I have been sifting through the Sherline offerings out of West Virginia, and trying to piece together all the threads of the Enco/Unimat story.

It seems that until last year all but one of the Unimat models were of Chicom provenance. This year they are all painted PRC Flag Red and sickle and star yellow.

I need a bench top unit for working on cartridge cases (e.g. converting Mauser 8x57 to M/S 8x56, M/S 9x56 and also to M/S 9.5x56/57. Not every customer will be able to afford Horneber brass with RWS or Lapua bullets.

I am asking for feedback as to likes/dislikes about the various brands, models and accessories.

I will also need a fine toothed saw blade attachment for cutting mass quantities of cases without any drama; I would prefer a carbide blade, but could live with good quality HSS blades. An example of use is taking 2,000 .223 cartridge cases, cleaning them ultrasonically, uniforming the primer pockets and de-burring the primer flash hole. After running the cases through the form/trim die I can cut the case lengths close to finished form, anneal them all and doing a simple fine trim before segregating by weight; all this as a prelude toward loading the brass with a dollop of powder followed by a Sierra .308 caliber, 240 grain Match King. Then you can call it the Redding .221/300 (while your brain says "300 whisper).

Of course, I will use this to make small unobtanium parts (milling sight inserts and peep sights come to mind).

I also wish to experiment with making some of todays relatively "unyielding" bullets into more of a bore-rider design (hopefully friction, heat and stress can be reduced while accuracy is at least maintained, and hopefully, improved. This would have important applications in double rifle feeding. Slow motion footage of a Swift A-Frame, or especially an early model Barnes (prior to the great "ring tail revelation") looked like a Marlon Brando moving through the alimentary canal of a medium sized python - lots of vibration and whipping around of the python/barrel.

Thoughts, experiences, recommendations of models as well as book recommendations are all welcome.

If I can hold 0.001" to 0.002", that would be swell (I do not drink coffee early in the day).

Thank you! I will post this also in the reloading section.

I have one of the original Unimat lathes. It is limited in accuracy and hard to use.

I think I would look at the Grizzly small lathes and mill. I have owned these also and they were OK for lots of work. You can buy almost any accessary at www. Littlemachineshop.com

There really are no good small lathes except watchmakers, and those are used. The elchepo ones from Grizzley are about the best you will be able to find. I personaly would not buy a new one since there are alot of hardly used ones on Craigslist.

Don't waste your time or your money with a small bench lathe.

I would recommend for someone that doesn't mind a little rebuilding a South Bend, Logan, Atlas, Craftsman, Leblond, Lagun, Etc. these are small enough to fit ether on a bench or in a corner if they are on a stand or have legs.
With the proper tuning they can maintain very close tolerances. and at about half the cost or less then a new machine they are hard to beat.

I looked into this recently and came to two conclusions:

Simple solution: Micromark 7x14 or 7x16

Full Size, great value: Precision Matthews 10x27

Cost wasn't an issue. Time and Space. Decided on neither, not enough time to do the hobbies and things I currently love, let alone pick-up machining.

Maybe I should hold classes in my garage

Lawndart,
This would be very hard to beat for the price.
http://forums.accuratereloadin...2711043/m/5461090631

Butch

I agree with Butch

quote:

Don't waste your time or your money with a small bench lathe.

I would recommend for someone that doesn't mind a little rebuilding a South Bend, Logan, Atlas, Craftsman, Leblond, Lagun, Etc. these are small enough to fit ether on a bench or in a corner if they are on a stand or have legs.
With the proper tuning they can maintain very close tolerances. and at about half the cost or less then a new machine they are hard to beat.

Hello Mr. Scott,

My only other lathe is a 10x40 Lagun Republic. I have no objection to slowly rebuilding a quality smaller machine. I have not been nosing around the internet too much, but it seems that even the tool room quality manual lathes are coming down in price. Another way of looking at it I suppose is that the $$ gap between .001" and .0001" tolerances is shrinking.

quote:

Lawndart,
This would be very hard to beat for the price.
http://forums.accuratereloadin...2711043/m/5461090631

Butch

Hi Butch,

BTW, thank you for those end mill bits. I know less than nothing about making chips, but Enco/Grizzly, etc. bring to mind associations with the Chicoms. That in turn, makes me anxious (correctly so or not, I do not know) about bearing quality, true-ed-ness and spare parts down the road. Not to open the usual AR "can-o-worms", what do you think about that issue?
Thank you (and everyone else) for your help in this matter.

