Tooling up for a rebarrel

[derf]

Your biggest dilemma will be keeping that skinny ass barrel from slipping in the blocks. Use a barrel vise like this

make the blocks from oak, and bed the barrel to the blocks with your favorite bedding compound. This gives 100% contact and no marring or scarring. This method has never failed for me.
For larger barrels I use this set up

 

[Big Bore Builder]

My tooling is a bit stout but after over 200 barrel jobs I have never had a barrel slip in the barrel vise.

Barrel vise bolted to the concrete floor with 6 Hilti Qwik Set anchor bolts. The wrench is a 3/4" drive ratchet with 30" handle. Gotta have the bolts tight!

Vise made from 4140 steel blocks, 1" diameter high strength bolts:

Note the brass split bushing machined to fit the barrel and the carboard shim to prevent marring the barrel.

Wrenches machined to fit actions. Top one is for M700 Remington with a lug indexer. Middle, Mauser and M70. Bottom, the P14 and P17 Enfields. Handles are 30" long. Never met a barrel that I could not remove from the action, even the tight Enfields.

The Remington wrench. Lug indexer on the vise side of the wrench. The tab on the other side of the wrench fits in the magazine well. Look close, there is a 1/4"-28 Socket Head Cap Screw locating the action via the front action screw hole.

Bushings to fit various barrel diameters. Action truing arbors behind the bushings.

 

[Big Bore Builder]

You need to true the front receiver ring, I have seen them off by as much as 0.005". When the barrel heats up against a ring that is not true, the barrel is tweaked and the group size opens up.

Make or buy a truing arbor. This is a good lathe exercise to make one. Turning concentric diameters and threading. Have fun!

Note the dial indicator. And note we are between centers. The centers must be ground accurate to your lathe centerline. Action is a P17 Enfield, this one turned into a 450 Ackley.

A M700 being trued, also between centers.

 

[Big Bore Builder]

Grinding a center. Yes, I grind my ball bearing centers also.

 

[Big Bore Builder]

Even the little 9 inch South Bend gets its share of duty! Mark V Weatherby action.

 

[cdhknives]

If only I have the time, budget, and room for some real gunsmithing, but alas I don't have confidence my little 10" Atlas has the rigidity to true an action. So unless I find a 'scrap' action to experiment with, I'm not risking a nice minty M70 action with emotional value for my first run at this. I know the barrel is crap due to its extreme pickiness in bullet choice. Changing to a premium barrel alone likely won't get me into any benchrest competitions but should get me into the 'really accurate factory rifle' category...and I'm good with that for now.

 

[pontiac428]

My little 10" atlas is perfectly comfortable doing action work. And contouring, crowning, chambering, and fitting. These are not heavy machining tasks. The Atlas has predictable flex, especially at the tool holder. I take smaller cuts with sharp tools, and everything holds tight. The needed fixtures don't cost much, just time to turn out.

(from mobile)

 

[Big Bore Builder]

Nothing wrong with a small lathe. The 9 inch South Bends likely have done more gun work in the past 100 years than all other lathes combined.

Even P.O. Ackley had a small lathe in his shop for chambering:

Check out his "floating" reamer holder!!!

 

[Big Bore Builder]

Below is the key item in a machine shop: Precision!

Set your machinery up properly: Level, align, adjust gibbs, lubricate. Learn how to use it. Make chips!

 

[Big Bore Builder]

Bench rest machining as Pontiac428 shows is a very nice way to build rifles, especially if one is shooting competition.

I have done few rifles this way, but the majority of my work has been hunting rifles (Elk, Moose, Bear) and big bores for Africa. My methods shown are suitable for this type of rifle, but I will not put them up against the ultra precision guns. But I can build a 1/4" inch rifle with my techniques. Good enough for launching those 210 grain 338 Partitions at big Elk or pushing a 500 grain 458 bullet out of an Iron Sighted 458 Lott.

My advice for the new guys is to start off simple. Then as your skills develop and if you want to chase the elusive bughole, head to the ultra precision world of the bench rest gun builder.

PS for Pontiac: Umm. 428 Cubic Inches. I remember those days! And we are neighbors, I am just up the road in Port Angeles.