Savage 340 barrel nut is off - 357 Herrett project proceeds

so still not budging

heated it a few times made up an long extension that goes over the barrel and mates to the barrel nut wrench and had a nut on the other side... had a nut... because the impact twisted off the nut, so I took a socket and welded it on.

Impact hammering away till my hand turned numb and still wont turn

guess I need a bigger impact, perhaps a big hammer drill

I would like to re-use the barrel nut but its starting to piss me off and the lathe is looking a little more attractive.... Perhaps Numerich had barrel nuts... or I might just make something up in the lathe
 
Stop letting the thing cool down. The entire point of heat is to get the nut to swell slightly and loosen any loctite (if that has been applied).

A small impact driver may not produce that much impact, especially if your air pressure is turned down a bit. Mine would barely remove lug nuts till I turned the pressure regulator up to max.

Personally I'd use a wrench and whack it with a largish hammer, after heating up the nut. That imparts a lot of torque into the nut.

Not sure why your nut is so tight. A friend brought his Savage 110 over and we found the nut to be barely torqued on from the factory. There is just no need for that much torque on a barrel.
 
woodchopper said:
so went hunting sunday

nut is still not wanting to turn

will try again later this week

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Get a bag of pitcher's resin from the local sports shop to use on the mating surfaces of your barrel vice.
Also , weight on the wrench handle and someone giving it a light but sharp blow from a 2 lb handle will break it loose.

I have removed barrels from M98s that defied torque from my full body weight on the action wrench (220 lb at the time). The resin in the barrel vice jaws kept the barrel from turning under the torque, My friend giving the end of the wrench handle a tap with a 2 pound hammer would usually break the barrel loose.
An ill fitting wrench on an action or nut can destroy the nut or the action .

weld a handle to your "socket" so there is no side thrust on the nut.
the handle of your socket has to be in the same plane as your nut, not off to one side.
 
I keep powdered rosin in a salt shaker. Some folks report using icing sugar.

Not too many 340 series rifles get rebarreled. Any tools needed to hold the barrel nut or receiver have to be made. And the barrel nuts do tend to be tight. I rebarreled a .30-30 not long ago. Having scrapped a number of 340s over the years, I just cut a relief groove in the offending barrel nut to release torque, and used a replacement barrel nut when reassembled.

In my tickle trunk I have a 340/.225 Winchester bolt. Sometimes I wonder if it couldn't be used to make a .45ACP PCC.
 
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10x said:
Get a bag of pitcher's resin from the local sports shop to use on the mating surfaces of your barrel vice.
Also , weight on the wrench handle and someone giving it a light but sharp blow from a 2 lb handle will break it loose.

I have removed barrels from M98s that defied torque from my full body weight on the action wrench (220 lb at the time). The resin in the barrel vice jaws kept the barrel from turning under the torque, My friend giving the end of the wrench handle a tap with a 2 pound hammer would usually break the barrel loose.
An ill fitting wrench on an action or nut can destroy the nut or the action .

weld a handle to your "socket" so there is no side thrust on the nut.
the handle of your socket has to be in the same plane as your nut, not off to one side.
Click to expand...

Good advice.

However powdered rosin is messy and imprecise to work with. A simpler and amazingly effective means is to wrap the barrel in multiple sheets of post it notes. I go with approx 4 layers of post its. Zero mess, zero fuss and never had a barrel turn in the vise. The paper also protects any finish on the barrel from scrapes and scratches.
 
I use aluminum inserts in my barrel vice, because I can make them to the size needed in my lathe. I found to take strips of normal computer printer paper as "gasket" between the aluminum and the barrel - usually two layers. I started to also do the same on barrel vices - not sure that helps grab, but sure eliminates marks!! I have yet to try to loosen a barrel nut, so following your experience with interest.
 
I removed a nut from a Stevens 200 / same as Savage 10, that was not a problem it came off easy

this one is on tight, but I am going to try the pipe wrench again with the impact gun and a bottle jack


I think I better check to see how the vise is mounted to the bench first....
 
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woodchopper - my lack of experience with barrel nut likely going to show! I have removed several barrels from Mausers, Enfield's and Lee Enfields - all seem to have a shoulder on the barrel that mates up to front end of receiver. From somewhere, I was told NOT to make action vise tight - that will just squish the barrel tenon threads tighter - it has to be snug so it does not mark the receiver, but not gorilla tight. But I found I needed to get barrel TIGHT in the barrel vise - so that it did not slip in there. I suspect a good amount of resistance that you are facing is that nut turned really tight against the receiver front face - hard to imagine that the barrel tenon threads are stretched that much, to create the torque that you describe. So - without any experience at it - I would suspect that you are trying to break the face-to-face connection between the receiver and that nut - not that nut to the barrel? Of course, my theory would all go wonky if someone used threadlocker in there.
 
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woodchopper said:
I removed a nut from a Stevens 200 / same as Savage 10, that was not a problem it came off easy

this one is on tight, but I am going to try the pipe wrench again with the impact gun and a bottle jack


I think I better check to see how the vise is mounted to the bench first....
Click to expand...

If your vice is not mounted solidly then you have lost 1/2 of the battle.
As for an impact. Weight on the wrench handle and a sharp blow from a 2 lb hammer has usually worked for me.
 
10x said:
If your vice is not mounted solidly then you have lost 1/2 of the battle.
As for an impact. Weight on the wrench handle and a sharp blow from a 2 lb hammer has usually worked for me.
Click to expand...

vise is bolted to the bench, but its a wood bench and the top is 3/4" plywood. So today I beefed up the mounting by adding a 1/2" steel plate 12"X12" under the vice and another plate under the 3/4" plywood. Bolts are not going to tear out of the bench now :)
 
Main thing is flex in the plywood, A bit of 2x12 under the plywood / vice from front frame to back frame lagged to the frame or legs would have worked as well
I had 2 vices mounted on a steel table I built with a bridge expansion plate I found about 64 yrs ago when a bridge went out.
It is 1 1/2" thick , 3 ft sq. on 2x2" steel legs. I don't move.
I also found it is good idea to watch where your hand is when whacking the wrench. Nothing broke, but you don't do stupid stuff again.
 
OK so I decided today was the day

got out the big deWalt impact 1400ftLbs rated, that nut was coming off or something was going to break :)

round off the nut, break all the welds in the barrel nut socket, break the extension, tear the vise off the bench.... lots of fail points

20 seconds and the nut came loose, barrel was still fairly snug on the receiver but turned off by hand, the nut was tight on the barrel and needed to have the barrel in wood blocks in the vice and the 18" pipewrench on the nut socket to get the nut off the barrel.

everything is now soaking in penetrating oil, 60 years or so those parts have been together. Its marked as a Stevens 325 and they didn't make those for a very long time so its fairly early production.

now I can look at turning the 357 barrel and think about ordering a 357 Herrett reamer.
 
a few pictures

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and the new barrel profiled and threaded with the old barrel nut on, it looks smaller then the original because its a little further away from the camera. The original is sitting on top of the vise blocks

325-1.jpg
 

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now I need to decide the barrel length

357 Herrett is the plan, barrel is a 1-14 twist, and is currently unfinished and 20 1/2"

I am thinking 14" - 16" - 18" are all on the table, or even leave it at 20"

I think the tompson contenders that were 357Herrett were 14" but that seems a little short.

any suggestions ??
 
I'd be inclined to c&c at 20". A 340 with that length is still pretty handy, and a bit more velocity does no harm.
 
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