Secrets

What, no CNC machine? Oh, the poor deprived people!

(I read a lot of those stories when they first came out, and quite a few of them were reprinted in the Gun Digest in later years. They are truly priceless.)

Jim
 
I read them as they came out in Gun Digest.
Hard to imagine that stories about a gunsmith first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.
Or science fiction, but Robert Heinlein was published there, too; once upon a time.
 
What a wonderful look back at the care and craftsmanship used to build guns in by-gone days.
Thanks for the link, Bart B.
 
That's a cool story. I can't help but be saddened by the differences in today's world. The lost craftsman (even if fictionalized) would be bad enough but the idea of a man walking around NY and Jersey City with two rifles....:(
 
For those interested in more info on sine bar rifling machines, search for "sine bar rifler" online and good stuff will appear. Some of the youtube videos of them working on barrels are neat to watch. Here's how Kreiger cut rifled barrels are made with a different type of single-point rifling machine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLUTL5S6yFE

There was an old Pratt & Whitney sine bar rifler for sale on Ebay some time ago. It went for about $30,000
 
Rifling machines are amazing too me. It's one of those things that just seems like it shouldn't be possible. There's only a few things I view with such awe.
 
Reading that story was an assignment in our Introduction to Firearms class at gunsmithing school. We had to write an essay about it too. One thing about that story, it haunted me through school when I would do less than perfect work (which was very frequent).

There are instructions on-line on how to rifle a barrel on a lathe. I bought the book years ago and now its free!
 
Just for the heck of it,I searched the obvious places for a published collection of these stories.

It's out of print,but there is a book and there are some copies available.

They start at about the price of a brick of cheap 22's,and go up to over $100.

There are only a few,so I don't want to make it too easy!You have to hunt just a little.

Mine is shipped!
 
The price gouging 22 hoarders may incinerate in the afterlife for eternity as far as I'm concerned,I will not play their game. Mine was $29.
 
Good read. I had a similar experience at work as a machinist. If you get impatient, nothing comes out right. After 2 day's work and a lot of expert help, I had sized a set of my 1-2-3 blocks within 2/10ths of a thousandth square. But get impatient, don't listen for the machine or the sound of the grinder digging in as the metal heats and expands, and you'll never reach it
 
When I got to gunsmithing school I had already learned some tricks of machining.
"Had you get that finish ? What are you doing there ? [honing the ground toolbit ] I let them figture it out ! :D
 
Many years ago one of the gun magazines published several of those stories in series. I remember this one and another one where the old gunsmith was asked to inspect some heavy MGs for sale in another country.

The old gunsmith figured out only one (or so) of the MGs functioned and the rest were demilled. The old gunsmith and potential buyer escaped after the old gunsmith reassembled a rifle he'd taken along and shot the magazine off the functioning MG the bad guys were using to stop them from escaping with the cash.
 
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