Since my action wrench doesn't hold and has took a bite on my Lee-Enfield #4mk1 action, I sent it out and let a competent gunsmith do the barrel removal job. According to the smith who did it, it was very tight.

Today I got it back, there's a lot of sand and black stuff in the threads. The sands are very uniform in size, rounded, and translucent, like the kind of sand found near the sea. The 1943 gun must have been to a beach.

I put the barrel back into the receiver, screwed it in hand tight and found out the barrel is still indexed at 1 o'clock (or 11 o'clock, depend on how you look at it). It will take another 30 degree rotation to get it back to its original position. According to my calculation the amount of rotation will advance another 0.006" into the receiver! Not the traditional 0.002" crush!

To make my future barrel installation and removal easy and cheap(without paying 50$CDN to have someone else do it), I don't plan to ever screw barrels in that tight. But what is the minimum amount of torque that MUST be applied to barrel/action assemblies?

Pyrotek,

I am going to guess that the barrel torque on my (switch barrel) target rifle is probably about 10 ft.lbs, and I haven't had one come loose yet. I put just enough on the foot-long action rest to snug it up (would guess it's about 10 pounds). I grease the threads, and apply oil to the action and barrel at the shoulder before installation.

A guy that I shoot HP Silhouette with keeps his barrel installed "hand tight"....

Don't know how much to put on it for a more "permanent" installation, but 30 dgrees sounds like an awful lot to me. I am going to guess it is around one degree (barely moves) past "hand-tight" on my rifle.

Of course YMMV, and I can and do make mistakes....

Good luck,

Bill

Pyrotech, crush is not the distance from hand snub to indicated. It is from the limits of the stub length to tight dead nuts. May be confusing but it is based on physical stops on the action and the barrel threaded shank. The shank will be longer by that amount.