch as an author, either. Every type of rifling machine ever designed is described in detail, including Harry Pope’s.

    People who possess talents and skills and who can also write about them well are not often encountered. LaBounty is definitely one of them.

  11. #11
    Boolit Master
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    J V Howe s books (V1&2) are widely available for a few dollars on ebay......Howe does irritate you with his flowery style ,but the guy did know his trade.......incidentally ,there is a local deep drilling shop here ,they dont do guns,but can do a barrel blank up to 6ft long ,with guaranteed straightness and surface finish....No rifling ,you do that yourself.

  12. #12
    Boolit Master
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    Incidentally,ive seen many beginner efforts at drilling with a long series twist drill........with a new drill/sharp factory point,a straight hole to around 16" is quite doable......after that runout and twist take over.......the catch with twist drills is the flutes have to be cleared every 1/4" or so of hole,because the packed chips are what pushes the drill off course.

  13. #13
    Boolit Grand Master
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    I first read about rifling a barrel in one of the Firefox books around 1980. My aunt had the first four or five of them.

    Robert

  14. #14
    Boolit Master

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    I bought the Hoffman book about 10 years back. After he wrote it there have been a few advances and changes in the world.

    The cooling set up is much cheap and simplifier now with off the shelf tooling by using an alcohol/water mix driven by shop air. Also rifling button are now cheap and available on Ebay, etc. Also inexpensive EDM is being used by many when only one or a few barrels are desired.

    I wouldn't spend much in time or money looking at how it was done WW2. Unless one is interested in making them that way for entertainment reasons.

  15. #15
    Boolit Grand Master

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    I guess it depends on what info you are looking for... modern methods or old timey methods which are quite different.

    I'm certainly no expert on this but can say that modern methods would likely be expensive unless you have a large lathe that you can use with deep hole drills... so very long bed required for rifling a barrel. I bought a deep hole drill for work a few years back for drilling a port in a furnace and that cost $250 for the drill alone. As mentioned above deep hole drills normally use lots of cutting oil at high pressure as well, then generally the drilled bore has to be reamed smooth and to accurate size.

    The other side of the coin are the methods used by frontier gunsmiths who did all this with basic hand tools and jigs. Steve Bookout of Toad Hall Rifle Shop published a book on how to rifle muzzleloader barrels by hand. It is no longer available but I have a copy. His old website covered drilling the bore and reaming by hand with hand made reamer. Lots of good information. Very labour intensive work but cheap tooling!

    If you are interested in the "hand made" methods, I have Steve's book and other info I have found over the years. PM me and I can copy paper info I have and internet links and send it to you.

    Longbow

  16. #16
    Boolit Grand Master

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  17. #17
    Boolit Grand Master Nobade's Avatar
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    I want to thank everyone for the great suggestions, some of which I hadn't heard of and am pursuing. I don't expect to ever compete with John Kreiger, but if I can someday produce some accurate barrels myself I will be very pleased. And Longbow, I will get in touch with you about that book. I remember seeing it for sale years ago but had forgotten all about that one.

  18. #18
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by longbow View Post
    I guess it depends on what info you are looking for... modern methods or old timey methods which are quite different.

    I'm certainly no expert on this but can say that modern methods would likely be expensive unless you have a large lathe that you can use with deep hole drills... so very long bed required for rifling a barrel. I bought a deep hole drill for work a few years back for drilling a port in a furnace and that cost $250 for the drill alone. As mentioned above deep hole drills normally use lots of cutting oil at high pressure as well, then generally the drilled bore has to be reamed smooth and to accurate size.

    The other side of the coin are the methods used by frontier gunsmiths who did all this with basic hand tools and jigs. Steve Bookout of Toad Hall Rifle Shop published a book on how to rifle muzzleloader barrels by hand. It is no longer available but I have a copy. His old website covered drilling the bore and reaming by hand with hand made reamer. Lots of good information. Very labour intensive work but cheap tooling!

    If you are interested in the "hand made" methods, I have Steve's book and other info I have found over the years. PM me and I can copy paper info I have and internet links and send it to you.

    Longbow
    While I think that today most likely buy a completed deep drill, what used(1950s-60s) to be done was to silver solder a piece of steel tube onto a short hollow single flute drill bit. I must have read that in the Hoffman book. I was able to buy what I wanted as ONS on ebay for about the same price as regular long length drill bits.

    The real art in barrel making is straightening it after it is made. FWIW.

  19. #19
    Boolit Master
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    the best way is to work with someone who does barrels. I worked with bob hoyt and learned from him.

  20. #20
    Boolit Master
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    Ive been to Shilens swap meet and seen the barrel making process in person.
    They start with a gun drilling machine, basically a specialty lathe that spins the barrel, and the carriage feeds a long single flute coolant through drill that is guided by a "steady rest" type guide at the end of the barrel. It is lubricated with oil and the drills are sharpened on large accurate drill grinders. The feed rate on the drill is ridiculously slow, .0005 per rev iirc so the chips stay small and flow out. The chips look like fine steel wool
    Next they put the barrel in a lathe set up the same way and ream with a chucking reamer, this spans the gaps between the drill wanderings and "straightens " the hole. Next is is honed, again to straighten the hole and improve surface finish.
    Next comes the button pulling process which takes all of 10 seconds which puts the rifling in the bore. after that comes hand lapping , then inspection, then possibly further lapping or acceptance or rejection. The tech said reject barrels are bored out larger if possible and that rebored barrels tend to be straighter than ones from scratch.
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