Anyone used an M1919 barrel for a bolt gun re-barrel?

T

tobnpr

New member
Had an inquiry about doing this...
Cheap enough- at $75 for a new old stock barrel.
Would probably need a carbide reamer due to the chrome lining, but was wondering about the quality of the barrel and accuracy.

I'm guessing it's "machine gun" accurate- but I've been surprised by the Czech 59 barrels shooting sub-minute so thought I'd ask.

Anyone cut one of these back and thread/chambered it?
 
With the price of good barrel blanks and even Green Mountain barrels, I wouldn't do it on a gun I expected good results out of. You can get an ER Shaw or Green Mountain blank for not much more than the 1919 barrel.

That said, I do love experimenting with ideas and military weapons that other people won't usually consider. I would be interested in knowing the results. I would imagine that some wear of the barrel could be mitigated by cutting the barrel at both ends to get a fresh chamber and crown not worn out by whatever shooting was done. I don't know about the operation of the 1919, but is there a gas hole left somewhere in the barrel that could affect the operation on a bolt gun?

As far as chambering, chrome seems like it would be pretty tough even for a carbide reamer. Definitely a case where I would want to go slow and use a good roughing reamer before following with a finish reamer for the cleanest profile possible. Wouldn't be surprised if the chambered needed some polishing regardless.

Just my guesses.
 
Based on my own experience with E.R. Shaw, I think I'd rather take my chances with the 1919 barrel. At least then, I'd know what to expect. (Can't say the same for 'Shaw.)

Overall, I'd definitely prefer a 'known-good' barrel. But... some of the machinegun barrels were pretty well made...
 
The 1919 was recoil operated, so there's no gas port in it. One should be able to find this barrel in either 30-06 or 7.62 NATO. It would be something to experiment with.
 
I don't know about the operation of the 1919, but is there a gas hole left somewhere in the barrel that could affect the operation on a bolt gun?
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Browning's mg's use recoil operation, not gas (which wasn't developed until later)- so no gas port. Even if it did, gas ports are easily plugged if a barrel that has one is used in a bolt gun.
 
I found a gunsmith in Missouri who put a 1919 barrel on a Mauser receiver by machining then sleeving the breech end of the barrel and setting headspace using the "long chambered" method by cutting the barrel back until headspace was correct. He put a 1 inch barrel support ahead of the receiver ring, and his accuracy tests showed it was a tack driver with good ammunition.

I know a few home gunsmiths who did the "lop off the breech end, rethread, and rechamber" method onto Mauser actions and ended up with "so so" accuracy results. Good enough for a hunting rifle, not good enough for a match rifle as 1.5 MOA was about the best they could get them to shoot.

I have three 1919 barrels just waiting to have the breech sleeved, and three Mauser actions just waiting to receive them. I think the 1:12 twist will be suitable cast bullets around 2,400 fps if I can get the alloy correct.

If you can sleeve the breech, and thread it for a Savage action, headspace is easy to set and you can preserve the hard chrome chamber which will preserve the best accuracy potential. Use a barrel block to minimize the vertical stressing forces from the receiver/barrel junction, and enjoy.

Jimro
 
I have to agree with Frakenmauser about Shaw (And some other brands)
The advantage of an older barrel is that it is cut rifling. However, I believe that a chrome lined barrel throws a joker in the deck. I cannot swear to it, but it seems you get a lot of accuracy variation between chrome lined barrels. I never used a 1917 barrel, but have used others. I have a 7-30 Waters that shoots great. I bought a new 7MM machinegun barrel off SARCO years ago. They did not even know what it went to, but it worked out well with the 7-30. I used a new MG-34 barrel (Chrome lined). It only shot good with 190 Grain+ bullets. I have worked with used '03 Springfield barrels and cut off both ends to eliminate wear. One even ended up on your favorite rifle. I have re-cut a lot of Arisaka barrels, and the T-99's are chrome lined. I never used a carbide reamer, but I did cut them by hand. It might be a good idea to go carbide if you are renting the reamer. The chrome is thin, but the steel under it is very abrasive. Back then they did not throw lead, sulpher, and other junk in the steel to make it machine easier.
What it comes down to is that it can be hit or miss. I have found the same with new barrel blanks over the years also.
 
From what I have READ, there is some work done with some sort of Iron Curtain MG barrel on Mosins.

It was at one time advertised that the FN/Winchester snipper riffle used M240/MAG 58 barrel blanks.

I think if you are set up to do the work yourself, it could be a lot of fun. If you have to pay a gunsmith, the labor will wash out the savings of a surplus barrel.
 
