Called the boys at the Machine Shop way down in the Georgia Swamps for guidance. Asked 'ol Rufus (used to work for him) just what to do for curing the pains from laughing so hard. Dang, I was quivering like a Georgia Cur Dog passing peach pits!!! Rufus said to take a long snort of some good Toombs County Georgia Moonshine, the type that he used to age up in the attic in 5 gallon charred oak kegs (he added a pound of dried peaches for some "color" and let it sit for 2 years.) Just happened to have a quart of this vile mixture out in the woodshed. Took two snorts to cure things. (If you gents do not know how good Toombs County Shine is, ask JudgeG).

So, I was calmed down enough to root through the box of diskettes and found the below photo. Yup, doing things all wrong again, no follower or steady rest. Hey Jack, how much do you charge for lessons? Do I need to bring one of my lathes? I can trade some Smoked Chinook Salmon for lessons if that's OK with you. Might even bring along some of the Peach Shine to wash it down with.



Note the face plate blur, yup, its turning.

415 RPM, 0.010" dept of cut, 0.005" feed, carbide tool that I ground a chipbreaker in, sulphur based dark cutting oil, no chatter, no follower, no steady. Wonder how this setup gets the job done???? I have turned them down to a 0.485" muzzle diameter and 0.750" just ahead of the chamber area this way.

Look close, the lathe in the background has a 4 jaw chuck on the spindle. Guess I will have to take it off and throw it in the river, as it is useless now that I am well read.

[ 10-13-2002, 03:32: Message edited by: John Ricks ]

John, I hope you have gotten over your laughing fit! I now understand why your turn around is SOOOOOooooo long! At only 0.010" per pass well it is rather obvious.

1.) How many passes would be required to complete the tapering job?

2.) At what point lengthwise on the barrel do you begin such a tapering job?

3.) What was the feed rate? 0.0005" per revolution, 0.001" per revolution, or was it in the range of a production machine @ 0.008" per revolution at a spindle speed of 2000 rpm with a water soluble oil coolant, carbine indexing inserts (round in this case), and a damped, self compensating follow-rest?

4.) How do you turn an approximately 21" long taper on a lathe with only 18" between centers? Robgunbuilder said he did it. Strangely, he has not shared his secret with us. Perhaps, you can provide the enlightenment?

The lathes, you think you know so much about, are merely toys! I ran them as a boy for my Father. You need to get into some BIG Heids or Cincinnati Millicrons.

Actually, my most favorite lathe, to cut steel with was a Detroit Tracer! These lathes were "IRON HOGS". Sadly they are no longer in business. The best tool room lathes, in my opinion, were made by Monarch in Sidney, Ohio. I do not believe they manufacture their high precision tool lathes anymore. Robgunbuilder, Monarch once made a ultra precision tool lathe that was capable of holding to +/- 0.25 microns! This lathe, in a 10" swing 24" between centers configuration, cost over $100,000, more than 20 years ago. We used them to prototype some parts for diesel engine fuel injector pumps.

Seriously, John you should not work yourself up so badly over such trivial things. There are many ways to most ends! Heck I have heard tell that men can chamber a gun with a chambering reamer and hand drill! I know a guy who has done it with a chamber reamer and a tap wrench! I have seen men "deck" engine blocks with a single cut mill file! I have seen engine block bores "honed" with by hand with sand paper! Guess what they all worked! Admittedly, some better than others.

Axel

PS Robgunbuilder, would you please describe the ways and carriage length of the Hardigne lathe? I would like a VERY DETAILED description.

One last point John. If you read my post on the other thread you will find that I describe very accurately what is shown on your picture above! Please note everyone, on the picture John posted that the turning is being done between centers with a face plate and drive dog fixed to the breech end of the barrel. The tail stock has been moved toward the operator; therefore, producing the taper. The tail stock must be moved toward the operator to achieve a reducing taper in the direction of feed from head stock to tail stock. Oh well, I am just a stupid German aren't I.

[ 10-13-2002, 04:01: Message edited by: Axel ]

OH NO, Not another bullshit TEST from that great authority, Todd E. Axel!

Now my side is starting to hurt.

Axel, the purpose of a lathe is not to make metal chips. Most guys use them to do precision machining. Can you say PRE-CI-SION ?

I didn't think so.

Normally I'm not a gambling man, but I'll bet Robgunbuilder would rather work in his shop that play the bullshit game with you. If you want to learn how to use a lathe...save you pennies and go buy yourself one. Then maybe you'll have something to do besides make a fool of yourself.

