Barrel alignment winchester 94!

[andym79]

Hi guys, I ordered a barrel for my 94 (30-30), nice 26" octagonal. It was from Numrich pre threaded, chambered and with dovetailed cut, ready to go on the 94.

I wound the new one on and it lined up well, it is however about a degree off alignment. I am basing this from the extractor grove alingment in the outer ring of the action and the inner ring of the barrel. I tried turning it that extra degree and it seems to want to spring back. The bolt closes fine on a dummy round and the extractor fits the groove and extracts fine.

Should I vise it back up and try and clock it to perfect alignment or should it be fine with a 1 degree misalignment. I don't want to warp the action, the 94 action isn't that robust.

I will add pictures if anyone thinks it will help!

[Vopie]

Is it 1 degree past, or short of ??

[andym79]

Its 1 degree short of alignment!

[fouronesix]

1 degree short of alignment is a whole lot better than 1 degree past :)

A small amount of lathe work might be in order for perfect, top dead center, alignment of the dovetail and open sights. I agree that putting too much torque on the receiver ring wouldn't be the best idea. I'd be tempted to chuck the barrel up and skin .001 at a time off the shank shoulder and "creep" up on the 12 O'clock position for the open sights. A go gauge would also be handy. Once done, the extractor cut out could then be shaved on the appropriate side if needed.

[andym79]

So with the 1 degree short of indexing, as the extractor moves into the grove fine and extracts a dummy round. Do you think I should just shot it and see how it goes?

What effect will the sight alignment being that 1 degree to the right have?

[fouronesix]

If you are confident about the headspace being within a " normal" range, then shooting it shouldn't be a problem.

Even if the sights aren't perfectly at top dead center, it can be zeroed at any one range. But, may be a little off-kilter at different ranges and would really skew at longer ranges. Geometrically, windage adjustment of the sights won't translate exactly into windage adjustment of POI. Likewise, elevation adjustment of the sights won't translate exactly into elevation adjustment of the POI. There will always be a little of both windage and elevation mixed into any sight adjustment. If the sights seem plumb to the axis of the gun when shouldered, a slight cant shouldn't be too distracting -just depends.

[deltaenterprizes]

How much for the barrel?
I have a 67 Canadian Bicentenial that needs a barrel, part number would be nice too

[John Taylor]

I use a couple pieces of key stock that are about a foot long, one on the barrel and the other on the action, then stand back and look from the end and see how things line up. If you only need 1 degree then just tighten it a little more. Be careful not to go to far, there's not much shoulder on a 94 octagon barrel.

[andym79]

Hi the barrel was $143 from Numrich

http://www.gunpartscorp.com/ad/882400.htm

Here are some photos to illustrate what I am talking about, the original barrel had perfect alignment.136103136104136102

Am I being fussy? Had another go to turn it that tiny bit clockwise, but any more pressure really might damage the action!

[fouronesix]

Agreed, that looks like about 1 degree or a little less. Not much. You could put the barrel sights on. ( I assume it has been dovetailed and/or D&T'd for sights?) Put it in a vise or cradle- use a level across or along the receiver for plumb. Then look down the barrel to see how far off plumb the sights "appear" to be. The eye is really quite good at picking up off plumb deviation. If it doesn't look too far off, shoot it with the sights set at about zero windage- to see how the sights line up with the bore's axis- the POI will give some indication. Also, check to see if the sights appear to be canted when shouldered.

It may be so small as to be of little concern. Fact is many shooters have forever shot with the gun slightly canted one direction or another. It only becomes evident when shooting for repeatable results- especially at longer ranges.

But I'll go back to my original thought. I'd be best to get it clocked correctly. If you don't have easy access to a lathe, you could "shade tree" it. You'd have so little to relieve that there would be almost no chance of harm. Secure the barrel vertically in a padded vise. Use a small mill file or needle file and evenly remove a small amount of metal from around the circumference of the shank shoulder. Turning the barrel in small increments and making short file strokes around the curve. By only taking a .001 or so off each time, even a little unevenness of fit will swage out upon tightening to the receiver. May take a couple of tries (taking barrel out of receiver) to get the extractor cut out clocked to perfect alignment but that would be the best. That's the way it would be done with a lathe. I imagine the sight dovetail(s) and/or D&T'd holes will have been indexed to the extractor cutout when the barrel was reamed and finished.

[deltaenterprizes]

Thanks!

