22 barrel liner

.....I use Devcon Titanium or Steel Putty to keep the tube in place. Some smiths actually solder the liners in place. That takes some real skill, which I don't have the equipment for.

After watching Larry Potterfield's YT video on doing .22 liners I bought a bottle of Loctite 680. I haven't used it yet for a liner yet but I've used it for a dozen other things in my shop including two not all that big slip joints on the draw tube for my 5C collet chuck for the lathe. And I forgot to baby it. For that and all the other uses it's been absolutely amazing. I rank it up there with at LEAST the same strength as soft solder. It's no good for fillets of course. But in a small gap between parts? At LEAST as good and likely better than soft regular solder. When I finally get around to the liner job I won't have any worries about using it for gluing the liner in place.
 
Get a 9 MM drill bit, weld or braze an extension on to it and you should be good to go. The $118.00 drill bit from Browells is just a little bit pricey!
 
Doesn't 9mm equal .3546 " ?

That is too large for a 5/16" (.3125') liner.

And make a pilot on it... and drill to the center of the barrel from each end. No pilot often equals problems.
 
Doesn't 9mm equal .3546 " ?

That is too large for a 5/16" (.3125') liner.

And make a pilot on it... and drill to the center of the barrel from each end. No pilot often equals problems.

Pretty sure the Brownell's bit is an 8mm (0.314961"), not 9, and makes a proper sized hole to allow suitable clearance on the liner.
 
After watching Larry Potterfield's YT video on doing .22 liners I bought a bottle of Loctite 680. I haven't used it yet for a liner yet but I've used it for a dozen other things in my shop including two not all that big slip joints on the draw tube for my 5C collet chuck for the lathe. And I forgot to baby it. For that and all the other uses it's been absolutely amazing. I rank it up there with at LEAST the same strength as soft solder. It's no good for fillets of course. But in a small gap between parts? At LEAST as good and likely better than soft regular solder. When I finally get around to the liner job I won't have any worries about using it for gluing the liner in place.

Devcon Titanium Putty is very expensive, as well as very strong.

I really do like it for all sorts of things BUT the main reason I use it a lot is because I got 6 large kits for the price of taking it home, when the plant I worked at closed.

Same goes for most of my lathe/mill/grinder tooling. Close to $30K worth of stuff, if I had to buy it. It was all going into the garbage bins and we were allowed to cherry pick it all, before it got tossed.

LocTite is very cost efficient and does a great job. Same for the cheap puttys from Princess Auto. Especially for 22 rf bores.

I also make up liners, in the same manner as used for the barrels of 30 M1 Carbines by Plainfield and a few others.

They bought surplus barrels that had been cut off just after the gas port, drilled them out and glued in a new barrel, which part of was a liner for the surplus stubs. They also had to drill new gas ports, which is easily done after the new liner is installed.

They did this because it was cheaper than making up their own barrels from scratch and because the pressures are relatively low, plenty strong enough.

Barrel liners can either be a blessing or a bane. Mostly they work well, if they're installed properly.
 
I've posted threads about the SMLE and No. 7 clones I've made up using .303 barrels lined to .22. I used my piloted drill, becasue it was long enough. The pilot did nothing of course; the 5/16 drill followed the .303 bore very nicely, no runout. It was basically removing the rifling. I would be nervous about trying to drill out a .22 barrel with an unpiloted drill.

Most .22 barrels were made with rather soft, free cutting steel. This facilitates drilling them for liners.

I have not done it, but I know liners have been installed in vintage rifles with the bore being drilled out almost to the muzzle, the drill not quite breaking out. When the liner is installed, the original muzzle is still there.

The vintage P-H relining jobs used liners soft soldered in place - the tubes were also 1/2" in diameter. I suspect they had gas fired burners set up to heat the barrels end to end. I would assume that soldering in a liner would involve refinishing the barrel. There is a strong justification for bonding right there.

I have bonded in centerfire 9mm/.38 liners without any problems. Have also reamed muzzleloading shotgun barrels up to .750 and bonded in 4130 Cr-Mo tubing liners. Set the liner up so that it mated against the face of the breach plug, and was pushed into place as the breech plug was installed before the bonding agent cured.

