Hi folks. This is a project I want to takle as a home project for the sake of doing it just once in my life. I want to bore out the bore, ream it and rifle it myself! It's a tall ask, I know. I would prefer not to botch it and actually end up with a shootable gun. The idea is to go so far as to make the rifling broach. I plan on using an old rusted out Lee Enfield Long Tom and turning it into a 375/303 capable of shooting cast bullets.
So .... ideas and suggestions would be appreciated - thanks!

So far, I have come up with a bore/rifling idea that does not require shaping the cutters and indexing the broach for each groove. It involves a bore reamed to size with four narrow, square bottomed grooves with the edges of those grooves at bullet diameter. The principle is the same as the two-groove Lee Enfield barrel.

You would probably be better off cutting a looooonnng throat and shooting the 375 cast stuff down the 303 bore.

There's a couple ways you could do it. You could make a cutter which follows the old rifling and keep cutting them deeper until you get them deep enough for the new bore, then ream out the middle. I have no idea if that will work. You can setup a lathe as a rifling cutter, and older larger lathe would be easier. Introduce a gearbox into the drivetrain for the leadscrew shich has about 100:1 reduction and drive the headstock with the leadscrew. This will get you the twist and carriage travel you need. Put the barrel in the headstock and your rifling cutter into a toolholder on the cattiage. You could make a riffling machine from scratch. They are like a ladder, horizontal, with a wagon rolling down it. By putting a 90d gearbox on the wagon with a gear on the side, driven by a rack along the side of the ladder you get the travel and trwist you need to pull the rifling cutter. The barrel is mounted in a spin indexer on the end, and the rifling tool on the ladder. You can also use chain sprockets with a chain along the ladder. You would have the driven sprocket mounted to the gearbox with the chain looped around most of it with an idler on either side. Then the chain can be tight fastened to each end of the ladder. There is a good article on this in the NRA Gunsmithing guide c1970. The hard part is getting/making the cutter to go into the end of the rifling cutter tube. You drive the whole thing with a big handwheel mounted on the gearbox with the gear/chain sprocket. A small club could put one together in a couple of evenings and have a ball with it.

the foxfire books, one of them, has a "olde" rifling machine in them... how to make and how to use

Thank you! I was looking at our lathes and thinking that would be the easiest. I also thought of making a cutter that follows the old rifling. That should work to 'restore' a barrel by taking it up to the next caliber, ie 303 Brit to 303/8mm but goint to 375 would give too fast a twist (or would it?). Building a complete machine would be fun but where to keep it afterwards? Building an attachment for a lathe seems to be the way to go. The barrel clamp and the power and the bed and lube sytem are already there! Mmmmm.... If I held the barrel in a bearing through the spindle tube with out the chuck attached, all I would need to figure out is the twist drive. Mmmmm....

You've got me thinking about this again. It would be possible (and excellent) to make all those old 8mm barrels into .358 At one time I had all the parts in the shop to make one. a piece of conveyor with legs for the frame, a 90d gearbox, chin and sprockets, everything. But as you said, where to put it.

I think the key point is do you have a pile of metal to practice on?
Your chances of getting everything right on the first try is about zero.

quote:

I think the key point is do you have a pile of metal to practice on?
Your chances of getting everything right on the first try is about zero.

Aah! Yes, exactly! That is a problem. I did try to buy a bunch of old barrels but there were a few usable bits thrown in so I got out-bid. So, no I don't. I did think of trying for 8mm then 357 and then up to 375. The problem is that if I screw up the straightness I would be forced to get another barrel, but they are out there!

As to where to put it, I recon it could be made quite slim. I can get hold of some chrome bar and there is a 90:1 and a 45:1 indexing head I could use on a lathe but the twist would be way too slow unless I can find a step up gearbox - that would be for use on a lathe bed and driven by a static chain. Those same heads would work on a custom machine but I can't keep the heads.
I'm working on it!

Try .35WCF. I have a Krag bored out to that. Not sure the Lee magazine is long enough.

If that's the 35 Winchester it has a 61mm case and the Lee Enfield handles a COL of 75mm so it is do-able. But alas, not practical from a case point of view. How did your 35WCF perform? Accuracy? My Dad used to hunt with a 35 Remington pump action. He shot Cape buffalo with it! He turns 90 in a month or two so he obviously survived!

How much longer than final length should the barrel be for rifle cutting?

I want to start making up the cutter soon.

You can cut-rifle right to the muzzle if your tool is set up right.

303Guy,

If you will PM me with your e-mail I will send you pictures of my rifling cutter. It is fairly simple to make as far as rifling cutters go and as far as I know it is the only design of its kind in existence.

You guys must be bored and have way too much time on your hands.
Butch

You might give Jeff Lawrence call he makes the cutters he uses, and his barrels are as good as any I have seen. I can't find his # for you but he is in Lewistown, MT. LRB rifle barrels look him up he will teach you something. he has made all his rifling machines. And now rifles for the big company's. good luck