I am about to thread my medium weight barrel (approx .860 at the muzzle) for a muzzle brake, I was wondering if anyone can pass along some procedures for mounting the barrel in the lathe, I don't have the so called spyder that is mounted at the rear of the headstock, do I need to make one, or is there a simpler way to do it. the gun is a 300 win mag. Savage.

thanks
Chet

You dont have to make a spider for doing brakes.
what I do for brakes is to chuck up a 1.75" piece of nylon round stock in my 3 jaw. Then turn to 1.45" dia. My spindle ID is 1.5".
I then drill it while in the 3 jaw and open about 1/2" worth to my desired barrel diameter and cut it off. I did this until a had enough for just about every conture I have ever seen.

Duct tape the barrel to avoid any scratches and slip the proper size nylon bushing you made over the barrel so it will be inside the spindle close to the rear of it. Chuck the protected (I use copper) muzzle end in your 4 jaw and indicate to the BORE using a good fitting plug guage in the bore and go to work.

FWIW
Celt

[ 04-29-2003, 02:50: Message edited by: Celt ]

PS.
I do NOT use the bushings for barreling. I use a spider.

Make yourself a spider! It's so much easier that way!-Rob

Yo! to Rob and the spider!! If you are going to chuck up more than one barrel in your lifetime, a spider is a must have. Just be sure to make it with 4 screws instead of 3, it is much easier to indicate a barrel with 4 screws.

And for Celt: Welcome back: How is Del Rio? I lived in San Antonio back in the early 70's, I am sure the border towns have changed a lot.

Annnnnnnd for Celt, and others, if you are into serious barrel work (as I am sure Celt is!!) then another must have is shown in this thread. Once you have used this critter you will never go back to the other make shift methods.

http://www.serveroptions.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=006210#000002

Just be sure to scroll down and read all of the posts on this topic.

How about removing the barrel and doing it between centers?

Malm

Thanks for the welcome John!
Del Rio is not too bad, in fact it is much bigger than the town I came from. It is fairly nice, unlike what I hear about most border towns. The LEO here really does a fine job in keeping things in check. My partner is with the Sheriffs dept. so I got a good tour of the area and details about what goes on where.

That steady rest is really cool. It reminds me of a type we used when I was with Answer. I didnt build it so I dont know what it was made from. It was a small 4 jaw chuck rigged up as a steady rest. I think it was either a 6" or a 4" 4 jaw. We used it to do brakes on rifles that we could not get through the spidle like a Thompson center and the Winchesters with the double recoil lugs. It worked pretty good, although we had to keep the RPMs down when using it
I may have to set up a new one in the future.

On the bushings deal that I posted about,it works great for brakes, but brakes only. I got that again from Answer where we did about 1000 brakes a year. It was fast and easy for just doing brakes and worked real well too.

Great info! Thanks
Celt

[ 04-29-2003, 21:24: Message edited by: Celt ]