Why I need my own Lath and Bridgeport mill!

L

lefteyedom

New member
For more sentimental reasons than practical I hired a local gun smith to install the 700 Remington 270 barrel from my departed dad's deer rifle on to my 721 Remington (a guise built left hand).

The smith said no problem and I agreed to his price. Of course next week turned into next month. No big deal I understand how things are in a gun shop. So when I went to check on the progress and I am hit with "Do you really need it index". I should have just taken my rifle and gone else where. Well I didn't I explained that I want to put the factory iron sights back on the rifle. Silly me.
After another couple more weeks I get a call that they would have to replace the recoil lug because they could not turn the shoulder on the barrel back enough to index. Fine, no problem I figure that shaving a down a recoil lug would be an easy way to dial in the barrel.

I go to pick up the rifle and the first thing that hits me is the Recoil lug is in the White. Come on $.50 worth cold blue? He hands me the rifle and says that I will need to re-bed the stock because the new recoil lug doesn't fit. I just shook my head paid the bill and left. Pledging to my self never to have any work done there again. If he believes this acceptable workmanship there is nothing I can do or say to change him. I put the rifle in the safe and wait till I am ready to finish it.

So I told that to tell you this. Tonight I broke down and pull the rifle out of the safe to start working on it and something just does seem right. The barrel is not setting centered in the forearm.?? Looking closer at the recoil lug one side is thinner than the other. I take out the Mic and sure enough one side is almost 2mm thicker than the other. What a mess.

Am I out of line in thinking that installing a barrel with proper indexing and head spacing is within the skills of a "full service gun shop"? Now I am worse off than I was at the start.

Thank for listening.
 
I don't think you're out of line at all. The job was agreed to as well as the price. If he couldn't do the work, he should have said so.
 
2 mm??? I don't think I could do that on purpose with sandpaper if I tried. Why on earth didn't he just set the barrel shoulder back the required amount? No lathe, maybe? Bizarre. Now you need a new recoil lug and someone who knows what they are doing.
 
At my shop at work we have a Colchester lathe and a 1940's Bridgeport. In the 1990's we had some electricians come through and replace the 3-phase converter. They did not do it properly. When I fired the mill up for the first time in 15 years it blew the static converter up. It cost me $800 for a rotary converter and $1100 for the electricians labor (I could have done the work myself but the union would have been all over me). So now I have the equipment but have so much other work to do I haven't had the time to do more than just test the converter to make sure it was done right.
 
Sounds to me like you need a real gunsmith. Can't turn a barrel back one turn? Can't index the barrel? Not able to turn the shoulder so they need to thin down the recoil lug????? You would think he should be wearing Mouse-ka-ears! Find a different smith, or a machinist that really knows how to use a lathe.

And you should at least get a new recoil lug from the hack to replace the one he ruined.
 
You need your own lath?

In the past I've gotten a lot of lath by tearing out old horsehair plaster walls. You strip the plaster off the lath with a shovel and then pull it off the studs.

Works like a charm. ;)
 
I "felt" I got burned so bad the last time I went to a gunsmith, I started buying my own equipment. Bought many specilized GS tools from Brownell's and eventually bought my on milling machine.

I feel your pain.
 
Ditto the VFD. For under $200 you can get a good make 1 HP basic model brand new. Not only will it handle the conversion, it'll give you fully variable speed from a crawl to full rpm and most have acceleration, dynamic breaking, torque limit settings and emergency stop compliance. A properly set up unit can actually increase torque up to 150% at the low speeds, rather than lose torque like a phase converter.
 
I have a Lathe and mill that work off of the same converter.
They run at 2/3 the power that they should, but thats OK.
It gives me a little buffer before I hog out metal.
If I need the extra power, I find that if I turn on the other machine, it sets up a phase field and it gives me the extra 1/3 that I am missing.
So if I am running the lathe and it is boging down, I just turn on my mill.
I have my surface grinder on a diffrent converter but I dont need a lot of power for that though.

Ed
 
In 1982 I got a table saw.
From 1982 to 1999 I was constantly using a table saw on wood.

In 2000 I got a metal lathe and mill.
From 2000 to 2010 I have been constantly using a lathe or mill on metal.

My life might have been different if I just bought those tools earlier.
 
I have been making custom router bits, shaper cutters, and tooling for woodworking for many years now.

Need an odd profile for a repair to an old item?

I just make a simple HSS router bit.
 
Hi, lefteyedom,

I am not too clear on what happened on the rifle. To throw a barrel off far enough to be easily visible would mean not just that the recoil lug was uneven but that the barrel was crooked in the receiver. I think you need to really examine that rifle and if necessary get a really competent gunsmith or even the factory in on the act. I would not fire it until it is checked over carefully, especially in the area of the barrel tang and the bolt.

My concern is that in trying to fit the barrel he might have done something really stupid, not just thin the recoil lug unevenly.

Jim
 
In today's world it pays to ask for referrals for specialty work. There are many so-called full service shops which can't perform the above type work, correct problems with the old style Colt actions(Python), properly time any revolver, carry out repairs on high grade doubles, replace parts on an Ithaca 37 or win 12.
which require hand fitting, or make a simple part or make a spring from wire or leaf.

So, we must beware.
 
That's why I do virtually all of my own work. I know there are some very fine craftsmen out there but it seems they are far outnumbered by Bozos with dremel rotary tools.
 
Good gunsmiths are hard to find, when you do he likely has a backlog. Mine doesn't work cheap but he's not getting rich. He has better equipment than I could ever afford so until he retires it's cost effective for me to use him. He's also a better machinist than I'll ever be, even tho he bragged that his son was much better.
 
Gave up on the old barrel

Just an update. Gave up on fix the 270 barrel and bought a Remington 25/06 barrel off gunbroker today. It will be here next week, now the hard part. Finding someone to stall it correctly
 
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