It's been done, but I seriously doubt it'd be cost effective even when buying the thing for $75. That $75 isn't great anyway. Green Mountain will sell you a .308" 1 in 11.25 twist barrel blank for $54.95. A 1919 barrel would require having a thread shank cut and threaded plus a chamber put back in. Same as a blank.
Machine shop time runs over $100 per hour and you'd have to pay for any tooling they don't have already and not get to keep it. Most shops won't work on chrome lined stuff either.
 
I found a gunsmith in Missouri who put a 1919 barrel on a Mauser receiver by machining then sleeving the breech end of the barrel and setting headspace using the "long chambered" method by cutting the barrel back until headspace was correct. He put a 1 inch barrel support ahead of the receiver ring, and his accuracy tests showed it was a tack driver with good ammunition.
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Interesting- haven't heard of this before.
When you say "machining then sleeving the breech end"- how so?

http://browningmgs.com/Info/Images/Barrels/fig1.jpg

From what I have READ, there is some work done with some sort of Iron Curtain MG barrel on Mosins.
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Referenced in my OP. Usually, a spacer would be machined to set headspace as Jimro stated above as there was no shoulder on the barrel even though they had been re-purposed/threaded to fit the Mosin-Nagant by TGI.

Machine shop time runs over $100 per hour and you'd have to pay for any tooling they don't have already and not get to keep it. Most shops won't work on chrome lined stuff either.
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I'm the gunsmith. This is an attempt to get information from those that have done it in response to a customer inquiry. I know the GM barrels well.
 
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tobnpr, Actually, the first Browning machine gun was gas operated, and was affectionately known as the "Potato Digger" over it. It had a swinging, spring actuated, piston/plug that drove an action bar. The tapered plug or piston went into a gas port on the bottom of the barrel, toward the front. It got its nickname over the swinging plug hammering the dirt while being fired from a trench or being close to the ground. The military used it, but that was a problem, so Browning came up with the recoil operated version that has been made since then. The Auto-5 shotgun was the idea behind recoil operation.

Browning's first gas auto, a proof of concept gun, was a converted lever action, which had a swinging cone-shaped baffle attached to a pivot under the muzzle, that would be forced down by the escaping gas. The baffle swung down, and worked the lever action by a connecting bar. He used that to patent the first gas operated gun.
 
I am guessing the thread on the barrel was already undersize to the Mauser receiver ring. Unbelievable what people will go through to avoid using a reamer. Years ago this was commonly called an "Outset" when you made a sleeve to take up the difference.
 
^^^
Don't get it...
Is this a sleeve with Class B threads to fit overthe original threads, then cut to fit the new receiver??

I can't wrap my head around that. Need a lot of metal to work with, and there's no way I can see that this could produce precision results(?). Threads by their nature have slop in them- even tight Class 3. Guess I'm missing something here.
 
Bore a plug. Thread the ID of the plug. Crank it on the barrel. Some guys used to solder the plug on the barrel as they turned it on(Like an m-16 barrel extension is). Now turn the plug down to the receiver ring size. Some of these adapters were really thin. Sometimes you had to turn the barrel down a little and re-thread it so you had enough for the sleeve. It was as accurate as anything else at the time. Heck, I knew good gunsmiths that never knew a mauser barrel had witworth threads. There are a lot of Mausers out there with 60* threads on the barrels.
 
1919 sights are pretty bad and make them seem inaccurate but I mounted a red dot to mine and even with all the stuff that moves around on them would shoot 3 MOA at 100 yards with loads it likes. Never did try it with a decent optic for accuracy testing but that's not really something I use it for.

Would be a heavy barrel for a bolt gun for sure and likely not real easy who or when the barrels were made over the last almost 100 years.

They made them in

.30-06 Springfield (U.S.)
7.62×51mm NATO
.303 British
7.92×57mm Mauser
6.5×55mm
7.62×54mmR
8×63mm patron m/32
7.65×53mm Argentine
7.5×54mm French

1919.jpg
 
When you say "machining then sleeving the breech end"- how so?
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The 1919 threads are designed to be spun into the action, and then the locking mechanism locks the barrel in place so it doesn't spin out when a round is fired. The M2 has the same sort of mechanism, and if the spring to hold down the locking detent fails (grit/rust) into the open position, the first round will unscrew the barrel from the mechanism and everyone will point and laugh.

But the threads for the 1919 are smaller than a Mauser, Savage, or Rem, so you need to add material, and the best way to do that is machine down the locking detent recesses to a cylinder, and add a cylindrical sleeve of very tough steel above it, then either braze or weld the sleeve to make a permanent connection. Then cut threads in the sleeve to fit into the rifle action you are using.