Jeffe - I can vouch for Axel working in machine shop. This is where we met and became one. We used to sweep up the metal shavings and wipe down the lathes after the shift was done.

Once I even saw Axel turn on a lathe but for just a second when noone was around. it made a lot of noise and scared us both.

Bearclaw, I have heard the same thing! My point is that these "tool room" or "engine" lathes are very simple machines.

You can have a great deal more fun with a 4 or 6 axis CNC lathe! If you are not familiar with these machines, let me tell you they are a blast. It is amazing what can be done. They could easily complete a very complicated barrel contour in a single pass in only around 40 seconds!

I apologize for being hostile in some of my posts, but I find myself under constant attack. This very thread was an attempt at a personal attack on my knowledge. I do not understand any of this. After all, I didn't post that I could complete a full length barrel taper on an 18" lathe and then NOT know how! Now, I could do this, but the important question is, WOULD I? The answer is NO, even though I could machine a 21" - 25" taper on an 18" lathe I WOULD NOT simply because it is FAR MORE WORK THAN IT IS WORTH! I would use a lathe that had at least 30" between centers and use a set-up identical to the one Mr. Ricks posted in the picture above, except I would use a compensating follow rest, just for added insurance against chatter. If I wanted a more "factory" representative contour I would use a manual tracer attachment, if using a manual lathe, or I would contract to a man with a CNC or tracer lathe! Of course I would need to machine a template for the tracer, whether I did it or contracted it out. There is nothing complicate about any of this. If your intent is to flame me go ahead. Show you own ignorance to the whole world, just like the others!

Axel

Axel - Todd Interesting post. I notice you use the words "IF," and claims that "I could" and "if I would" and "whether I could" etc.

In other words, one could safely assume you've never done any of this but are just talking out your ass like you always do.

Instead of attacking the fellows who DO have the equipment in their workshops and basements, instead of attacking the fellows who actually DO the work, (and post the evidence...and have the satisfied customers to PROVE it) why don't you shut your little mouth and give your little over-heated brain a rest.

Go out and actually BUY yourself a lathe, learn how to use it (if possible) and build some rifles of your own! THEN you can get in the game and play with the REAL gun makers. You will even have something to post besides bullshit.

Imagine that...an Axel/Todd E post that wasn't lies and bullshit! That would be something all of us would like to read! In fact, you wouldn't even have to hide behind all your many identities. Wow. I'm making myself dizzy here.

Of course NONE of this will happen...cause you are our resident "Hot Air Specialist."

Can you say "Looooo-Zer?"

Pecos45, yet another highly revealing post to YOUR intellectual capabilities. You are so very obviously a TROLL!

Enjoy yourself,
Axel

Axel,
I have kept quite through most of this crap YOU started. But ya know it getting old and now you are pissin me off!

Who F&*% are you to say;

quote:

---

I WOULD NOT simply because it is FAR MORE WORK THAN IT IS WORTH!

---

WTF? That in its self shows me, son of a gunsmith, and life long shooter and hunter, that you have NO IDEA WHAT ANY OF THIS IS ABOUT!

You may have some of the knowledge you claim, but who gives a rats ass.

When a smiths spends weeks on a barrel taper, months on bolt mods, years on engraving and woodwork, that is somehintg to brag about. Not the "BIG gear he has", or how tight of a tol you can hold.

Let me ask you, wouldnt bragging about this so called gear you have access to be the same as bragging about your Buddies car or hot wife? You sure didnt pay for it!!!! LOL!

I have the most respect for the man who creates, with little or next to nothing, a work of art. Not the one who can produce 500 a day on a production sized peice of equip.

Again like so many here have said, grow up Axel/Todd/whoever the f^%$# you are.

Regards,
JAG

JAG, what precisely is your problem? DO YOU KNOW HOW TO CUT A 22" LONG TAPER ON AN 18" LONG LATHE? IF YOU DID, YOU WOULD IMMEDIATELY UNDERSTAND MY POST AND WHY NO SANE BUSINESS MAN WOULD MAKE A PRACTICE OF DOING THIS!!!!!!!!!!!

Put very simply. You are flirting with disaster by scrapping out BARRELS attempting such a feat. It is simply stunt work. I would only do it if I had no other choice.

I am sorry if you have fallen for all the Bullshit thrown out by Robgunbuilder and now you are having problems with the fact that you have been a fool. Please do not blame me for Robgunbuilder's lies.

