I am interested to know how some of you folks finish the exterior of a barrel when rebarelling. I recently had a client ask for a "...polished or emoryed..." finish. I was originally confused by what he meant by emoryed, but after he explained it, turns out he was talking about using a vibratory sander with 120 grit paper and working over the exterior for some type of contrast. I do a lot of polish, blued, matte finish and bead blasted but not this one. How do you do it?

Jim

A random orbit or dual action sander works in a circular motion rather than back or forth leaving a swirl pattern in the finished work. The coarser the grit, the more pronounced the pattern. The pattern these sanders leave is more discernable on metal than wood. Try it on a piece of polished steel and you will see what I'm talking about.

I can only speak for a stainless barrel. You can polish it to a mirror, but it will show every scratch. I prefer a light sanded finish, which I do in the lathe. Done while turning, it leaves an even "brushed" finish.

Is he very insistent about it? As has been said, the "emoried" finish is just a fancy word for "sanded" and the rest depends just on how you go about it. IMHO it is a cheap way, in labor, equipment, and effort. And if the rest of the gun is not done half-assed it will show. Again this is my opinion only. I would suggest bead blasting as a better alternative for what finish it sounds like he wants.

However, this weekend I am hoping to Gun-Kote the Shilen barrel on my Tactical 20, which is now bead blasted. If it might help your customer I'd be glad to take some pics, one of the current finish, and then I could do an emory finish on a section so he could see the difference. Since it will all be blasted again it won't matter to me, be glad to help out.

Howdy,
Jim, let us know what happens with this and how it turns out. I'm very interested.

Coach