LD

You might check with AC as this may be a Tiawanese[sp] lathe. Several of the early Encos were. I won't get into the Chinese thing, but prefer other machines.
Butch

FWIW when I used to sell machinery, Enco was seen as the bottom of the barrel. The problem was that Enco goes to China and buys machines from whoever has the best price at the time. If you need parts, they may not even be able to figure out who they bought that particular machine from. In terms of quality, Jet was much better. They were Swiss owned and only dealt with certain machine builders in China and had source inspectors in those factories. They also stocked $20 million of parts in Tacoma, Wa
Frankly with the state of the economy you should be able to check with some machine dealers in your area or auction houses and pick up a quality used lathe for less than the cost of a new Enco and have a helluva lot better machine. Just my 2 cents.

quote:

Originally posted by lawndart:

quote:

Don't waste your time or your money with a small bench lathe.

I would recommend for someone that doesn't mind a little rebuilding a South Bend, Logan, Atlas, Craftsman, Leblond, Lagun, Etc. these are small enough to fit ether on a bench or in a corner if they are on a stand or have legs.
With the proper tuning they can maintain very close tolerances. and at about half the cost or less then a new machine they are hard to beat.

Hello Mr. Scott,

My only other lathe is a 10x40 Lagun Republic. I have no objection to slowly rebuilding a quality smaller machine. I have not been nosing around the internet too much, but it seems that even the tool room quality manual lathes are coming down in price. Another way of looking at it I suppose is that the $$ gap between .001" and .0001" tolerances is shrinking.

quote:

Lawndart,
This would be very hard to beat for the price.
http://forums.accuratereloadin...2711043/m/5461090631

Butch

Hi Butch,

BTW, thank you for those end mill bits. I know less than nothing about making chips, but Enco/Grizzly, etc. bring to mind associations with the Chicoms. That in turn, makes me anxious (correctly so or not, I do not know) about bearing quality, true-ed-ness and spare parts down the road. Not to open the usual AR "can-o-worms", what do you think about that issue?
Thank you (and everyone else) for your help in this matter.

LD

Well with the proper know how any lathe (with in reason) can be built to .0001" tolerances It aint easy on some machines but it can be done.
That said a step up in price and quality would be a Hardinge, Monarch, & Mori Siki those are the top dogs of tool room tight tolerance machines.

Oh and it's not Scott It's Stottlemyer the KC is Kerry (Me) and the "C" is my exwife Claudine But the Email has been with me for so long I just can't drop the "C"
And having a name like Kerry I don't sweat being called anything. I've lived with a girls name for so long it doesn't even matter

Blacktail,
If you do a little checking you will find some of the earlier Encos came from Taiwan. I arranged the sale of one to John Knapp, brother of Tom Knapp the Benelli shotgun guy. It was made in Taiwan. It belonged to a Hall of Fame BR shooter and he didn't use junk. I personally wouldn't have one of the new Grizzly lathes or the others that are the same with different names. Just don't paint all of them as Chinese.
Butch

Look for an Austrian made EMCO (not Enco).
The are real lathes and are precision made.


>>>I will also need a fine toothed saw blade attachment for cutting mass quantities of cases without any drama<<<

All you need to cut off lots of cases is a Wilson type case holder, a 1" collet and a thin or pointed cut off tool.


The ideal case trimmer is the Hardinge 2nd op lathe with the lever actuated cut off slide.
That attachment is also usable on the little Hardinge turret machines too.

Even if you got one of the aforementioned lathes free - it won't hold anywhere near the tolerances you need to do acceptable work not to mention you'd spend more on tooling and electricity than you could retail the parts for. Buy a hot dog cart and save yourself some grief.

I am NOT an expert on lathe manufature. I can tell you this...the Taiwanese lathe I just sold and which was in the AR classfieds, beat the hell out of the three American brands of the same size I tried for accuracy.

