Does this gunsmith know something that the rest of us do not?

D

Don

New member
I just finished reading the article "Switching Barrels in the Field" pg 51, PS, March, 2009, and was a bit surprised to read the various claims/statements by the articles author. Either he is leading some readers down the wrong path or some of us on this messageboard are all wet.

Maybe I am just plain ignorant in the way I gunsmith my accuracy rifles, but here are the various statements that caught my attention, and are contradicted to my own gunsmithing practices and to most of the gunsmithing practices that I read about on this messageboard for a Remington model 700 rifle;

-"The barrels can be fit so that they can be hand-tightened" only.

(without the need for a barrel vise and wrench)

-" I.....checked the action for 'trueness' by inserting and indexing rod through the receiver and measuring the run-out as I hand-turned the lathe."

(less than .002" runnout was considered acceptable without mentioning where and how the measurement was made. No mention of action lugs, action face or action thread runnout was included)

-Using a chambering flush system " the chamber is so smooth that a 800-grit paper is used to rough up the chamber a bit so the case can grip the chamber walls better."

-" I put a 60 degree chamfer on the chamber so a cartridge will feed better."


Well, the author of this article was all smiles and peachy happy with the final product written about in this article, so who am I to rain on his parade.

Perhaps something got lost in the translation between the author/gun owner of the article and the actual gunsmith doing the work.

Who here on this messageboard does there gunsmithing work using these same methods?.....................Don
 
Last edited:
Don, it is truly amazing what some consider good gunsmithing. I agree as to building hunting guns that some of the benchrest things we do might be overkill. But some of the so called gun work is an accident waiting to happen.

But, look at the major gun makers. I have bore scoped factory barrels that actually had rifling on one side of the neck where the chamber was so far out of center.
 
Guilty!!

How much am i giving up by hand snapping a bbl into my Kimber action. I've got 3 bbls now that fit my 82G and i have been switching them ever day or so and changing something.

I'm guilty of snapping them in by hand. I re-chamberd my stock 82G and it shoots better than factory -that's with just sorta poppin-snapping the bbl in hand tight.

I have had 'em loosen a couple of times, but it's real easy to see. All i do is shoot from the bench. It's less than a full round on each adjusting knob on my T-36 to get back to zero when changing to any bbl, i was surprised.

I don't have a bbl vise or action vise - i really didn't want to be "twisting" my action all the time changing bbls and "hand tight" is very easy to remove a bbl and look at the lands or what ever i want to do.

How much in accuracy am i givin up by "hand tight"? thanks joe :)
 
jGEE said:
How much am i giving up by hand snapping a bbl into my Kimber action. I've got 3 bbls now that fit my 82G and i have been switching them ever day or so and changing something.



How much in accuracy am i givin up by "hand tight"? thanks joe :)
Click to expand...

LAthe Ninja!!! La the Ninja (thats French)....you must be one of them furren gunsmiths we read about.

How much accuracy are you loosing? if you are on a target card and the barrel comes loose, you loose the day.

Get back out to the barn and make barrels, you havn't been excused.

No naps for you for the next 3 days!!

I wish everyone would just snap barrels tight.
 
Yet again with the articles.

Now I’ve got to round up that article and read all about it so I will have the answers. It really irks me big time when this type of stuff gets published. We will get customers coming to the shop packing this magazine article in hand saying ‘I want it done this way’. They are told not in our shop, I know here is an idea; send your work to THAT GUY. I’ve spent 37 years developing procedures and techniques, in an effort to develop what I perceive to be the best way to go and now I have to defend my practices to customers because of THAT GUY.

I wish THOSE GUYS shot at major matches,
Nic.
 
Last edited:
I'm not a proponent of hand tightened barrels myself however there was once a record group (10 shot) in 1000 yd benchrest shot with a rifle that the barrel was almost loose. This was unintentional and discovered after the fact. Was this just a freak happening? I don't know but I'll keep torquing mine to upwards of 100 ft. lbs.
 
Had a rifle rebarrelled with a good barrel by a supposedly good 'smith that barely shot any better than with the factory barrel. It never occurred to me that the barrel might be loose, but when that barrel was shot out another 'smith who installed the new barrel was amazed. He said that he could unscrew that barrel by hand. It had never occurred to me that the barrel might have been loose. :eek:

I've never been in need of changing a barrel out on the prairie, but I'm sure I could figure out a way to clamp a barrel vise onto my truck's bumper if I felt the need.
 
Not many years ago

BR shooters spoke of "Snapping" their barrels "tight" on here. I am quite certain it use to be somewhat of a practice. I never subscribed to it but I, for sure have seen it spoken of on here. I guess we learn as time goes on, aye?
 
In defense of hand tightening :)

I have used this technique for varminting with real success. I've got a fancy-schmancy boresighter and a book full of barrel-switching notes....

