Thank you all for your comments & in-sights. I've been "looking" around at new & used but am a bit leery on used.
Right now I'm leaning towards Busy Bees # B2227L, 10x18 with a 1" bore, seems like a decent machine that's on sale.
--- John
10x18 with the 1" headstock bore would be dead on minimal. For barrel work and a lot of other jobs you're going to find that it's a sort of "80% solution". There's going to be more than one which won't fit.
And for some barrels the size of thread is going to produce enough drag on the cutter that it's going to result in a significant risk of chatter. Basically weight and stiffness counts for a lot with a metal lathe. And this one is barely going to do the job.... maybe.
It would be a great hobby lathe for a lot of other interest areas. But for gunsmithing it's small and light enough that I strongly suspect it'll simply end up being a major source of frustration along the lines that fingers found in his reply.
A better, but still far from ideal, machine would be the CT089 13x24 inch lathe. But even that is limited. It also bothers me that the biggest imperial thread size is 9tpi where most lathes will at least cut 8tpi.
I know the CT089 is almost double the price. But you'll be at least half as frustrated with it. But even it is quite limited even as a hobby gun smithing lathe. For a little more than the CT089 you can get the CX709. It is still limited in that you'll need to make a rear spider for doing serious barrel work. There is simply not enough room between the head and tail stocks for doing long barrel jobs between centers. But the bed and head is more massive and will resist chatter far better than the CT089. It also cuts that important 8 tpi option.
I'm not about to give up my 12x36. But if the house burned down and I were re-sizing my shop I'd consider the CX701. I would NOT reduce my ability and raise my blood pressure by going with the smaller CT089. It's just too small and too light.
The 1227 is a nice enough lathe for model engine or similar smaller jobs. But as a gun smithing lathe it's simply far too limited. And I suspect it'll be a chattermatic when working on bigger cuts due to the headstock and bed sizes and lighter weight. As a smaller parts lathe it would work great. But for doing jobs on barrels or receivers it's going to be an issue far too often.
The good news is that lathes are popular. So WHEN you find out that the 1227 is too small for the bigger jobs you'll likely get a decent percentage of your cost back. The real issue comes with the tooling you build up which will only be partially useable with the bigger machine which you SHOULD buy. You'll lose your shirt on that part of the package.
What will happen is that you'll spend the $1500 with taxes on the machine itself. Then you'll quickly add up another $700 to $1000 in tooling to go with the lathe which is sized suitable for this machine. Then you'll come to realize that it's too small and limited and you'll sell the whole lot as a package since much of the tooling is too small for the machine you SHOULD have bought. But folks feel that they should get these bits along with the lathe and simply won't pay you back for your investment. So you'll end up selling the whole package for around $1500 to $1800. And that means the lesson you will learn with the small machine will cost you a bunch of frustration and something like $700 out of pocket.
With the CT089 you'll end up finding that it's OK with just a few issues. It'll make you swear on occasion but you'll get by. You'll likely have to come up with some creative home made tooling to make it easy to support the barrels so you can work on them. Doing any full length barrel work will be impossible due to the short bed. But with some care and experience you'll develop the skills to make it work. But it'll leave you wanting more.
The CX701 will still be too short to do full single pass exterior work. But for the other jobs the higher weight and quick change gear box will prove far less frustrating in a number of ways. The $500 extra over the CT089 SHOULD make the choice in favor of the CX701 a slam dunk decision. The 701 will make you smile a lot more when using it and there would be a few less cases where you need to flip the work around to finish the cuts.
For me my home lathe started out as a Myford ML7. By all accounts this is THE home lathe to have. But it turned out that it was a very poor machine in many ways. It's far too light and flexible. This meant that it tended to chatter at the slightest sign of stress. The room over the bed and room over the carriage was also very limited. I offer this since the 1227 will put you into the same boat as I was with the Myford.
I know that home hobby stuff often has to compromise. But if your goal is to perform some gunsmithing then this is not the place to back pedal. Save up longer and at least get the CT089 or similar from Grizzly. And preferably spend the extra $500 and get the CX701.
And even this is a compromise compared to the 12x36 or 14x40 that you SHOULD be getting. But at least the CX701 is a reasonable compromise. It won't prove to block you doing jobs in too many cases.