[country gent]

On service rifle barrels .004 is one hour rotation so given the thread pitch you are only looking at around .0002 to remove. dang hard there. 1*-2* can be interesting. Go very slow testing often use very fine tooiling and only cut at the actial bearing point

[leebuilder]

On service rifle barrels .004 is one hour rotation so given the thread pitch you are only looking at around .0002 to remove. dang hard there. 1*-2* can be interesting. Go very slow testing often use very fine tooiling and only cut at the actial bearing point
Plus one on CG. I would clean and check for any little burrs/foybbles. The i would use a stone. Not much to come off.

[John Taylor]

Don't remove any metal The action will not be hurt if you tighten the barrel to line it up.

[fouronesix]

Don't remove any metal The action will not be hurt if you tighten the barrel to line it up.

That's fine, but this was in the OP's original post. Without being there first hand and having a feel for what the torque really is, there is a clue in this, "I tried turning it that extra degree and it seems to want to spring back."

Without a dedicated action wrench or first hand feel, I wouldn't push it and wouldn't recommend it. To each their own.

[country gent]

As an extra bit to think on about the "offset" of the sights. When my right eyes vision was affected by the MS I set up a NRA match rifle with the sights offset 2 5/8" ( center distance between my eyes)to the left of the bore so I could shoot right handed left eye for aiming. Accuracy was as good as before but I picked up around 3 mins windage for each 100 yds distance change. 1* of rotation isnt much in the sights alighnment.This could be seen or measured by a circle with cross on center and a line 1* of rotationally measure up center of bore to sight tip and trascribe another circle on this radious ( you may want to do this at 5-10 times scales for ease of seeing. Measure across the center point and and actual sight point to see mis alighnment resulting. ( remeber it you increased scale to divide the dimension by the amount scaled up).

[sbowers]

Don't remove any metal The action will not be hurt if you tighten the barrel to line it up.

I absolutely agree.
Steve

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I absolutely agree.
Steve

I agree with this too, although what puzzles me is the springing back. Any conventional screw is much less than 50% efficient at translating the direction of a force, which may sound bad but is the reason why your car, once jacked up, doesn't descent while making the screw-jack handle whirl around. I'm guessing now, but it might be that uneven contact, around the shoulder of the barrel, is causing that spring-back. The use of felt-tip or smoke, or even the polishing of the metal surfaces, might reveal this. You need to get to the bottom of this, for whatever makes the barrel spring back a pretty harmless amount after tightening, might make it spring back a lot more after heating and firing.

It is very difficult to file or stone material evenly around a narrow shoulder like this, and painfully easy to take off too much in the lathe if you have one. This is more than a degree of misalignment, probably two or three degrees. The circumference of the .806in. Winchester barrel thread is π (about 3.142) times diameter, or 2.542in. A degree is 1/360 of that, or about .007in. The pitch of the thread is .05in. per revolution, so it would take the removal of .00027in. of metal to eliminate a 2 degree alignment error. Removing that a thousandth at a time is going to be tricky.

It would be much easier to file or stone the action face, but you may be leaving generations yet unborn with a gun on which the next replacement barrel will turn too far. I think I would try tightening and untightening it, all evening if I had to, on valve grinding paste or (same thing I think) fine silicon carbide grit and oil.

[andym79]

I think I will have one more go at turning that last bit.

What is more of a concern to me at least, than alignment 1 ish degree out, is headspace. Correct me if its wrong but the 30-30 headspaces from the rim, hence headspace is the distance from front of the rim to the bolt face.

I have sat a primer protruding from a case and when the bolt is closed it drives home to within .005 of the rim thickness, giving me a headspace of .068, so it should be within tolerance.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That is just the same headspace as my .40-82 Winchester 86. It would be undesirable, although probably not dangerous, in a newly made rifle for a very high pressure modern cartridge. In the 94 there is nothing at all the matter with it. As I said, if the barrel is turned two degrees short, it adds another .00027in. to the headspace. That is completely harmess.

[andym79]

Well I just couldn't leave it as was. So today I unwound it, cleaned up the thread on the barrel and action and clocked it back up, here is what I got.


137030 137033

.................Today............................ ..................First Fit..................

[fouronesix]

Excellent outcome! Upon thinking about it some more, I too was thinking of exactly what you did. It's second nature, so didn't think about suggesting it before.

Good idea to brush and clean both the receiver threads and the barrel threads. Common for some replacement barrels to have dried oil, metal particles, knife edge slivers and caked bluing crud on/in the threads. Similar gunk likely in the receiver.

When mounting one, I carefully remove any debris and wire edges, scrub with wire brush, clean with solvent and add a little anti-seize before tightening.