I suspect the reason Robgunbuilder has remained so quiet is that he is desperately attempting to figure out how to turn a 22" long taper on an 18" long lathe! Gunsmiths are not Journeymen Machinists by the way. It takes about 6 years of training to become a Journeyman as I recall. Last I checked most gunsmithing courses lasted 12 to 18 months with the exceptional ones taing two years. I worked for two years as an apprentice engineer for the Robert Bosch Foundation. I spent almost all of that time in prototype fabrication of diesel fuel injection and automotive brake systems. The engineering apprenticeship is the main reason that German engineers are vastly superior to American engineers, in my opinion. The German engineer has both the "book smarts" and the hands on experience, while the American engineer is just a book worm!

Axel

funny,
I directly called Axel a foolish man in german, and he missed it.

Axel, we are no longer listening. We are going back to having fun about guns, so go either reinvent yourself, or SHARE your data.

By all means, people will not aggree with you, and when you are hyporcritical, we'll note it.

Since you first challenged John's cut, and then said you would do it exactly the same way, and then ignored that I told you .010 is a serious cut on precision, we can assume that you have NOT done this.

In all honesty, even the stones have wisdom, but we are tired of you trashing this place.

as for "sane bidness man would not do it this way", well,
1: Rob and I are hobbist.
2: 20" lathe is $$
3: 24" lathe is $$$$
4: 31" lathe, when chinese and PROPERLY setup, will runout less than .0005 at 31" Thats good enough, said fred.
5: aint none of us on here can afford "a couple" 4 or 6 axis cnc lathes or the finest german lathes.

have a nice day
jeffe

Jeffeosso, I missed your german! BTW, 0.010" is not a heavy cut. I have a lathe that will hopefully be posted soon by Nickudu, which will easily handle a 0.010" cut.

I believe you are mistaking swing for center distance. Most of the Chinese lathes on the market are at least 24" between centers. Many are 36" between centers. Most of these cheap POS lathes have 12" or 13" swings. Many are also gap lathes, which allows for additional swing in the immediate vicinity of the head stock by removing a section of the bed. This is, in my opinion, a bad thing as it reduces the rigidity of the lathes bed.

Personally, I am not very fond of German lathes. I think that American and English "tool room" and Engine lathes are far better. Monarch lathes are made in the USA, or at least I understood that Sidney, Ohio was part of the USA. I think Monarch lathes were the best in the Engine lathe department. Another lathe that I like very much, and is big, is the American. I do not think they have been in business for sometime.

Cincinnati Millicron is a USA company. In my opinion, the manufacture some of the finest CNC machines in the World. Heid, is NOT a German CNC, it is Austrian. They make again, in my opinion, the best European CNC lathes.

I do not mean to sound like a know it all, but for 12 years I was a Manufacturing Engineer and part of my job responsibilities was the purchasing of machines.

Axel

[ 10-14-2002, 05:33: Message edited by: Axel ]

JAG, it seems I owe you an apology. I assumed that you knew that machining is machining! Since it is obvious you do not, I can see how all this arguing is over your head.

Let me say that it does not really matter if you are turning a rifle barrel contour or a table leg. If the materials and tolerances are the same the actual components use is irrelevant. A part is made to a print specification. This applies to table legs and RIFLE BARRELS. I would suspect that the rifle barrel print specifications require tighter tolerances than a table leg, but you never know.

For the record, I have NEVER claimed to be gunsmith. I have 12 years experience in as a Manufacturing Engineer. In that time I was responsible for machining operations which included turning, boring, and grinding. I am well verse in machining. I realize you do not know me, but I have gun drilling experience, long shaft contouring experience, and a great deal of additional machining experience. I can tell when someone is full of crap when the subject is machining!

I can appreciate the work of a fine craftsman. It doesn't matter if the craftsman work manifests itself as a gun, automobile, or sculpture. You should really calm down. After all this is only a chat room.

Axel

If you can appreciate the work of a fine craftsman, then why have you not shown that once. All you have done is bash people that dont do things a certain way.

It is a shame as I would bet that if you agree to disagree with people more often instead of pickin at em like a school kid you could contribute a great deal here.

You may ever learn somthing.

Calm enough for ya?
JAG

Axel - I told you I would chill out if you would stop attacking people, and I will.

JAG is giving you some FIRST RATE advice here and I hope you'll listen to him.

I seldom read thru a line of posts that I don't find someone doing something I don't necessarily agree with. But 99% of the time it's nothing wrong...just a different way than I do it. There's all sorts of ways to do EVERYTHING. Who is to say whose way is best?

