Quote Originally Posted by ssgross View Post
I'm still choking on the price.
I swallowed it Jim - just another kick in the butt for not having a lathe yet. been looking at one of those cheap bench top things from China just to ding around on (knowing you need to tear down and rebuild them first), and make odd bits like this that don't require too much precision. A machinist by handle "blondihacks" has some great videos on her precision Mathews bench top lathe. I've been eyeballing the VEVOR imports mini lathe - they have 1.5" spindle bores. Whatever it's merits, or lack thereof, it certainly would make spinning and polishing barrels less time consuming. I've slow rust blued many barrels now for myself and friends and my elbow hurts for a week after a long Saturday hand sanding a barrel.

So, worked on the barrel last night. running my fingers down it getting ready to sand for bluing I noticed a dip a few inches ahead of the chamber. A dent? nope, the dip is mostly all the way around. scrubbed out the bore and looks down the pipe there is a "second" forcing cone where the barrel is pushed in. Oh boy. Let's inspect Bubba's handiwork. Roll the barrel on the counter. It's bent too, about 1/32 bow upward, starting just after the dents. Me thinks bubba dropped it maybe? sat on it? who knows. given the damage I knew existed (receiver extension. busted and dings on the bolt face) it looks like whatever happened - at some point bubba clamped the barrel up in a vice...super tight enough to push the walls in, and wrenched on it hard enough to bend the barrel. Or maybe the barrel was already bent. who knows. Another reason why I have no issue cutting this barrel back!

1. fix the bend. rolling on a table next to my other good original barrel, I mark the area of the high spot with a Sharpe. Next, we clamp a few hockey pucks in the vise, and holding the barrel on it's end we wrap the high spot against the curve of the pucks - smartly smack it, just gently assisting gravity. We aren't beating it. Then roll it again, mark, smack, repeat until it rolls evenly.

2. fix the pressed in area. Using the good barrel as a gauge, drop through some socket ratchets to get a ball park of what ID these should be. 0.700 gets stuck in the damaged barrel, falls through the good one. 0.726 gets stuck in the good one. I went off to the local thrift store, where they have buckets of old ratchet nuts fort .25 each. Micrometer in hand, I selected several from 0.700 - 0.728. Starting with 0.7, chuck it up in the drill press, bevel the edges and scuff the surface to hold plenty of grease. Drop in the bad barrel and drive through the pushed in area to swage it. I worked my way up to 0.725. 0.725 pushed through the original barrel with light taps from the palm of my hand on the drive rod. So, I think we are good here. I have some pin gauges on the way to do a final check. For now, my eyeball detects NO deformation in the barrel now. Sanding the outside will show if there is any more swaging to do, which we will finish by using the pin gauges as swage (yes I'll ruin them. relax. these were 3.99 each, x4, 0.724, 725 and 726 727). Total tool cost ~$20, much more costly though to my pride when I whacked my hand with a hammer whilst beating the drive rod swaging the barrel. It hurts to type.