Before anyone gives birth to a cow in response, let me point out this:

All lathes, even of the same make and model, vary greatly in quality of their build from machine to machine...just like factory produced rifles do. Sometimes you get the best of that month's production. Sometimes you get the worst. Mine was a good one, and had good tooling (which is also very important in maintaining accuracy). I use mainly Bison brand chucks (made in Poland), though I like some American-made chucks for special purposes ...like Jacobs brand for rubber-flex chucks and threading chucks.

Anyway, Chinese machinery manufacturers remind me a lot of American universities. They turn out some of the best products in the world and a bunch of the worst in the world. You have to closely inspect the products individually and choose carefully.

Relying on a "brand name" (like "Harvard" graduate) instead of due diligence in purchasing (or hiring) may have a less than thrillingly sarisfactory result.

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:
Even if you got one of the aforementioned lathes free - it won't hold anywhere near the tolerances you need to do acceptable work not to mention you'd spend more on tooling and electricity than you could retail the parts for. Buy a hot dog cart and save yourself some grief.

Not so with an EMCO or a Hardinge.

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:
Even if you got one of the aforementioned lathes free - it won't hold anywhere near the tolerances you need to do acceptable work not to mention you'd spend more on tooling and electricity than you could retail the parts for. Buy a hot dog cart and save yourself some grief.

Not so with an EMCO or a Hardinge.

Really? Which Hardinge CNC "lathe" with barfeeder and subspindle is table top and cheap enough to operate as a case processor, bullet maker, etc ...??

A hardinge GT27SP with a barfeeder will work but you'll need about $125,000 to buy it and set it up and then one would have to know how to operate it too (program G-Code etc) ... after that you'd still be losing money if someone gave it to you.

Saeed has tried to make bullets on his EMCO and says (paraphrasing) the resulr is inconsistent at best.

This guy is just stirring the pot.

One. The OP never said anything about CNC.

Two. You don't know dick about machine tools as the OP asked for .001" to .002" tolerances. any decent Chinese/Taiwan machine can do that. and it's more up to the operator then the machine.

Yes a CNC would be easier to use and a bar feeder would be nice but for the home shop time is not a factor. When someone can just go out anytime and fire up the lathe and spit out how ever many parts they care to make time is not a real issue.

And FYI a Hardinge is THE lathe to get as a manual machine that can hold tenths regularly.
Go talk to a toolmaker he'll tell you.

KCSTOTT,
That came from the guy that makes billet bullets to .0001 tolerance. He is in a different class from us raggedy ass masses. Lawndart, did you post that you wanted to spit out multitudes of parts or were you looking for a gunsmith lathe? Dwight Scott, who does a lot of Saeed's gunsmithing, Uses an Emco Meier lathe.
Butch

quote:

bullets to .0001 tolerance

And then some.

Hey KCSTOTT - your website has some code error that keeps locking up. I have some time to come down to your shop tomotrrow so you can show me how to make bullets. PM me the time and address and I'll be there with some samples. If you can make em the same maybe you'll get some business since I don't know dick about machine tools.

'Dart,
Considering "production" on a lathe here .... Sherlines are very light-duty, & more of a benchtop/finishing machine. They are manual only & not versatile.
Am not intending to appear obnoxious, but just how much lathe/machine tool experience & above all: WORKLOAD do ya have?

Unless you are turning-away 1000's of customers here, you will likely never break-even on capital.

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:

quote:

bullets to .0001 tolerance

And then some.

Hey KCSTOTT - your website has some code error that keeps locking up. I have some time to come down to your shop tomotrrow so you can show me how to make bullets. PM me the time and address and I'll be there with some samples. If you can make em the same maybe you'll get some business since I don't know dick about machine tools.

Well there bud My shop is my hobby it's not my sole source of income and quite frankly hasn't even drawn enough business to cover the light bill. It's just the little tools I have in my garage to work on my stuff at home and make a few extra bucks on the side.

But don't jude a book by it's cover. I'm a toolmaker by trade and deal with tenths daily both grinding and machining.

I'd like to see you hold tenths on a manual machine and give up the CNC crutch. See I've programed CNC screw machines with bar feeders among others. machining titanium among other exotics. I speak Master Cam, Fanuc, Hass. And I know you do too. I've been around the block bud and my home shop is but a mere shadow of what i have at my disposal at the day job.

