I reline a Broomhandle barrel in my garage. Come check it out. Shooting update page 3

[Levon12345]

Right, I bought this C96 at auction with a description of a dark bore. Well dark bore equaled throwing around half the projectiles that went through it sideways through targets. So... being the industrious type (read: cheap) with a lathe, I set about researching how to reline this sucker. Now, I'm a hobbyist doing this in my garage so I don't have a full sized lathe. I have a mini lathe. And that little bastard can do some incredible work if you decide to work around it's limitations. Usually at the cost of time. So to start, I was doing drawings and trying to figure out how much I could get away with drilling out the old barrel to make the liner acceptably thick. Then I found actual instructions on Lugerman's site on his broomhandle barrel restoration page.


Well that took the guess work out. So I ordered an aircraft drill (long drill bit) and a pair of reamers to take it to the finished dimensions.

To drill out the old barrel, I wanted a piloted drill bit to start it. Couldn't find one to buy so I decided to make one. I needed a tool post grinder. Couldn't find one so I decided to make one. I fired up Freecad and had my buddy print one on his 3d printer. Onward to putting a pilot onto a drill bit.



Worked like a hot damn!

Had to add the angles to make a drill bit actually cut.



Time to pucker up and get this thing set up in my lathe. The front sight makes it so I'm unable to put it into my headstock so I chucked it into my 4 jaw and steady rest. I had made a rod that fit into the bore to indicate that everything was running true and concentric. Oh god typing that out makes it sound so easy. This took hours of frustration. Like I said, this machine's limitations usually cost time. I had to talk myself up to put a drill bit into this things chamber. My brain was screaming that I'd ruin a 110 year old pistol.





Once the drill bit touched the chamber there was no going back. I use a home made floating reamer holder as I can dial everything perfectly straight, but my tailstock definitely isn't. So I eliminate it from the equation. Drilling out the bore went swimmingly. I started with the pilot drill bit until it was 4 diameters deep, then swapped to the aircraft bit to finish. Reaming went even better. So now I had a .421" smoothbore broomhandle. The remaining barrel was real thin.





I spun the liner on centers to match the dimensions of the reamed holes. As I got it down to near its final dimensions (ie. thin) I would only advance the cutter 5 thou to keep deflection down. My micrometer says it worked. Took forever though. You can see how large the blank was when I started in this photo.

 

[rifleman762]

Sounds fun! Did you use an actual barrel liner or did you turn down a barrel blank to fit? I'm just wondering where to get liners in Canada?

 

[tiriaq]

Nicely done!

 

[can14]

Did you make it into 9mm

 

[Levon12345]

I faced and crowned the muzzle end then swapped ends to chamber the liner.





I was going to install the liner and then do the chambering but the feed lips in the barrel extension get in the way of my reamer holder. So I put it into the 4 jaw, indicated on the bore and did 95% of the chamber. Then I took it out, slid it into the barrel, reassembled the pistol and checked head space. I repeated this until I got good lockup. I swapped back to my 3 jaw to speed this up. The chamber reamer has a pilot and will follow the hole it cut. Or so my brain tells me.

Sliding in the liner


7.62x25 Go gauge


Unlocked. Back into the lathe... repeated this step a bunch of times.



Locked. Huzzah! I did test this in the actual receiver but it would just be a picture of a broomhandle. This is for theatrics.



Had to cut spots for the extractor and mate the feed ramp to the original. I got it to the point where I can just feel it with my fingernail. Should work.



It's done. I'm just waiting on some Loctite 680 to make the new liner real permanent.

Pretty good mate up. This was a complete fluke so I'm leaving it as is.


I didn't need to cut the extractor relief as deep so the case gets a tiny bit more support now.


Thanks for reading. It was a lot of fun to do. And nerve wracking. I'll update with some shooting results.

 

[tiriaq]

If the liner is .420, with a .356 groove diameter, the wall thickness would only be .032 - about a 32nd of an inch. With a .312 grove dimeter, wall thickness would be .054. Id be a bit uncomfortable with a 9mm liner.

 

[Levon12345]

I've got questions before I even finished the whole post. You guys are on the ball today.

I turned down a liner from a blank I had laying around after making a couple other barrels. I have no idea where to get a proper liner in Canada so went this route.