There's probably a zillion different ways to do most machine work. As JAG says, who gives a flip how I do it or you do it or Saddam does it? Don't mean nothing so long as the guy doing the work is happy at the end of the day.

If you think you know a better way to do something, tell someone. If they don't wanna do it that way, cool. Maybe they know something you don't or maybe they are just comfortable with the way they do it. It's hard to MAKE someone learn something. You set out knowledge like a plate of cookies. Not everyone will eat.

The only time anyone needs to jump up and down here is if someone tells someone to do something that is DEADLY DANGEROUS...but we don't see much of that. I once THOUGHT I found a guy that was doing a very dangerous thing with powders on this site. I told him...and after a few calm posts I found out I was wrong. Which is cool. I been wrong before. It didn't hurt.

The point with all this, Axel, is your welcome to be a CONTRIBUTOR...and fellow LEARNER. But please don't come onto the forums as an assassin, looking for somebody to say something you disagree with so you can try to cut them in half. There are only two types of people on these forums as far as I'm concerned. Those who came to learn and idiots.

If you'll try, you'll learn a lot. And maybe you can help someone else learn a thing or two as well.

Just my .02$ worth.

Gentlemen,

You might enjoy this story.

It is all true.

I would like to explain a few things here for all our friends. First of all there is no one amongst us here at Accurate Reloading that has had any formal training as a gunsmith, except one! And he seems to be at the receiving end of everyone�s trickery. But, what we lacked in training we made up for by being very persistent. All of us have been shooting as far as we care to remember � one of us actually claims he was born with a rifle in each hand! And seeing all the crazy projects he keeps coming up, I do not doubt that for one minute!

A lot of time is spent here in the workshop and lab. We have made a great discovery, though, that as the number of people increases, the amount of work tends to decrease. Generally, what happens is that the more people we have here, arguments tend to increase. Sometimes, these arguments become quite heated. We have not come to blows yet, but a few individuals here have met with some very funny surprises � we were unable to find out who the instigator of all these surprises was, which in turn made every one suspect every one else! This seems to have the effect of encouraging people to plan �things� to happen to everyone else! As you can imagine, this is not very conducive to good working relationships at all!

All the stories that you will read here are based on fact! Every single one of them! We have changed the names and some of the morbid details to protect the guilty.

We have been reloading, fixing and generally messing up our guns for over 20 years. One day we decided to really splash out and buy a lathe. The lathe arrived while all the staff members were away doing what they are best at, having great fun - on an African safari � more of this later. A son of one of the crew decided to be helpful and pick the lathe from the airport. (Actually he was asked to do that, with a promise of a handsome reward after our return � I really do not wish to convey the idea that anyone here does anything for nothing!) He borrowed a small truck from one of his friends � without telling the aforementioned friend what he intended to carry in the truck. He wasted no time in driving all the way to the airport. He had the lathe loaded in his truck, and he headed to our workshop. When he arrived at the workshop premises, they tried to unload the lathe from the side of the truck � it was one of those funny trucks that have the sides come off. He seemed to have forgotten that the lathe weighed about a ton, he had managed to gather about eight people to help him unload the truck. They decided to pull the lathe off the side of the truck, and lower it to the ground using some wooden poles. They all got to one side and started to push the lathe to the other side. As the lathe neared one side of the truck � the truck keeled over on its side! Luckily, the lathe was not damaged, as it was still in its crate.

Upon our arrival from our hunting trip, we wanted to have the lathe installed and balanced in our workshop. We asked a friend of ours who is in charge of a major heavy equipment workshop. He kindly agreed to do the job for us � under the understanding that we leave him to do all the work without any �help� from us. His actual words were � I can do that in one afternoon without your lot helping me. If any of your bunch of nitwits gets to helping, we�ll be there for a whole month!� We did not want to answer that sort of remarks � we were desperate to have the lathe installed.

Well, the lathe was installed and balanced perfectly, and now a number of us were left twiddling our fingers not knowing what to do with it. It did not take long before a decision was made to try our hands on an old barrel. We have a Remington 700 barrel that had a 222 Remington chamber.

Now I would like you to go back to the beginning of this story, and remember that none of us knew anything about chambering a barrel. None of us has ever even SEEN a chambering reamer before.

We managed to get hold of a 22 BR Remington reamer. The barrel was put in the lathe, and the whole bunch of prospective gunsmiths watched in awe as �our� gunsmith proceeded to cut the chamber. What really happened was that he spent about half an hour scratching his head � then he admitted that he had never chambered a barrel before!? That really did it! Everyone one wanted to put his pennyworth of advice in!