See this ribbing comes from your totally off base comment on what the OP should buy and a machine another poster suggested. Not everyone has a CNC sitting in their garage (or shop) just waiting to make parts. Some don't have the justification to buy a machine of that expense. So if you can keep your posts on topic and pertinent to the conversation at hand maybe you would not get such a reaction out of a hot headed German

Only amusement here Herr Stott. The point of my post is that thrice or so weekly some poor soul here in AR Land ponders seriously or otherwise a venture into the world of munitions manufacture. It ain't what you think. Our former Dart Driving bud surely knows there's more money in Hot Dogs and Latte's than there will ever be in bullets. Happy to lay it out in spreadsheet form for anyone with the capital and time considering a go. Loaded custom ammo be another fowl ...

Hey guys,

AC found a local buyer - that is probably easier all the way around.

Kerry is a good name, and works fine for guys and girls both.

I will start keeping my eyes open for a good machine in this size range. My Lagun Republic 14"x40" with the #5 Morse tapers is a bit large for modifying brass cases, and it will be nice to be able to do barrel work through the spindle/cat. Also, I do not know for sure (I do not know much-that is for sure),

Idaho is not exactly machinery central, so I will look hard next spring while slowly driving through my old haunts in Illinois, Wisconsin and points east.

No guys,

I would not try to make bullets. The lathe would be used in converting easily available brass into not so easily available brass.

Also to build fixtures that helps me speed up the manufacturing process without sacrificing quality.

This is heading toward a boutique ammunition manufacturing concept; i.e. looking for niches that can be filled with moderate amounts of high quality ammunition.

The world abounds in wonderful bullets, powders, primers and brass. I have a fair pile of North Fork and FailSafe bullets; the are artifacts of wonder.

Say a fellow has a nice 8x68 rifle made. He cannot find boxes of Federal Fusion ammunition at Wallace World. If that nice fellow knows that I can provide him with, say, ten twenty boxes of high quality ammunition topped with his choice of uber-bullet over high quality brass... Well that could be a good thing for everyone involved.

Why a 0.0001" capable machine? Well this is one time in history when I have a chance of getting something like that, and why not own something nice.

My training was in chemistry and physics.

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:
Only amusement here Herr Stott. The point of my post is that thrice or so weekly some poor soul here in AR Land ponders seriously or otherwise a venture into the world of munitions manufacture. It ain't what you think. Our former Dart Driving bud surely knows there's more money in Hot Dogs and Latte's than there will ever be in bullets. Happy to lay it out in spreadsheet form for anyone with the capital and time considering a go. Loaded custom ammo be another fowl ...

I understand man that get rich quick idea. Well you ain't gonna get rich and it ain't gonna be quick.

Anytime you start talking about small precise part production things start getting expensive quick. Your quote of $125K is on the lower end of things. It can be much more expensive.

Lawndart. Most machines will cut half thousandths as is. but with a wee bit of care and tuning they will cut a few tenths. Getting a machine to cut .0001" is a royal pain in the arse if it can even be done. i.e. fixturing, rigidity of the machine etc.

Remember KC, the other guy does it on bullets all the time.
Butch

Yeah but with one hell of an investment!!

How do you make a small fortune in the Firearms industry???


Start with a large fortune!!!!

Check your PMs. See you in the morning.

Rich

There is precious little money to be made anywhere these days.

This is something good to keep me going everyday.

My main gimmicks will be producing product that shows a high level of precision, and durability.

The other two parts are:
1. Do not lie or chisel to get "this sale".
2. Never get in bed with a large distributor, never know what you will wake up with.

I don't think it that there is little money to be made unless you mean profit margin. Because that Is where I feel the misconception is. People get a hair up their butt and think they can make some new gizmo and charge ten times what it cost to make. They fail to realize there is a learning curve to everything and if it was easy everyone would do it. There is no such thing as easy money

At the risk of being thrown in to the ex-spurt status: You can order an Emco with an DIN 8605 designation (as compared to the standard DIN 8606) for a small up-charge. Same machine, they will just make sure it’s one of the closer tol Machines they made in that run. Last time I checked, several years ago, it was only a 200 dollar charge. Nardini makes about the highest quality non-tool room lathes you can buy for the smaller ones. I have seen their production in Brasil, looked over the spec sheets and even forced to marry one of their sales women. I would not buy another Emco just to have the European name.
We looked into selling the Amissae 12X36 lathes years ago (Enco,Grizzley/MSC/Jet/ecetra) and were quoted a little over 800 bucks a unit at dock for a tin can full of the little buggers. Decent quality, just not up to most standards.
If you have a 14x 40 LaGun, why would you want a smaller lathe? Personally, my big German mitts cannot do good work on small lathes. And LaGun never made a lathe this small themselves; it would be one of the three Spanish companies or Turret in Taiwan. My #1 work lathe is a Turret via LeBlond via LaGun via Turret with South Bend badges. By the way, the current LaGun mills are made by Lillan in Taiwan and are about as good a mill as you can get.

Is this the same lathe that you have?

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:
Even if you got one of the aforementioned lathes free - it won't hold anywhere near the tolerances you need to do acceptable work not to mention you'd spend more on tooling and electricity than you could retail the parts for. Buy a hot dog cart and save yourself some grief.

Not so with an EMCO or a Hardinge.

Really? Which Hardinge CNC "lathe" with barfeeder and subspindle is table top and cheap enough to operate as a case processor, bullet maker, etc ...??

A hardinge GT27SP with a barfeeder will work but you'll need about $125,000 to buy it and set it up and then one would have to know how to operate it too (program G-Code etc) ... after that you'd still be losing money if someone gave it to you.

Saeed has tried to make bullets on his EMCO and says (paraphrasing) the resulr is inconsistent at best.

McFez,
No one in their right mind would waste time using a CNC lathe to make something as mundane and simple as a rifle bullet. Any bullet you make I can find 1,000 other shops that can make it cheaper in quantity.
I can only snicker at your CNC remarks because it is obvious you have never used one of these little one armed bandit.

One armed bandit in action

quote:

If you have a 14x 40 LaGun, why would you want a smaller lathe?

From his post he probably has never used 5C collet tooling.

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:
Even if you got one of the aforementioned lathes free - it won't hold anywhere near the tolerances you need to do acceptable work not to mention you'd spend more on tooling and electricity than you could retail the parts for. Buy a hot dog cart and save yourself some grief.

Not so with an EMCO or a Hardinge.

Really? Which Hardinge CNC "lathe" with barfeeder and subspindle is table top and cheap enough to operate as a case processor, bullet maker, etc ...??

A hardinge GT27SP with a barfeeder will work but you'll need about $125,000 to buy it and set it up and then one would have to know how to operate it too (program G-Code etc) ... after that you'd still be losing money if someone gave it to you.

Saeed has tried to make bullets on his EMCO and says (paraphrasing) the resulr is inconsistent at best.

McFez,
No one in their right mind would waste time using a CNC lathe to make something as mundane and simple as a rifle bullet. Any bullet you make I can find 1,000 other shops that can make it cheaper in quantity.
I can only snicker at your CNC remarks because it is obvious you have never used one of these little one armed bandit.

One armed bandit in action

Come again ..?? You must have hit your head Bubba! Correct me if I'm wrong please - are you saying you can make rifle bullets more cost effectively on a "one arm bandit" than on a bar fed CNC screw machine ..??

quote:

Your quote of $125K is on the lower end of things.

That's not what we use that's just the only currently produced Hardinge machine hat's remotely suitable.

The machine of choice would be an INDEX multi-spindle assuming you need to make a few million parts per year.

quote:

Originally posted by kcstott:
Yeah but with one hell of an investment!!

How do you make a small fortune in the Firearms industry???


Start with a large fortune!!!!

Let me show you how ... I'm in the process of doing just that!!

quote:

Let me show you how ... I'm in the process of doing just that!!

Aw,come on, show me to!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Macifej:

quote:

Your quote of $125K is on the lower end of things.

That's not what we use that's just the only currently produced Hardinge machine hat's remotely suitable.

The machine of choice would be an INDEX multi-spindle assuming you need to make a few million parts per year.

You are in the wrong business.
See if you can make money making titanium bone screws for about $3.00/ea COGS with a selling price of $75 each.