M14 Project Pt 2 - Removing the Barrel

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22rimfiredude

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So today I moved on to phase two of my project and removed the bbl from the stripped M14s reciever.

I pack up my family and the needed tools and went to my father-in-law's place where I was going to do the work. He is an industrial mechanic so I figured I could draw on his experience.

Using the Brownells bbl vice and action wrench, we got the bbl'd action screwed down tight. Rather than bolt the bbl vice to his work bench we opted to secure it in a big vice, which worked well.

The bbl was very tight in the reciever, so we took the whole lot out of the vice and put it in the freezer. While it was cooling down, the Rinfiredude family went to the Carberry Gun Show (Mrs. Rimfirdude buying a 1939 Tula 91/30 mixmaster), and got back to the project about an hour and a bit later.

We took the bbl'd action out of the freezer and put it in the vice. As I was applying steady torque to the action wrench, my father-in-lay was heating the reciever with a heat gun. The reciever came off in about a minute with no hassle. I was very impressed and satisfied with the result.

What was less cool was the huge amount of grit in the threads of the norc bbl. I have no idea how so much grit can get in there, but it does. When the threads were cleaned out the norc bbl hand tightens to 7:00 so I am expecting few problems with the USGI unit that is going on in it's place.

So my lesson of the day was: If the bbl wont move w/o excessive force freeze the bbl'd action, and heat the reciever to loosen things up.

So far, so good:cool:
 
That's weird about the grit and the lack of proper indexing. I guess that's why the barrels are often indexed wrong and they use those set screws so that they can lock them down even though they are not tight. Is sand Chinese locktite?
 
Old Millwright Trick. Cold makes things shrivel and heat makes things BIG. Also BFH works just about every time.Good job.When we did ours last week at the wet coast gathering the big problem we had was loosing the barrel screw.We(ok they) got all of them.Glad mine was the easiest.Barrels came off pretty good with a slow steady push on the long handle and a counter weight on the kitchen counter.Glad things are turning out good for you.
 
yup... kitchen counter gunsmithing at it's finest hehehe.
proper "hand tight" fitting for a barrel on the m14 is......hand tight at 15 degrees from index, then it should require 80 foot lbs of torque at least to bring back to index. NO WHERE in the m14 kuhnhaussen gunsmiths shop manual does it suggest using cooling/heating to make this job easier. Not tryin to be a gun geek or nothin....... just don't want to see anyone havin thier #### fall off. Of the well over 30 rifles we have de barrelled and re barrellled in my vice, none have had any heat/cooling applications.
clean the threads on both parts, apply some grease to the threads and away ya go.
 
What Tom did not mention, is the wrench he uses was borrowed from Limpwrist Larry, and it has a FOUR FOOT LONG handle.
This helps ...
[;{)
LAZ 1
 
NavyShooter said:
I'm sure you didn't heat it enough to affect the hardning of the receiver........right?

NS
Click to expand...

Heat gun produce fairly mild temperatures of about 100c. You need about 250-300c for prolonged time to "normalise" steel and somewhere glowing red to "flame anneal".
 
I removed the set screw last week. The heat gun only warmed the reciever from freezer temp to luke-warm coffee temp (using my calibrated fingers :rolleyes: ). We were very careful not to excessively heat the metal.

We were going to use a cheater bar, but none of the pipe was the proper diameter to go over the wrench. So the only mechanical advantage we had was the 18" handle.
 
22rimfiredude said:
We were going to use a cheater bar, but none of the pipe was the proper diameter to go over the wrench. So the only mechanical advantage we had was the 18" handle.
Click to expand...

Yes, and with a bit of math you could tell us how many foot-pounds of Rimfiredude were required to unscrew the barrel. (18" lever divided by force in pounds)
 
I would guess that 3/4 of my weight was used on the wrench handle so:

(260x.75)/1.5 = 195/1.5 = 130

So by my guesstimate (and teh above formula) the bbl was screwed in with approx 130ft/lbs of torque. That is about 63% more than 45ACPKING's stated torque.

As an update, a H&R Bbl hand times to 1830. A used, but exec condition, TRW bolt will close on a NOGO gague but is about 4thou shy of cosing on a FIELD gague. Tighting tbe bbl will shorten the headspace by a thou, putting the headspace at 1.633. That is perfect for my application, tight enough for good brass life but loose enough to digest surplus ammo.
 
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