I kept it in .30 Mauser. I reload and like the calibre. If another really beat up broomhandle came my way I might try a 9mm caliber conversion with a blank I've got but keep all the other steps the same. So if the liner gets trashed I'm only out a bit of barrel and can try again.

 

[dan belisle]

Very nice job. Kudos. - dan

 

[TangoKilo]

Awesome project!!

Thanks for taking the time to post pics and share with us!!

Once you have the liner permanently installed, show us how it shoots!!

 

[kjohn]

Good work! Thanks for sharing.

 

[vagrantviking]

Very nice work.
Thanks for the details that might help some of us other fools follow in your intrepid footsteps! LoL

 

[Levon12345]

Very nice work.
Thanks for the details that might help some of us other fools follow in your intrepid footsteps! LoL

That was something I noticed when I was researching how to do this. There's no blogs, no forum posts, nothing documenting this process. Mostly a bunch of people suggesting "send it to a gunsmith." So I decided to take photos to share the experience.

If you can dial a four jaw chuck, chamber a barrel and aren't afraid to trainwreck an expensive and collectable pistol, you can do it too!

If you have any questions on specifics ask here or shoot me a PM.

 

[trevj]

Nicely done!

 

[hickstick_10]

Very entertaining, excellent post

 

[dan belisle]

That was something I noticed when I was researching how to do this. There's no blogs, no forum posts, nothing documenting this process. Mostly a bunch of people suggesting "send it to a gunsmith." So I decided to take photos to share the experience.

If you can dial a four jaw chuck, chamber a barrel and aren't afraid to trainwreck an expensive and collectable pistol, you can do it too!

If you have any questions on specifics ask here or shoot me a PM.

There was an article in one of the old NRA gunsmith guides on this very subject. - dan

 

[dead meat]

Great work. I will be looking forward to your test firing report.

 

[gunrunner100]

Thanks for posting and resurrecting a fine old pistol.

 

[sledge]

I had a mis-matched broomhandle (low collectible value) with a worn out bore that I considered having lined, but the cost was so high I didn't go ahead with it. Ended up selling the pistol instead.

In a perfect world someone would sell new barrelled receivers and you could just swap that out, shoot it, then put it back into it's original collectible form.

 

[fingers284]

I've got questions before I even finished the whole post. You guys are on the ball today.

I turned down a liner from a blank I had laying around after making a couple other barrels. I have no idea where to get a proper liner in Canada so went this route.

I kept it in .30 Mauser. I reload and like the calibre. If another really beat up broomhandle came my way I might try it with a blank I've got but keep all the other steps the same. So if the liner gets trashed I'm only out a bit of barrel and can try again.

What are the chamber pressures with this cartridge?

I fear there may be a couple of problems show up for you in your project. With a barrel liner that thin and that loose (you slide it in and out at will by your description) that with anymore than a .22 LR pressure rise, I fear that maybe even at the first round fired your liner will swell to fit your drilled barrel clearance ahead of the brass web. When this happens, every subsequent round requires a range rod to push the swelled case out and every brass you push out will have the "Glock bulge" to make reloading a pain.
This ALWAYS happens with center fire barrel liners if the chamber area and an inch length in front of it isn't a very tight "drive in friction fit". No matter what compound you use to anchor the liner, the chamber pressures will make it migrate one way or the other under the pressures even BP produce.

The second issue that might become evident with CF pressures and loose liner fit & anchoring compound. Every one of these compounds that i know of, Locktite-JB Weld-Acraglass etc. loose their strength under any heat. If you shoot high pressure rounds that develop both burn heat & friction heat the compounds "wet up" and release...the liner walks out of the loose drill channel untill the headspace prevents anymore firing. I have personally seen a liner protruding from a rifle bore more than 1/2 inch after firing just 2 rounds of 38-55 BP thru it after a brand new liner job.
The good thing is that you have another chunk of barrel to cut a new "tighter liner" with if the pressures play havoc with your first try...

 

[Levon12345]

There's a shoulder so the liner cannot walk forward and it requires tapping in and out of place. Loctite 680 has a working temp off 300 degrees and a stripper clip fed pistol isn't likely to get to bacon sizzling temperatures. I know that the compound doesn't retain 100% of it's strength through that range but I think there's a lot of leeway. I will keep a lookout for any of the problems you mentioned. If it moves, I can remake the liner and silver solder it. Trying the no heat method first.