Many years ago, I had Al Petersen in Sask. line a Marlin '92 barrel for me. The liner was bad, rifling was irregular. He took it back and redid the job with a new liner.
 
Doesn't 9mm equal .3546 " ?

That is too large for a 5/16" (.3125') liner.

And make a pilot on it... and drill to the center of the barrel from each end. No pilot often equals problems.

You are right. I should have hit the "8" when I somehow hit the "9" ..... My fat fingers again.
 
I really like the removable pilot on my liner reamer ... it allows me to use a worn out center fire barrel as a donor heavy barrel for lining... the last one I did was a 6mm barrel. It made a really nice heavy barrel for a 17 Mach II on a Ruger 77/22.
 
I really like the removable pilot on my liner reamer ... it allows me to use a worn out center fire barrel as a donor heavy barrel for lining... the last one I did was a 6mm barrel. It made a really nice heavy barrel for a 17 Mach II on a Ruger 77/22.

You able to post a picture Denis?

It sounds to me like you are using a counterbore reamer with a removable pilot.

Something like this?

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Just a guess on my part, from your description.

Cannot recall ever seeing any removable pilots on Machine reamers.
 
Bearhunter, sorry if it sounded like I was suggesting that Loctite be used over the epoxy. I intended the post to be an alternative idea and not a substitute to yours.

Free trumps buying any day of the week so I can see why you prefer using what you have. Especially when it just plain works.

Are you warming the epoxy to make it wick down along what is a pretty close fit? I know epoxy responds well that way. Even thick stuff at room temp when warmed with light use of a heat gun becomes the consistency of water. I've used that trait to aid with patching cracks in a couple of stocks.
 
I have never soldered a liner in... I think that would be a terrible way to do it... I have epoxied a few and they worked well... but I found the Locktite to be the easiest way to do it... they all are acceptable ways and when cooled or cured they are solid.
 
Bearhunter, sorry if it sounded like I was suggesting that Loctite be used over the epoxy. I intended the post to be an alternative idea and not a substitute to yours.

Free trumps buying any day of the week so I can see why you prefer using what you have. Especially when it just plain works.

Are you warming the epoxy to make it wick down along what is a pretty close fit? I know epoxy responds well that way. Even thick stuff at room temp when warmed with light use of a heat gun becomes the consistency of water. I've used that trait to aid with patching cracks in a couple of stocks.

No offense taken, because none was intended. I knew right away where you were coming from and felt I should clarify why I use so much very expensive binary epoxy compound for so many jobs.

The one thing I do prefer about such products is that they are very forgiving and fill in what could be dangerous voids between the liner and barrel. The Devcon Steel/Titanium Puttys are very strong and don't compress. I wouldn't use LocTite for anything, other than 22rf liners. That's just me though.

It's all good as far as I'm concerned, I really enjoy the exchange of information from mostly very knowledgeable people on these threads. So please, if you have anything to contribute, carry on contributing.

A long time friend and respected gunsmith from Salmon Arm related an issue he had with soldering a liner into place on a muzzle loader. It blew up the barrel after a dozen shots. Reason for the kaboom was a void, where the solder didn't penetrate, maybe caused by the gasses generated by the flux?? This doesn't happen with epoxy or LocTite.
 
Bearhunter, sorry if it sounded like I was suggesting that Loctite be used over the epoxy. I intended the post to be an alternative idea and not a substitute to yours.

Free trumps buying any day of the week so I can see why you prefer using what you have. Especially when it just plain works.

Are you warming the epoxy to make it wick down along what is a pretty close fit? I know epoxy responds well that way. Even thick stuff at room temp when warmed with light use of a heat gun becomes the consistency of water. I've used that trait to aid with patching cracks in a couple of stocks.


I just smear a coat of epoxy over both the inner surface of the old barrel and on the outside of the liner. Push it in slowly, while rotating it all the way through. This spreads the epoxy evenly. This isn't so important with 22rf, but it could be with higher pressure cartridges.
 
I put a plug in the end of the liner while pushing and wringing it in. Keeps the epoxy out of the bore.
 
I put a plug in the end of the liner while pushing and wringing it in. Keeps the epoxy out of the bore.

Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that

I don't cut the chamber on the liner until everything is set up and cured. Like to leave a bit of proud material at each end for final finishing and headspacing.
 
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