We were debating how to start the job. We installed the reamer in a chuck, which was in turn installed into the tailstock.

We proceeded to cut the chamber � being very careful to pull out the reamer and clean it and the chamber every 0.300 or so. Some bright character suggested that it might be a good idea to try the GO and NO-GO gauges now. We did and the Go gauge disappeared into the new chamber completely! We tried the NO-GO gauge, and this one disappeared into the chamber too! A fired 22 BR Remington case was tried next, and that one disappeared into the barrel too! We put a 243 Winchester case into the chamber � and bingo! It fits perfectly.



As you can imagine, that barrel was thrown away. We called a friend of ours who is a master gunsmith. We told him about our first reaming job. I thought something must have gone wrong with the phone line, as all I could hear was �OH JEEZ, OH JEEZ, OH JEEZ� repeated over and over again! Eventually � about 20 minutes later - I received an earful of insults intermixed with a few words of advice for us to stay away from the lathe. Well, we cannot really follow that advice, we�ve got the lathe and we are going to make some use of it.

Eventually, we managed to persuade our friend on the phone to give us some advice. He offered to make us a reamer holder, as putting the reamer in a chuck and sticking it in the tailstock is not conducive to good gunsmithing practice.

We had to wait for the reamer holder to arrive, and as soon as it did, we all ran back to the lathe. Among the instructions we received was that we should use a drill to start the chamber, and stop just short of the shoulder, using a drill with a slightly smaller diameter than the narrowest part of the reamer.

Now that our master gunsmith had received some instructions, he was ready to try again. And if you remember the old saying �a little knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all!� It turns out to be absolutely true. As our gunsmith gathered all his calipers, micrometer, reamer, and a set of drills around him, we were all pushing each other trying to get closer to see what is going on.

We were told to watch, but keep our mouths shot. And under the threat of being thrown out of the workshop, we had to comply.

This time we were actually using a brand new barrel from Hart in 30 caliber, and it was supposed to be chambered for the 308 Winchester. The chambering was finished, the bolt was tentatively closed on the GO gage, and to all the relief of everyone, the bolt would NOT CLOSE on the NO GO gage. Success at long last.

Bedding the action was not too difficult, as we have members here who are very good at it. A couple of days later, the rifle was ready to be fired. There was no volunteer to test fire the rifle! So I had to have that dubious honour. I loaded a round with a minimum charge and fired it. No drama at all. I opened the bolt and � SURPRISE, SURPRISE � the empty case that came out was like no other that I have EVER seen! It seems to have sprouted a brand new shoulder, in addition to its original one! If you look at the picture at the top you will see what I mean!

And as we tend to look at the brighter side of things here � I am afraid we have too, as we generally do not manage to get a job done in less than 150 tries! Everyone was jumping up and down shaking hands and slapping each other on the shoulders, a few received a punch or two on the nose, but we attributed that to over excitement! We were all celebrating the invention of a brand NEW WILDCAT! Now everyone wants to shoot this incredible invention! I had to burst everyone�s bubble by telling them that this was not new at all, as I remember seeing pictures of George Leonard Herter�s Ram magnums, and those had a sort of double shoulder! Now may be we have discovered his secret! I think we can relate to old George, he must have made the same mistake as us!

That did not work, they still wanted to shoot it. We did our usual break in for the barrel, and as usual with the excellent barrels from Mr. Hart, the barrel stopped getting copper fouling after about 10 shots. We picked a load we knew to be accurate with the Sierra 168 Match King bullet, and proceeded to fire our first group. Our first 5 shot group went into a ragged hole measuring 0.350�!? Yes, I know, we were SHOCKED too! A few more groups were fired with the same load, and all stayed below 0.500�!

Now we have a slight problem. We can only load a case once, as we have no reloading dies for this brand new invention. A heated argument ensued, and a decision was finally made to cut half an inch off the barrel and re-chamber it. This argument won over the idea of leaving the barrel as is, and sending a fired case to either RCBS or Redding to make us a set of dies for it. We decided this was going to take too long for us to enjoy shooting this rifle. Of course, all this happened a LOOOOONG time ago � just a few days really! But we seem to have learnt so much, if the same thing happened again, we would just make our own set of dies. After all, we are ALL seasoned gunsmiths now.

Pecos45,
I am not trying to kill em, just give him a wake up.

BTW the last clubhouse I was in, I brought beer, and got a bug worked out of my bike.
And then was told to get lost! At least my bike was running right.

Saeed, great story.

Remember all, we are just a product of what we learn and experiance, good, bad and ugly.