Couple falling block on steroids action projects are almost finished and need barrel blanks. I hadn't gone shopping for blanks over .458 for a while. Not sure where to look for sourcing them.

Looking for somebody that makes / to make a ~22-24" .700 blank and a ~48 inch long BMG blank.

Any recommended sources to look at? Better/worse quality of service.

I've been running into "we aren't tooled to do .700) with barrel makers I've called on the one project and "We don't make barrels longer than 38" on the other project. Exact twists and grooves haven't been decided firmly on, just bore size for one (still debating which .700 cartridge) and cartridge t'other.

I've a friend that has all the tooling to do both but the machines are mothballed because he's in a different area of gunsmithing now and he doesn't currently have a place as far as floor space to set them up if he had the time to make barrels again.

All suggestions welcome.

Hope it's cool if I post this at the BMG and Big Bore Forums too, in case somebody with knowledge at one of those places doesn't generally read here. ???


Thanks,

thanks
PM

Boots Obermeyer of Obermeyer Rifled Barrels in MI can make you anything your little heart desires. He makes, among other things, 37mm cannon barrels for the feds. K&P Rifle Barrels of Raton, NM specializes in cut-rifled 50 BMG barrels and may be able to help.
Regards, Joe

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
Boots Obermeyer of Obermeyer Rifled Barrels in MI can make you anything your little heart desires. He makes, among other things, 37mm cannon barrels for the feds. K&P Rifle Barrels of Raton, NM specializes in cut-rifled 50 BMG barrels and may be able to help.
Regards, Joe

Boots Obermeyer is in Bristol, Wisconsin and has been forever. It is Blasphemy to associate the father of cut rifled barrels to MI. All of the great cut barrels come from Wisconsin Krieger, Rock,Obermeyer,Brux,Bartlein, Badger and many more semi local and up and commers. Just bustin your Ba--s a little in good fun as a proud Wisconsinite.

Sorry, I hit the wrong key, they're so close you know....

Yes, Boots is definitely The Man, no question, and I believe he's the guy who taught all those others or at least most of them. Boots in his day was taught by Bill Prator at Trinidad, who also taught Bob Snapp and many others.

When you say all great cut-rifled barrels come from WI, I can only assume you mean all the ones made in the US(G). There's a fellow named Ron Smith, in Canada, who is perhaps the best practitioner of cut-rifling in the world today. I repeat, perhaps the best in the world today.
Regards, Joe

J.D., unless they reopened K&P has been out of business for a few years.
Butch

Sorry to hear that, Butch. I was out there revisiting Trinidad a few years ago and got them to cut me a 22RF octagon barrel with a breech tulip. At that time they were having a lotta trouble getting good help and were quite disappointed at A)the lack of interest shown by the Trinidad gunsmithing students (potential part-time employees) and B)the lack of energy & honesty shown by the local residents (actual full-time employees). I was rather surprised at the lack of student interest since when I was at Trinidad in the '60s my roommate worked part-time for the Raton chamber reamer maker Paul Mayer. I woulda thought any interested smithing student would leap at the chance to learn cut-rifling and actually get paid for it, but apparently not. Again, too bad.
Regards, Joe

Well J.D., the way some of us were treated when we went by there before they closed, I don't think I could have worked there either. It is too bad as I have seen some excellent barrels come out of that shop. It was only a him and a her when we went by. I think it was a case of a guy that really knew how to make barrels but couldn't manage people.
Butch

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
Boots Obermeyer of Obermeyer Rifled Barrels in MI can make you anything your little heart desires. He makes, among other things, 37mm cannon barrels for the feds. K&P Rifle Barrels of Raton, NM specializes in cut-rifled 50 BMG barrels and may be able to help.
Regards, Joe

Unless you want a .308 barrel, you're probably not going to get anything from Boots for a loooong time. The military has him backlogged with work and the only commercial stuff he is getting out are .308's occasionally because he is already set up. I asked him for a 6.5 barrel and he just smiled and shook his head. He is a one man shop. I've had the privledge of being squadded with him for the last two Palma matches I've attended at Lodi. Boots is a class act and one hellova good shot too.

Boots told me that he was what he called "a cast-iron junkie" with over 80 machines in his shop. I can only envy and dream....

Ken of K&P seemed like a pretty nice fellow if somewhat opinionated but I guess maybe he has a right since he's the barrelmaker and I'm the amateur machinist. Peggy OTOH seemed to have what I can only describe as a Type A personality on steroids. I strongly suspect that the local Raton work ethic clashed with their expectations.
Regards, Joe