Because you are sleeving the breech end, you put a weak spot at the highest torque point on the barrel, which means you can't really free float the barrel so you'll need to use some sort of barrel block to take the torsion "moment" away. My plan is to machine an aluminum V block about 8" long, then cross cut a portion for the receiver ring and front recoil lug area, so that the barrel and receiver are mechanically locked together even if there were a total failure of the sleeve. If you were using a Savage action, a standard style barrel block would be fine.

Jimro
 
I am a little lost here. And I am not trying to sound judgmental, I have built a number of project rifles myself that ended up costing more than they should have in both hours of labor and $ invested.

* You say you can buy a 70-ish year old broach-cut machine gun barrel for $75, but you know about new GM button-rifled barrels for $50-ish. Hmmmm. IME, most military broach-cut barrels were not necessarily stellar performers in the accuracy department, and the 1919 barrel is more expensive than the GM blank. Well, if you just gotta do it, go ahead and do it, just realize that it is a project rifle and dive on in and see what comes out the other end. If you want advice on the most practical way to go, I think it is self-evident.

* You say you are the machinist, and can do all of the work yourself, and are asking how to sleeve the 1.12" breech end of the barrel, but you can get a GM barrel blank of the proper 1.20" diameter to begin with. According to your drawing, you don't need to sleeve the breech end of the barrel, just thread it and screw it into the action. You will have a smallish barrel shank, but there will be enough of a shoulder to seat on the action face.

* My experience with machine gun barrels is that they are super tough metal that does not machine well at all, they were tough to chamber, and the end result was only so-so accurate.

* Again, if you are looking for a project and something to do, then go ahead. I have seen plenty of project rifles that were built just to show that it could be done. If you intend to make money doing it (and a surprising number of gunsmiths never figure out that that is the purpose of a business), do it the way that involves the minimum amount of machine time and material/labor costs and gives the best result.
 
In my case, I have a specific reason for wanting a chrome lined chamber and bore with a 1:12 twist rate in 308, and a 1919 barrel is the least expensive option available to me to fulfill that plan. If you google the FN 30-11 you can get a good idea of where I got inspiration for the current project, although the 30-11 had barrels pulled from the FN MAG production line.

The current FN SPR A1 with chrome lined barrel is a very fine rifle, and it's barrels like the 30-11 before it are pulled from the M240 production line (before the gas port is drilled in each case).

But Scorch gives very good advice, if you just want a good 308 with a heavy barrel, buying a barrel from Green Mountain, Shilen, or Lothar Walther is a much better option for an economy build of a precision rifle. The lathe hours alone to sleeve and work on a 1919 barrel are going to cost way more in the long run if you pay a gunsmith over a commercial barrel. If you are doing it yourself, then that's a different story, because everyone needs a hobby.

Jimro
 
Yup.
My FLG will look at a gun and say "You can do A, B, and C to improve it."
My thought is "No I can't do it, I don't have the tools and expertise, I have to bring it to you."
 
You say you can buy a 70-ish year old broach-cut machine gun barrel for $75, but you know about new GM button-rifled barrels for $50-ish. Hmmmm. IME, most military broach-cut barrels were not necessarily stellar performers in the accuracy department, and the 1919 barrel is more expensive than the GM blank.
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I asked a question...

FYI, I know two people that have repurposed TGI barrels from the UK-59 MG that shoot bugholes. I'm well aware that MG barrels were not produced for stellar accuracy.

As usual, most here can't simply reply to the question ASKED.

Which was " Anyone cut one of these back and thread/chambered it?"
Note that I did not ask, "Do you suppose..." or "Do you think...".
I asked for direct knowledge.

You say you are the machinist, and can do all of the work yourself, and are asking how to sleeve the 1.12" breech end of the barrel, but you can get a GM barrel blank of the proper 1.20" diameter to begin with. According to your drawing, you don't need to sleeve the breech end of the barrel, just thread it and screw it into the action. You will have a smallish barrel shank, but there will be enough of a shoulder to seat on the action face.
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Ignoring the insult because I'm in a good mood today...

The tenon could be sleeved by the method stated above- Cutting Class B threads on a sleeve, threading it on, then cutting the new receiver threads- IF IF IF the numbers work. Damn if I would cut a sleeve with ten thou between the minor diameter of the new threads and the major of the old.

The tenon could ALSO be sleeved by turning off the threads- and the splines for the barrel extension.

THAT was the reason for the question. I know what a sleeve, is....

Listen,

I'm asking if anyone has direct experience. Period.

I know all about blanks from Green Mountain, Shilen, Krieger, Brux, blah , blah, blah.

I was asked by a customer if I KNEW anything about their accuracy and if it was a worthwhile project.

If you DO NOT have direct knowledge of the results of a M1919 re-barrel on a bolt gun, please do NOT reply to my thread.
 
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