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]

.


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.


.

[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.

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/DSC03541%20Custom_zpstg8utdq6.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/DSC03541%20Custom_zpstg8utdq6.jpg.html)

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.

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Cylinder%20Services/DSC03542%20Custom_zpsmvoynhc4.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Cylinder%20Services/DSC03542%20Custom_zpsmvoynhc4.jpg.html)

[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

[jonas302]

Carriage bolt chucked in a drill and lapping compound the Russians probably used a rock when they built those things

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It could very easily give an off-center crown if it cut as quickly as a carbide burr. But it doesn't. The conventional theory of lapping is that the abrasive embeds itself in the softer of the two contacting metals, and cuts the harder one, which would be the ball-bearing. A brass ball should do nicely. You will probably find some, possibly with a threaded hole, if you do a search with exclusions like -valve to keep plumbing out of it.

[tek4260]

In the end it is easier to just buy the Brownells tool.... It will last a long time and if you only want to use it once, you can do that and sell it in the classifieds for about $10 less than you paid. I'd imagine it would sell in about 30 minutes.

[HollowPoint]

Since the OP has access to a metal lathe, he has a ton of Work-Arounds available to him. The brass screw method was mentioned but the counter point to that was the potential for an oblong muzzle opening if the brass-screw-head isn't held in such a way as to grind uniformly.

With the metal lathe, a guy could turn a brass, aluminum or delrin guide-nipple that slips over the muzzle. This nipple would have a center hole drilled through it that is the diameter of the brass screw shank. The nipple would hold the brass screw head at the perfectly concentric angle to the mouth of the muzzle.

If the shank of the screw is long enough, it could be chucked up in a hand drill. In this manner, the brass screw couldn't help but grind a near perfect crown.

It would be similar to using a guide when cleaning the bores of our rifles so as not to go off center and scrape the walls of our actions or barrel interiors.

HollowPoint

[Ballistics in Scotland]

In the end it is easier to just buy the Brownells tool.... It will last a long time and if you only want to use it once, you can do that and sell it in the classifieds for about $10 less than you paid. I'd imagine it would sell in about 30 minutes.

Those must be pretty good classifieds, if they find people a lot more ready to pay $165 than they are $175 here. A lot of their tools may be worthwhile for the gunsmith, who costs up his time and must know exactly how he can do a job quickly. But there is often an alternative that will do the job far more cheaply and just as well, for the person who will only use it once.

[country gent]

That is where the figure 8 pattern of movement came about. By hand it stays centerd and the 8 shapped pattern lapping keeps the ball or svrew head round and cutting evenly. Another benifit is lines "cross" over each other giving a better finish. Work a few mins turn barrel a 1/4 turn repeat thru full rotation of barrel. Most cutters will leave a small burr cutting and this removes that also.

[Tackleberry41]

Got an email from PTG, 4-6 weeks. Im thinking they need to work on their business model. So cancelled my order. I saw a brownells cutter on ebay recently, I was going to big but as tends to happen w ebay, the auction price was just shy of a NIB cutter. Ill just break down and pay Brownells for the cutter, pretty sure I can come up with some guides for a little less than the $25 ea they want, and can fashion some sort of handle.

This is the sort of tool that if you had it, would get used more.

[johnson1942]

glad i bought mine from brownells years ago. cost a lot less. can make perfect crowns with it. the last finish after cutting the crown is punch a hole in 250 through 1500 grit sand paper and place it over the cutter with smooth paper towards the cutter so edge isnt hurt. can end up with a perfect crown that is as smooth as chrome. done dozens of them. if a pilot isnt quite the right size wrap it carefully in paper. wouldnt be with out that tool.

[firebrick43]

I have the manson military crowning kit as well and it's the berries. It's better than a lathe due to the quick setup time yet sam. The brownells crowning tool and other similar types it very likely to crown out of square with the bore slightly.

Dave manson has wonderful customer service as well
http://www.mansonreamers.com/Current%20catalog/May%202013%20Catalog.pdf

page 17. 125$ well spent! Additional calibers dirt cheap. Remember to use a cordless screwdriver. A variable speed drill is still to fast!

[tek4260]

I'm basing my resale estimate on what I've seen similar tools sell for here. The .4525 throating reamers for example.

[Tackleberry41]

I had a piloted bit I had bought to back bore a 45-70, but never used, it made a very nice 90degree crown on the barrel. Still need to break down and buy a proper tool for more important jobs.

PTG finally got back to me, I had clicked on 'buy now' in one of their 11 degree cutters for 30 cal. It didnt say in stock or not. They sent me an email, I guess they dont stock such tools but make them when ordered, so 4-6 weeks. I told them no way, so they charged me a 20% restocking fee to refund my money. Guess I will think long and hard before I buy from them again.

[oscarflytyer]

Cleaned them up before with a round head brass screw chucked in a variable speed drill and valve grinding compound.

[1johnlb]

It doesn't get much cheaper than this and it works just like brownells.

http://www.cncwarrior.com/category-s/1929.htm

[Tackleberry41]

The CNC pilots are way more reasonable, but the cutters are about same price as Brownells.

[swheeler]

File the end of the barrel square, then lap with one of thesehttp://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/barrel-blanks-tools/muzzle-lapping-tools/power-custom-brass-muzzle-crowning-lap-p

[Geezer in NH]

Can't fit in lathe means you need a bigger lathe IMHO r a CNC turner.

[Tackleberry41]

A bigger lathe wouldn't help I dont think, its to short now to go thru the head stock a bigger lathe would just be worse.

I got it whooped with tools I had.

PTG sent me an email, basically said yea we know our website doesnt work that well, most people just call, were working on it, sucks being you, were still keeping the 20%. Brownells and CNC warrior are both a few bucks less on the tool.

[1johnlb]

Have you tried Grizzly, they also sell ptg and a lot of specialty gunsmith tools and cutters and chamber reamers.

http://www.grizzly.com/

[ohland]

Neway makes the cutters that you see in good automotive shops for valve seats.
If you go directly to Neway, you can get their small series cutters in 0° 11° 15° and 20° varieties.

Cool, the old retrobate has been looking at re-crowning his 32-40.

http://www.newaymfg.com/frame.htm

http://www.mendham.com.au/equipment/newayequipment/cutters-pilots-spareparts/

[Tackleberry41]

PTG is apparently way behind or only has one guy working or something. Their not in stock anywhere, it was 4-6 weeks direct from PTG. I dont need one today anyways, so will shop around.

[KLR]

PTG sent me an email, basically said yea we know our website doesnt work that well, most people just call, were working on it, sucks being you, were still keeping the 20%.

Thanks for the heads up. I was shopping for a 358 Win reamer and PTG and Manson are about the same price. I know which one to buy now.

[Tackleberry41]

I have 2 of PTGs chamber reamers, but they were in stock at Midway. I told them I would source my tools from their competitors in the future, didnt seem to care. The email they sent, tho they said wasnt meant that way, did seem a bit condescending. Pictures of the pages yellow highlighting where I was 'stupid'.

[woodbutcher]

:smile:I remember reading about the brass screw trick about 50 odd years ago in G&A IIRC.Showed it to a friend that was a gunsmith and he tried it.It worked pretty good for him using the method described in the article.A hand drill and valve grinding compound.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo