Target Barrel Re-Crown Referrals Central Mass. Or DIY?

Mountain

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Looking for a referral for a Central Mass smith that does target barrels to have one or two old target barrels re-crowned. Looks like some overzealous cleaning in past history. Common .22 and .308 cal, so maybe a DIY job?

Referrals and/or advice appreciated.
 
If you want to do it yourself, the Manson crowning tool is a REALLY nice piece of gear.

You could always sell it somewheredown the line.

I chucked it up in a good cordless drill, used lots of cutting oil, and frequently blew the chips away with compressed air.

Face back the crown with the 0-degree facing tool enough until you see sharply defined lands with a magnifying glass. Barrel steel is pretty soft, but sometimes it takes awhile. Just be patient, use a steady hand, even pressure, and enjoy the work.

It's a fine feeling, cutting a new crown and seeing accuracy restored.

http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-t...amers-muzzle-crown-refacing-kit-prod7718.aspx





 
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If you want to do it yourself, the Manson crowning tool is a REALLY nice piece of gear.

You could always sell it somewheredown the line.

I chucked it up in a good cordless drill, used lots of cutting oil, and frequently blew the chips away with compressed air.

Face back the crown with the 0-degree facing tool enough until you see sharply defined lands with a magnifying glass.

Barrel steel is pretty soft, but sometimes it takes awhile. Just be patient, use, a steady hand, even pressure, and enjoy the work.

It's a fine feeling, cutting a new crown and seeing accuracy restored.

http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-t...amers-muzzle-crown-refacing-kit-prod7718.aspx


I want to step in here and potentially save someone an expensive and painful headache. I own the crowning jig listed in your post, and in no way shape or form in this an accurate tool. It is very good at making old barrels look presentable again, especially soviet stuff that is riveted together and doesn't fit well in the lathe. It is also obviously better than nothing if you have a fair amount of existing crown damage. However, It is absolutely not a replacement for a lathe when a true accurate crown is required. Any decent machinist with a lathe made since 1970 can cut you a crown concentric to bore within .0005". My Manson crowning jig cuts crowns within .002-.003" concentric, which is not even close to "accurate" in the gunsmithing world. It is also a multi hundred dollar tool, and it can take you up to two hours to use it properly on one barrel. I am glad that you have had decent results with yours, but it is absolutely not a nice, easy, or accurate tool. I have tried many crown cutting jigs in my career and they all have the same failures.
 
i have this kit.... somewhere


This kit is nice also


short of putting it in a lathe and trying the cutter to the bore for the price of these kits its just as easy to do yourself.
 
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I want to step in here and potentially save someone an expensive and painful headache. I own the crowning jig listed in your post, and in no way shape or form in this an accurate tool. It is very good at making old barrels look presentable again, especially soviet stuff that is riveted together and doesn't fit well in the lathe. It is also obviously better than nothing if you have a fair amount of existing crown damage. However, It is absolutely not a replacement for a lathe when a true accurate crown is required. Any decent machinist with a lathe made since 1970 can cut you a crown concentric to bore within .0005". My Manson crowning jig cuts crowns within .002-.003" concentric, which is not even close to "accurate" in the gunsmithing world. It is also a multi hundred dollar tool, and it can take you up to two hours to use it properly on one barrel. I am glad that you have had decent results with yours, but it is absolutely not a nice, easy, or accurate tool. I have tried many crown cutting jigs in my career and they all have the same failures.

this is why it is a must to know what your gun smiths approach and tools used to do the job. If hes going to use one of the "kits" just do it yourself. Would i use these kits on a $3k plus target rifle. no . would i give a old gun in my safe a fresh crown if it was worn or danage..like my K98 or M1 garand yes. I have also had good luck with the kit. every rifle i have done the crown was a mess and accuracy always improved. do some before and after testing.

I will add that the few estimates i got from a few local gunsmiths to recrown a M1 garand barrel was about the same as buying a new barrel....so i bought a new barrel... Ed thats how my JCG match rifle was born.
 
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i have this kit.... somewhere


This kit is nice also


short of putting it in a lathe and trying the cutter to the bore for the price of these kits its just as easy to do yourself.


I've got that Brownell's kit as well. I have used it on barrels that I have cut down for various reasons, and on barrels where I messed up the crown removing fixed muzzle devices. For my purposes, it has worked great. I'm happy to be getting 3-4" groups at 100 yards with most of my rifles.
 
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Crap...mine was made in 1954.

I trusted the old crazy looking SOB at the local machine shop to do anything and I think his lathe was older than him?
Sadly that shop packed up and left for texas some time ago.

- - - Updated - - -

I've got that Brownell's kit as well. I have used it on barrels that I have cut down for various reasons, and on barrels where I messed up the crown removing fixed muzzle devices. For my purposes, it has worked great. I'm happy to be getting 3-4" groups at 100 yards with most of my rifles.

i might do my mosin crown. its not terrible but It just might shave another 1/2 moa of the 4 moa beater.
 
I want to step in here and potentially save someone an expensive and painful headache. I own the crowning jig listed in your post, and in no way shape or form in this an accurate tool. It is very good at making old barrels look presentable again, especially soviet stuff that is riveted together and doesn't fit well in the lathe. It is also obviously better than nothing if you have a fair amount of existing crown damage. However, It is absolutely not a replacement for a lathe when a true accurate crown is required. Any decent machinist with a lathe made since 1970 can cut you a crown concentric to bore within .0005". My Manson crowning jig cuts crowns within .002-.003" concentric, which is not even close to "accurate" in the gunsmithing world. It is also a multi hundred dollar tool, and it can take you up to two hours to use it properly on one barrel. I am glad that you have had decent results with yours, but it is absolutely not a nice, easy, or accurate tool. I have tried many crown cutting jigs in my career and they all have the same failures.

I have no doubt that a lathe cuts a "more concentric crown"--but I'd say you are overstating the virtues of paying you to do it.

The Manson kit works OK for me. This group (for example) is a half MOA at 200 yards.






What do you charge to crown a 700, just out of curiosity?
 
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This particular barrel has quite a few nicks around the crown, which was fully disclosed before I picked it up. There might be something going on at the edge of the bore- I'm thinking rough cleaning jobs back in the day. However, it's hard to determine even with some magnification, and the marks could just be on the face of the crown and not affecting the bore. Small enough issue that perhaps some bore lapping and polishing will also clean up anything at bore/crown edge. I'll do that and then punch paper.

Next step might be to lap that edge down a little. I don't think it needs a full re-crown job, just removal of issues at the very edge. Bore and then edge lapping will either remove or highlight any damage. At that point I'll need to re-crown. Looking to get a 73 year old 4 MOA barrel down to 2 MOA or less. Yes, I know there are many other factors but want to keep the thread focused on the barrel and crown, which I think have issues.
 
This particular barrel has quite a few nicks around the crown, which was fully disclosed before I picked it up. There might be something going on at the edge of the bore- I'm thinking rough cleaning jobs back in the day. However, it's hard to determine even with some magnification, and the marks could just be on the face of the crown and not affecting the bore. Small enough issue that perhaps some bore lapping and polishing will also clean up anything at bore/crown edge. I'll do that and then punch paper.

Next step might be to lap that edge down a little. I don't think it needs a full re-crown job, just removal of issues at the very edge. Bore and then edge lapping will either remove or highlight any damage. At that point I'll need to re-crown. Looking to get a 73 year old 4 MOA barrel down to 2 MOA or less. Yes, I know there are many other factors but want to keep the thread focused on the barrel and crown, which I think have issues.

Take some pictures. When I get the setting correct on my POS camera I can see lots of detail once on a full size screen shot.
Some times I can get decent pictures of my crowns. This here is another rifle I'm not sure what to do. Just clean it up, re crown or new barrel
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vb...ecrown-or-leave-it-be?highlight=Crown+carbine
 
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Take some pictures. When I get the setting correct on my POS camera I can see lots of detail once on a full size screen shot.
Some times I can get decent pictures of my crowns. This here is another rifle I'm not sure what to do. Just clean it up, re crown or new barrel
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vb...ecrown-or-leave-it-be?highlight=Crown+carbine

I'll try to get a pic if I can get decent light or flash. Doesn't seem as rough as your Rockola, but it only takes one bad spot to throw flyers. BTW, as I mentioned before- I'd just clean up that Rockola as best you can and shoot it as is, assuming an uncommon variant. I must be warming up to carbines...
 
Thanks jdgill.

Mac, here's the pic:

IMG_0636.JPG

Maybe not so bad. Bore looked pretty clean at first but the bore paste removed a lot of black sludge. We'll see how a cleaned and polished bore improves groups before going any further.
 
Thanks jdgill.

Mac, here's the pic:

View attachment 201415

Maybe not so bad. Bore looked pretty clean at first but the bore paste removed a lot of black sludge. We'll see how a cleaned and polished bore improves groups before going any further.

There seems to be one tiny little spot at 4 o'clock right where the patch lint piece is. Other than that the crown itself looks good.
What rifle are we looking at. Maybe other ways to improve the accuracy
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=109418&d=1405906537
 
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I have no doubt that a lathe cuts a "more concentric crown"--but I'd say you are overstating the virtues of paying you to do it.

The Manson kit works OK for me. This group (for example) is a half MOA at 200 yards.






What do you charge to crown a 700, just out of curiosity?

I totally appreciate and understand this sentiment. I am primarily a refinishing shop, and I am in no way trying to sell my own labor with my comment. I have been doing this most of my life, and I was simply trying to help. MA, in my opinion, does not have access to a lot of true long range shooting. Most of my customers in this state shoot 300 yards max. When I was gunsmithing in North Carolina & Colorado, most of my customers were frequently shooting 500 - 1000 + yards with barrels I would work on. A crown with .003" of error will perform terribly at any type of long distance like that. You are correct that you will not see most of this slop at 200-300 yards. Additionally, I am booked for most of the summer. I pass off most easy barrel work like this to a local CNC shop. They charge $75 - $120 depending on the firearm and the crown desired. If you have barreled actions or pistol barrels, just about any machine shop in New England should be able to help you out. It is not rocket science, it just needs to be done correctly.
 
heres a shot of a crown I borrowed from another posting
Dwrmy1F.jpg
 
I totally appreciate and understand this sentiment. I am primarily a refinishing shop, and I am in no way trying to sell my own labor with my comment. I have been doing this most of my life, and I was simply trying to help. MA, in my opinion, does not have access to a lot of true long range shooting. Most of my customers in this state shoot 300 yards max. When I was gunsmithing in North Carolina & Colorado, most of my customers were frequently shooting 500 - 1000 + yards with barrels I would work on. A crown with .003" of error will perform terribly at any type of long distance like that. You are correct that you will not see most of this slop at 200-300 yards. Additionally, I am booked for most of the summer. I pass off most easy barrel work like this to a local CNC shop. They charge $75 - $120 depending on the firearm and the crown desired. If you have barreled actions or pistol barrels, just about any machine shop in New England should be able to help you out. It is not rocket science, it just needs to be done correctly.

do you know of anyone doing a comparison between the different methods of crowning.
i try to wrap around my little brain what is a good indication of how "Accurate" your machining needs to be to see a point of non gains.

If your working on a new rifled barrel what is the method to have the bore concentric to the cutting head. Are you using guide pins or some sort of adjustable bushing. Im just thinking that the precision of cutting the crown concentric to the bore is very dependent on how true the bore is in the first place...
75-125$ is a little better than the quotes i have recieved. The few machine shops that even would take in a gun part to be machined where 75$ just for set up and then the "labor" to do the job.
The only "decent" price i received was almost 1 year wait.
looking at this below you need to have some darn near perfect gauges to get really really good specs, no?



I found this which is interesting...

 
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If your working on a new rifled barrel what is the method to have the bore concentric to the cutting head. Are you using guide pins or some sort of adjustable bushing. Im just thinking that the precision of cutting the crown concentric to the bore is very dependent on how true the bore is in the first place...

You would use a 4 jaw independent chuck and a gauge pin in the bore off of which you indicate for concentricity. The bore may not be concentric to the outer profile so simple tossing the barrel in a 3 jaw chuck would not work well.
 
You would use a 4 jaw independent chuck and a gauge pin in the bore off of which you indicate for concentricity. The bore may not be concentric to the outer profile so simple tossing the barrel in a 3 jaw chuck would not work well.

ABSOLUTELY .... and then only as accurate as your gauge pins. One thing i noticed is many of these recrown videos are for straight barrels. Not to many tapered barrels.
 
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ABSOLUTELY .... and then only as accurate as your gauge pins. One thing i noticed is many of these recrown videos are for straight barrels. Not to many tapered barrels.

It's clearly easier to chuck a straight barrel but with proper fixturing tapered barrels can be precisely indicated using precision gauge pins. All it takes is quality tools and skill.
 
I looked up "Gartman Arms", and it looked like it is in Wrentham. I wouldn't call that "Central Massachusetts", unless they moved or there is another one.
 
Many passes with Hoppes and then JB bore paste cleaned a lot of black from what I thought (wrongly) was a relatively clean bore. What looked like a nick on the crown at edge of bore (w/ the lint in pic above) must have been some type of junk that cleaned off. It was on tight enough to catch a fiber from a cleaning patch but loose enough to clean off.

Anyway, groups are now a hair less than 2-1/2"- getting better...
 
Many passes with Hoppes and then JB bore paste cleaned a lot of black from what I thought (wrongly) was a relatively clean bore. What looked like a nick on the crown at edge of bore (w/ the lint in pic above) must have been some type of junk that cleaned off. It was on tight enough to catch a fiber from a cleaning patch but loose enough to clean off.
It's time for a crown challenge.
You can rent this style re crown tool
https://4drentals.com/product/11o-crowning-tool-22-caliber/
Then after that have a re crown done by a machinist/Smith.?

Anyway, groups are now a hair less than 2-1/2"- getting better...

What gun are you shooting... just a note. My 513t took about 20-30 rounds to get back to normal after a deep deep clean.
 
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