Making a Rifle Barrel

G

Gerald

CGN Regular
Rating - 99.6%
233   1   0
Location
Ontario
Does a gunsmith use a solid blank or a pre rifled blank to make a barrel and if a solid blank can be used who is equipped to do this work?
 
Gunsmiths as a rule will thread, chamber and contour a barrel made by one of several makers. Making a rifle barrel takes specific and very expensive machinery such as gun drills and a rifling machines. I saw Ted Gaillards setup and as I recall he said it cost several hundred thousand dollars and at least one marriage. There are several barrel makers in Canada besides Ted, Ron Smith and Bob Jury come to mind. Some barrel makers will also build you a gun but you need to patient as it will usually take some time.
 
Last edited:
Large barrel making companies I think usually drill solid stock. A friend of mine was an apprenticed barrel maker and because of small volume, bought his barrels pre drilled and then reamed and rifled from there

cheers mooncoon
 
Well it all depends on the method of manufacture. Not all barrels start out as pieces of round stock. Some start out as billets and are hammer forged over a mandrel.
 
bearhunter said:
Well it all depends on the method of manufacture. Not all barrels start out as pieces of round stock. Some start out as billets and are hammer forged over a mandrel.
Click to expand...

Um, what? All rifle rifle barrels start out as round stock and a drilled by some method. Do you think they use square material for hammer forging?
 
Blastattack said:
Um, what? All rifle rifle barrels start out as round stock and a drilled by some method. Do you think they use square material for hammer forging?
Click to expand...

Always wondered if thick walled steel tubing would work. Lots of that in the oil busines and Some SMG barrels start out that way.

Grizz
 
OP........I have made several barrels using the button rifling method. We start with 1 5/16" diameter 4140 or 416R barrel steel, which comes in 20 or 24 foot lengths which you cut . It is set up in a drill specifically made to drill 30" holes and then it is drilled to the approximate size, with a very special barrel drill (which ain't cheap) but a few thou under. In the same machine it is then reamed to the required diameter to take the rifling button of the caliber desired. The set up I used was designed to push the button through the barrel and swage in the rifling with an adjustable twist set up for all the various twists of all the various calibers. The button is also designed with a specific twist, which you specify when you buy it. What you have at this point is an 1 5/16 diameter 28" long or so hunk of steel with a rifled hole through the middle (hopefully). From here you then must turn and contour it to the desired profile, weight and length. Then thread it for your desired action and chamber it.
This is a very special tooling set up and very few people in Canada do it..........your local gunsmith will buy the barrel either in it's raw rifled form or semi contoured or fully contoured, depending on how much he wants to pay for it and how much lathe time he is willing to put into it. Barrel makers are not necessarily gunsmiths and most gunsmiths are not barrel makers. It is a lot of tooling and expense to get set up and buy drills, reamers and buttons for every caliber and twist out there........even for a good range of the most common calibers. It is also quite finicky sometimes and is not for everyone. I have never seen a cut rifling set up nor a hammer forging set up, so I can't comment on those two methods.
 
Blastattack said:
Um, what? All rifle rifle barrels start out as round stock and a drilled by some method. Do you think they use square material for hammer forging?
Click to expand...


Look it up. Pattern 17 barrels were hammer forged. I bought some barrels a few years ago from a maker in Texas that makes hammer forged bbls and he starts out with billets as per his description. Whether the billets start out round or not he didn't say. Billets for hammer forging come in many shapes.
 
I would suggest that the "round bar with a hole thru it" is the only feasible barrel I would be comfortable using. A square billet hammered around a mandrel would leave you with nothing more than a piece of heavy wall pipe with a "hammer" welded seam
 
bearhunter said:
Look it up. Pattern 17 barrels were hammer forged. I bought some barrels a few years ago from a maker in Texas that makes hammer forged bbls and he starts out with billets as per his description. Whether the billets start out round or not he didn't say. Billets for hammer forging come in many shapes.
Click to expand...

Lot's of barrels are hammer forged. However they all start out as a round blank of material with a hole drilled through the center.
 
If you're good enough, you can do just about anything.

Just for fun, Ron Smith bored, reamed, and rifled a piece of weldable rebar from a construction job site. It turned out good enough that singleshotom who posts on here won matches with it.


attachment.php


Ted
 
Why not? said:
If you're good enough, you can do just about anything.

Just for fun, Ron Smith bored, reamed, and rifled a piece of weldable rebar from a construction job site. It turned out good enough that singleshotom who posts on here won matches with it.


attachment.php


Ted
Click to expand...

That's unbelievable..
 
And this is how Damask barrel was made in past. Starts more like samurai sword. It starts as checkered pattern of two different properties steel welded and forged into single square bare. Then three of these bars welded together as seen in following pictures.


technique%20canon%20damas%20en%20fabrication-02.jpg

technique%20canon%20damas%20en%20fabrication-01.jpg

technique%20canon%20damas%20en%20fabrication-03.jpg



And how is made today:

bernex5.jpg
 
Last edited:
I know Ron Smith bores solid round stock then rifles it - he has made a barrel for me. Few are equipped to do that. Most gunsmiths buy a barrel from the likes of Shilen, Douglas, et al., contour the outside then chamber and fit it to the action.
 
Ol' Flinter said:
I know Ron Smith bores solid round stock then rifles it - he has made a barrel for me. Few are equipped to do that. Most gunsmiths buy a barrel from the likes of Shilen, Douglas, et al., contour the outside then chamber and fit it to the action.
Click to expand...

Quite the shop he has, think he built his own rifling machine.

Grizz
 
SIGP2101 said:
And this is how Damask barrel was made in past. Starts more like samurai sword. It starts as checkered pattern of two different properties steel welded and forged into single square bare. Then three of these bars welded together as seen in following pictures.
]
Click to expand...

Interesting; you can see the chemise in the center which acts like a parting agent so that the mandrel does not get stuck inside the barrel

cheers mooncoon
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom