What exactly are the procedures for making an integral rib barrel that makes one cost what they do?

22WRF,

It's machine time, you start out with a 1 1/2 diameter barrel blank and most of it is on the floor when your done. Then the general knownledge of knowing how to machine the integral rib and the costs of owning a machine shop. There's one other thing that adds to the cost, back in the 20's when Mauser was building them, they had a production line building perhaps a 100 or more at a time. You only want one...

are you referring to one that is actually machined as part of the original barrel blank....or one that is attached by screws/solder?

In the first case the machining cost would be horrendous.....I'd venture in excess of $1,000 if you could find someone to do it at all.

The attached ones start like this

Dakota 1/4 rib is to start...$75
sights to fit in the rib.....$95

and this is assuming you have a barrel countour to match the 1/4 rib. If not the rib must be contoured to your barrel.

and we haven't attached it yet nor have we blued it yet nor filed the sight notches yet.

IMO $500 to attach a 1/4 rib to an existing gun would not at all be an unreasonable fee.....

You may want to give Lothar Walter a call in Atlanta...I was talking with a fellow there yesterday, just shopping.

He was nice enough to walk me through part of the process before he had to take another call...like Mark advised machine time and set-up is a significant factor in cost...when I asked about purchasing two integral rib barrels, the price dropped by 20 percent just due to set-up cost...Now if you could get a group buy up that may save a bit more

Well, again, I do know a little bit about machining and the use of a dividing head, but not exactly what procedure is used. I know I am oversimplifying it a bit, but It would seem to me that it is basically running a milling table back and forth quite a few times while turning the head every once in awhile, and then a final hand finish to get everything perfectly round.
How much time does it take?

The folks I know that make them use a 1/8th slitting saw. You have to taper the barrel in the lathe up to the beginning of the rib and then set up in the mill to match that taper to the shank in less than 1/8th rotational increments. If you try a bigger bite than 1/8th then vibration/ocillation of the barrel will make the rough machined part unpolishable.

The transition from the taper to the cylindrical shank is also tough. It is basically the diameter of the saw but each pass has to stop with exactly the same travel. The eye can detect a variance as small as 3 millionths under the right light... Then another set up or two to shape the front of the rib depending on the style you want to end up with; one more to mill the flat on top. Then add inumerable doodads if you want to continue with the complexity of the basic rib.

then, when you've finished all that, add about 40 hours of hand polishing to make all that machine work look like something to be proud of.

Last year a buddy of mine had 3 done. They were in the neighborhood of $2500.............Dj

All of this gets me to thinking why cant a person just have them forged close to final shape so that all that is left is the final draw filing and polishing.

As I read this thread the first thought I had was Ralf Martini -I see that I was not the only one.
Glenn

Just an observation, but it seems that there is less work required to make an octagonal barrel with integral rib than a round one, is this correct?

Rob

quote:

Originally posted by Recoil Rob:
Just an observation, but it seems that there is less work required to make an octagonal barrel with integral rib than a round one, is this correct?

Rob

Less of a headache would be more like it.

SDH

On what authority do you say that forging is out of the question. It is my understanding that Winchester starts out with a stub of steel and through a hammer forging process ends up with a finished barrel. Moreover I have been in tours through plants that do forging and have seen some rather complex parts being manufactuered by forging. So I would be interested to know exactly why it is that the barrel shape with a quarter rib or a full length rib could not be forged?

Hammer forging is a rotational process that produces cylindrical shapes. It can't accomodate octagonal shapes without a complete redesign of the machine, or finished a rib at all. But it could create the boss from which the rib is milled. Conventional forging presses could make a rough barrel but I'd hate to be the one to get it to shoot straight. And finally, it would take enough extra finishing to outweigh the advantage of the original forging.

Truth is, if there was demand for 1 million a month someone would create the machinery to produce them cheaply. But like Mark said, the demand is about 100 a year.

well, i guess you could forge the outside of the barrel and then bore and cut the rifling...

and then spend a zillion hours cleaning it up.


if the bore is already done, forging from there would result in a worthless-for-shooting-but-nice-looking piece of bent pipe

one of my projects is to build a purpose built CNC machine to turn these... 100 a year would be nice if i could get 1/2 of those...


jeffe

jeffe

Triggertate

The demand is only 100 per year because the cost is high. If the cost were lower the demand would be higher. If they could be made with very little imcremental cost over a plain round barrel people would probably opt to pay the incremental cost to own one.

don't get me wrong. I am NOT saying that Mr. Martini's or Mr. Stratton's or anyone elses labor to make a nice ribbed barrel is not worth the price they ask. Whatever their time is worth to them is what their time is worth. I am just trying to figure out the procedure and the amount of time, not the cost of the time.

Well, Ruger makes a nice intergral some way or other and sells the whole gun for less than the cost of a barrel in the white and I don't see their production ramping up into the tens of thousands, much less the thousands. For most people, a rifle is a tool like a hammer. They just don't want to drive nails with a gold-inlayed and engraved one. Even the guys who make titanium hammers for professional carpenters don't capture a big piece of the market.

To go a step further, their exclusivity is a big part of their appeal. If you can bring them down to conventional barrel cost plus 20%, that part of the market will devise another way to regain that same exclusivity, be it ovate ribs or whatever. These folks are not in the market for cheap.

tigger,

Ruger doesn't make an integral rib. The make barrels with quarter ribs added. They aren't the same thing. One is a 2 piece system the other everything is made from 1 piece. Thus the added cost of machining for the integral ribs/sights.

Bill

I could be wrong but I understood the RSM rifles were integral. I know the #1s are two-piece.

22WRF, You're right here but there's two different kinds of forging happening as well

One is "drop forging".....also known as drop HAMMER forging and this process can produce actions, tire irons, wheel pullers crescent wrenches etc.

The other is "rotational forging" and is used to make things like punches and round shapes including a variant the shapes rifling in barrels.

Drop hammer forging does not product "net shapes" and the product must be machined afterwards (usually). Investment casting can often produce net shapes and may or may not require machine afterwards.

Rotational forging is slick...it's done at that point normally.

I think given enough investment anything can be done.....it's simply a matter of how much volume one has to justify the investment.

There's no doubt in my mind that Jeffe is on the right track with setting up a CNC 4-axis vertical mill and programming the contour (one would also use profiled end mills) and generating the ribbed barrel.

Let me make a guess at this.....4-axis CNC machine is about $200,000 (vary a lot)
tooling.......... $50,000
investment in program development....$10,000
possible cycle time to machine a barrel blank might be an hour......$100

And now we can start draw filing and polishing.

Ammortizing investment of $250,000 might happen if one gets orders of 1,000 barrels at $350 each and this is over and above the cost of the blank and additional labor of finishing the surfaces.

This is for sure.....when the price goes up, the number of buyers goes down.

Here's the way I see the bottom line.....the cost of making integral ribs can be a lot cheaper than it is but there's not sufficient demand for it. That said, those that still want one will have to look at a "one of a kind" custom.

I made only one....it was a full length rib on a 16 1/4" barrel and I spent 200 hours on a mill making it. I could do a lot better next time but it's still going to be exhorbitant.

quote:

banzaibird: Ruger doesn't make an integral rib. The make barrels with quarter ribs added.

Are your sure about that? I believe they are integral on the big-bore RSM, two piece on the #1.

Here are a couple of views of an Integral 1/4 Rib on one of my 375's. The barrel was done many years ago by David Miller. It was later machined to accept Ruger rings for a scout scope. The stock was done be me from a blank turned by Curt Crum to his pattern. The action is a Westley Richards single square bridge 98. The bottom metal is original Mauser 10.75 box that I opened up at each end for 375H&H. Timney trigger.

Pretty rifle Zim, could we see the action area? No checkering?

quote:

Originally posted by fla3006:

quote:

banzaibird: Ruger doesn't make an integral rib. The make barrels with quarter ribs added.

Are your sure about that? I believe they are integral on the big-bore RSM, two piece on the #1.

The RSM barrel rib is machined integral. Its done three barrels at a time on a three spindle Bostomatic with rotory tables.
They are finished under hand control on flat belt polishing machines. These barrels are button broached as teh OD is too large to be hammer forged and get proper metal displacment to form the rifleing.

Vapodog, you a very patiant man, I wasn't going to bother explianing the various forging processes when the info is on Google for him to look up. Bless you.

quote:

Originally posted by banzaibird:
tigger,

Ruger doesn't make an integral rib. The make barrels with quarter ribs added. They aren't the same thing. One is a 2 piece system the other everything is made from 1 piece. Thus the added cost of machining for the integral ribs/sights.

Bill

Bill,
you may be correct, on the #1... but on the RSM, that's incorrect. The 270win throgh 458 win ue EXACTLY the same intregal barrel.. and, in fact, it has 2 ribs (upper and lower)

these are NOT add on's.. only the #1 is screw on

jeffe

Zimbabwe

You had to do it didn't you. You ruined my day by showing those photos of that gorgeous rifle. Now I have to go through the rest of the day looking at my rifles and thinking how ugly they are. thanks alot.

Two questions:

1. How much can be done on a CNC three axis machine that costs considerably less.

2. Does Ruger sell those ribbed barrels separate from their Rifles?

quote:

By the way, does Ruger sell those ribbed barrels separate from their Rifles?

no. The bottom lug is made to fit into a steel plate in the bottom of the barrel channel for an extra recoil shoulder. You might be able to get the parts through Numrich Arms used, but I doubt it.

the CNC question:
depends on how long you want the part to stay in the machine. If you don't mind paying for twice or three times the roughing cost you can get a finish that would be close to complete. The machine would need to be programed with a large ball end mill and close step overs and you could get a pretty good finish. With high pressure coolant (1200psi) to keep the chips clear so they don't get trapped and recutt you could get a near finished barrel.
To do a barrel bewteen a center and a face plate requires light cuts at high feed so the barrel doesn't set up a harmonic. At high feed cheap CNC loose ability to "hold to the program". They simply don't have the necessary sofwear installed for high speed precision contouring.
The best way to do this would be with a dedicated mold machine. Something with 120mm bearings, HSK spindle, 20K RPM, 1200PSI coolant and a FANUC 15i control with NURBS. With a mahine like that you could get a barrel that would require just emery cloth and final polish.
But they cost about 400K (for a little one).

quote:

Originally posted by Mark_Stratton:
22WRF,

It's machine time, you start out with a 1 1/2 diameter barrel blank and most of it is on the floor when your done. .

So, Mark...when are you gonna come up with a way to make something out of all the metal on the floor?

Doug Seus (the guy that owned and trained Bart the Bear) is a real close friend of mine who is always looking for ways to make money and I once suggested that he take all the hair that Bart shed each year and package it up and sell it to fans. He’s still cussing me for that one! He and his kids spent weeks collecting bear-hair and putting it in little plastic wrappers with labels and everything...and he couldn’t give the damned things away, let alone sell them!

Maybe this is a dumb question, but is it necessary to have a integral rib. I am sure it is more secure but I have never heard of anyone having problems with a Quarter rib breaking off the rifle. Not saying it can't happen! I see a lot of high end rifles with welded on ribs.

This is a pic of the action area. I don't checker. Never learned,don't really have the skill. Used to carve as in the German fashion but don't do that anymore. I probably do need to have this one checkered.I may get around to finishing the stock one of these days.Incidentally the back side of the boltknob has a checkered flat.

Every once in a while I think that since I don't shoot my oberndorf prewar sporter with Krupp's octagon/round full ribbed barrel very much I should sell it, but then someone starts a thread about them and I regain my sanity.

This Krupp's barrel has some very interesting rifling that I have never seen before. Did Krupp's or the germans use a different type of rifling during the 1920s or 1930s.

I guess since it is in my favorite caliber (257 roberts - 25 x 57) I better hang on to it for it a while longer.

RJS

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:

quote:

Originally posted by banzaibird:
tigger,

Ruger doesn't make an integral rib. The make barrels with quarter ribs added. They aren't the same thing. One is a 2 piece system the other everything is made from 1 piece. Thus the added cost of machining for the integral ribs/sights.

Bill

Bill,
you may be correct, on the #1... but on the RSM, that's incorrect. The 270win throgh 458 win ue EXACTLY the same intregal barrel.. and, in fact, it has 2 ribs (upper and lower)

these are NOT add on's.. only the #1 is screw on

jeffe

Not be start but this diagram shows a screw on on their 416 Rigby .

Is this wrong or what?

That's a diagram of a Frontier.
That model is based on the standard M77MkII short action, not on the Magnum Safari action.

I back tracked in the web site to where you can select the magnum and the the exploded view. The EV is a genaric M77MkII.

The screw-on quarter rib is on the new "Frontier" series.

Here is a description of the RSM version from their catalog:

"M77® Mark II Magnum Rifles:
For those who confront the largest and most dangerous game, the Ruger M77 Mark II Magnum rifle will fit the bill. Ruger Magnum rifles offer deluxe features including heavy barrels with machined integral ribs and folding leaf Express sights, and premium grade Circassian walnut stocks. Ruger M77 Mark II Magnum rifles are offered in .375 H&H, .416 Rigby and .458 Lott - for the ultimate stopping power."

I stand corrected.....danged if we can't get along here.

It seemed the post about machining three at a time on a CNC was too detailed a description to be wrong!!!!

WRF Like I said about the frog....

Forrest,
Thanks for posting that and saving me the trouble. Banzaibird, it is all in the fine print. I have always wondered how they did that at the price and you can rest assured they do not machine the whole barrel to that shape.

I knows diddley squat about machining, but I bought Mark Stratton's book. I just re-read pp.1-35. It 'splains this topic very well. Something is 'splained very well when a novice (most people here), or even an ignoramus (me) can understand the topic.

Sorry I forgot about the RSM. I too stand corrected.

Bill

Rick,

I doing a run of octagons right now, do you want me to send you the chips? This might be your big chance to earn a buck..... I'm doing 5, lots of chips....

Probably a dumb question but is an unthreaded Ruger barrel shank large enough to be threaded to fit to a Mauser action?