So.. I wanted a new barrel for the M14

[Plink]

And.. who else would I see..... but Hungry.......

Showed up with my rifle in parts, and we proceeded to make it MORE parts.....

Hungry had a nice Krieger Criterion barrel ready for the install. Nice setup in the "lab". All the tools and Johnson bars required to make the barrel swap easy.. Heck, he even offered me a beer.... at 09:20........ LOL

The intricacies to the swap are really not that hard once you understand the process. The finer points of how it all goes together and why.. are....

As you can see here, Hungry is busy mashing something on my receiver to make sure it works correctly... Notice the lighting.. very key for a mad scientists lab.

The process was fairly straight forward.

Strip the rifle to nothing other than barrel and receiver.

Using the proper tools, remove the old barrel.. (Life is made so much easier with the proper tools to do the job...

Install the new barrel and index it. (little bit of fiddling there, and it's worth the extra few minutes) Indexing is pretty straight forward, just requires some time and patience and a good eyeball.. LOL

Install new oprod guide - wish I had taken pictures there... Hungry had me "dimple" the barrel where the guide would go on. Makes it nice and snug. Hungry has some other neat ideas for how to do this.. stay tuned

New USGI gas lock.. We tried several until we found one that fit properly for the gas assembly... And.. LOOK MA!! No SHIMS!... Yeah, ya gotta see it.


Put 'er back together and head to the range........

At the range we popped a few rounds to get zero and just enjoy some sunshine (great day here). This is the finished product with the new barrel in a USGI wood stock and M1A flash hider. (Got the USGI fiberglass here as well, going to test it this week)

Fired a few rounds and Hungry checked the headspace.........

Can you say .. OMFG.?? LOL Very nice...


The rifle shot beautifully, but.. doesn't "sing" anymore with the new flash hider

Oh well... Here kitty kitty...


All in all, a big thanks to Hungry for the hands on M14 instruction and for giving me a big sh!t eating grin for the afternoon. Valuable information you gave me, and an awesome way to spend the day...

Cheers !

 

[Matt308]

Yep He sure is Da'Man. He helped me out with a USGI bolt install not to long ago. same headspace as yours. Nice looking build you got there.

 

[Hungry]

Yes, folks... you can see what the Krieger Criterion barrel did upon installation WITH (yes, it is a Norinco bolt we are using) a Norinco factory bolt. No finish reaming was needed whatsoever. We screwed the barrel on and indexed it while Plink provided all the MUSCLE. What a tough guy leaning on the receiver wrench (and the cheater bar, too).

Upon test firing we found that the chamber mic'ed 1 thou! We now have a match chamber with the Norc receiver, Norc bolt, and Krieger Criterion barrel. YES, it's only 1 thou above the 1.630" SAAMI spec for GO Gauge. Most Norc chambers are mic'ing around 10 thou to 16 thou. My USGI M14's back in the mid-80's were around 14 thou to 18 thou. My L1A1 from Austrayia (gotta pronounce that right, mates.... ) mic'ed well over 20 thou.

So, if we can find a dealer (hint, hint ) to import these Krieger Criterion barrels, life would be just perfect. ha ha ha ha

If you M14 addicts got any questions, please fire away. I'm sure the local experts, Ingram Custom Rifleworks, and other dealers can answer your re-barreling project questions!

Cheers,
Barney

 

[Canadian eh!]

Great looking rifle !

Loving that with the walnut stock!

I keep telling Hungry that I am going to get myself one of these..... If the shorty version comes back into stock I may get pushed over the edge. in fact why get one, when I could buy two!! I don't want anything falling off .....

Have fun with that one Plink!

 

[Repro77]

My M14 has been on that bench as well, plus he taught me how he was doing it, which is the real bonus in my opinion.

I bought a Winchester USGI bolt, and a Springfield USGI barrel from Barney, and he asked me to drive up and we would BOTH install them, and what a treat it was!

Once we had it all together, we went shooting! That combo measured out at 1.634, with no lapping, and it all went together like butter!