Can the home gunsmith recrown a rifle barrel? I have heard that a big drill like a 1/2" or so, bigger than the barrel anyway, can be used to recrown a barrel. Is this true? I have a winchester 94 that the barrel is in need of a recrowning, or should I just take it in to a gunsmith and wait a few weeks to have it done.
Recrown a bad muzzle
- Thread starter hunter64
- Start date
Depends on how bad the crown is.
If the end of the barrel is buggered up, you either need to order the crowning tool and do it yourself or take it to a gunsmith.
If there is just a nick in the crown, you can use a round headed brass bolt and some valve grinding paste to touch up the crown. Chuck the bolt in a drill, plug the barrel with a patch, and gently run the head of the bolt against the crown with some paste on it. I finish up with JB bore paste.
I've done this on a few airguns and a couple of .22's. Turned some of them from so-so rifles to tack drivers.
If the end of the barrel is buggered up, you either need to order the crowning tool and do it yourself or take it to a gunsmith.
If there is just a nick in the crown, you can use a round headed brass bolt and some valve grinding paste to touch up the crown. Chuck the bolt in a drill, plug the barrel with a patch, and gently run the head of the bolt against the crown with some paste on it. I finish up with JB bore paste.
I've done this on a few airguns and a couple of .22's. Turned some of them from so-so rifles to tack drivers.
Slash5 said:
Good advice, But you should finish any crown job with the brass lap
remember the crown is only the leading edge of the rifleing the rest is just protection
If the problem is say (pitting) you need to see how far into the rifleing you need to go to clean it up so it is in good rifleing
If you need to cut some of the barrel off your best to have a smith do the job on a lathe
I think it would still be cheaper than buying the crowning tools
Definitly do not use a drill bit unles you have a pilot to guide you or you will make it worse
Sunray: I have a digital camera but I have to figure out how to post to the forum, once I do that I will add a picture. The end looks like it was dropped on a hard object and has kind of squished the side of the very end of the barrel so when you look down it you can see that it is not quit perfectly round.
It should be mentioned that you cannot recrown any barrel with a bearing screwhead or any other contraption. The lapping of the crown is best left untouched unless it is absolutelt necessary and only to remove a very small burr. In my opinion the only way to do a proper crown is with the barrel set up between centers or indicated true in a lathe if working close to the headstock. The objective is to get a perfectly perpendicular cut to the bore.
bigbull
bigbull
i recrowned an old 222 of mine with a round grinder ball thingy(technical term) that fit in the end of my dremel tool shaft . Turned it at a reletivley slow speed, then pollished the #### out of it with jewlers rouge. Say what you want about home crown jobs, but mine turned out great. Shot many hundreds of gophers at 100+ yards.
Here is what I did. Looking from the end of the muzzle down inside, I could see about 1/4" of bad rifleing/grooves and the the outside of the crown had mad the muzzle out of round (probably from droping it on the ground). In a drill press, I used a 1/2" drill bit and removed just enough to get the barrel muzzle to be round again. I then used my dremel tool with a conical sanding attachment and turned the speed down to the lowest setting and removed the big cuts that the drill bit made. For a final polishing, I used a brass stove bolt and some polishing compound and made the exit nice and smooth. I removed the plug I had in the barrel and cleaned out the barrel as normal. Today I test fired it at the range and with 150gr. speer bullets and 3031 powder I did 3/4" at 50 yards with 10 shots over a 1/2 hour period and 1 3/8" at 100 yards over 1/2 hour time. I am very happy for a 30/30 that is not supposed to be accurate out of the box.
If you have a piloted 60 degree chamfering reamer you can touch up a crown in 15 seconds. No abrasives required.
The actual shape of the end of the barrel does not matter much, but it is quite important the "edge" where the rifling meets the air is burr free and concentric with the bore.
Drills are a sure way to screw it up as are most home methods done as an experiment.
Touching up a crown with a piloted reamer as I described usually costs nothing. Setting it up in the lathe and doing it is usually $20 to $40 in my shop.
The actual shape of the end of the barrel does not matter much, but it is quite important the "edge" where the rifling meets the air is burr free and concentric with the bore.
Drills are a sure way to screw it up as are most home methods done as an experiment.
Touching up a crown with a piloted reamer as I described usually costs nothing. Setting it up in the lathe and doing it is usually $20 to $40 in my shop.