BUT!!! NOT for consistent competition shooting!

I was once posting about such on this forum (about '96-'97) and a guy came on who asked me "aren't you the same guy who was asking questions about "WHY am I getting two groups" and "aren't you the guy who ordered the Hood Scope Checker?" TIGHTEN YOUR BARREL!!"

And I DID :)

And my problems went away :)

Properly fitted the guns will shoot amazingly well when hand tightened. But I remember when I first got a gun from Borden's and had a local gunsmith fit another of my old barrels to it, a fireforming barrel. The guy couldn't get the barrel off! He finally rosin'd 'er all up and with me standing there POPPED that badboy loose...... I was glad the scope was off. Lesson learned for me??? Maybe this is one of the reasons that my Borden guns are so repeatable! :)

I now crank 'em down hard. Especially after Harold Vaughn explained the humungous unloading forces that occur when you fire the round.

al
 
Maybe i should add i'm hand tightening for -rimfire. Wouldn't think of hand tightening anything center fire.

I would not hand tightening anything for competition either.
The question i was asking if the bbl is snapped hand tight -and it is tight, not loose... but just hand tight, does accuracy suffer??

I guess i'm wondering about the holding power of threads. For accuracy purposes, when is enough enough? does torqueing to 100 foot pounds make a gun more accurate? Is there any theory on threads and holding power? thanks joe :)
 
jGEE said:
The question i was asking if the bbl is snapped hand tight -and it is tight, not loose... but just hand tight, does accuracy suffer??
Click to expand...
The problem is, "tight" is not an on/off switch. There will be "tight" that is always "on" and "loose" that is always "off," but there will be a range of "tightness" in between.

Now consider your sight. 99-44/100 percent of benchrest shooters mount the scope on the action. So it (the dot, crosshairs, whatever), points where the action is pointing. That pesky bullet goes where the barrel is pointing. Guess what happens if the barrel isn't 100% tight?

Does this distort the chamber? probably. Does it matter? Probably not, though for rimfire, Calfee disagrees. If it bothers you, figure out how to cut the final chamber after the barrel is tight -- though that too involves compromises . . .

Is there any theory on threads and holding power? thanks joe :)
Click to expand...
Of course. If you don't trust shooters, go read a hot-rod book, esp the part about torquing connecting rod bolts. Quickly, thread holds by distorting. The amount of distortion is important. Using torque to determine this involves a host of variables, thread size, bolt size, materials involved, lubrication, etc. But it is all in the book . . .
 
What is tight enought?

I have seen barrels torqued at 100ftlbs and I have seen actions cracked by over zealous wrench men. I agree with German 50-60 ftlbs is enought and hand tight is not. A well lubricated tenon and action will meet-up just fine at 50-60 ft lbs. And not be so difficult to remove the next time.
Nat Lambeth
 
Barrel torque

Recently had my first switch-barrel done, 6BR to 308, and when entering the shop, my 'smith ( with over 40 yrs experience), handed me the barrel in one hand and the receiver in the other, and said "put em together". He then talked me through the process using a Davidson barrel vice, Holland receiver wrench (Rem 700), torque wrench, etc. He sends his built rifles out with 125 ft.lbs. torque, but for the switch-barrel we used 65 ft. lb. I made a very small paint/"witness mark" where the barrel meets the receiver, and at 90 rds. fired it remains in place. If I see any movement will tighten a little more. He said that he uses 125#, for the same reason the factories do: liability/lawsuit issues, but he would never agree to "hand tight". Just relating his thoughts based on his experience.
 
"Of course. If you don't trust shooters, go read a hot-rod book,"
Click to expand...
Mr. Charles respectfully i think your comment is a little unfair, you make it sound like i don't trust you guys -i wouldn't be here if i didn't, you guys are very helpful and save my butt a lot, thanks! In the few months i have been here i have already learned years of knowledge.

I tried to ask a question about accuracy. How much in enough of torque. Yes you can go right to 100 foot pounds and never have to worry, but is that using our brain?
When i have 3 rimfire bbls to test at the range and i don't have bbl or action wrenches - i was wondering if i snap in the bbls would accuracy suffer?

I understand if they loosen yes it would. I don't think it is an unfair or disrespectful question. I'm new and enjoying learning -and yes i will probably ask stupid questions. This was probably one of them.

Mr Salazar's
How much torque do you put on the typical centerfire barrel? Rather than just saying "hand tight isn't tight" (and I agree) let's work on developing a range of values that are used successfuly.
Click to expand...
Is a lot more in line what i was asking. I would never want to insult any of you guys with my questions, i'm trying to learn.

In my opinion i don't think you can compare "engine torque" specs with torquing a rifle bbl, maybe that's were the question gets off track. your not hammering a bbl with 5,000 rpm power strokes/pulses continuously for hour on hour, but that's just me.

Mr original question was for rimfire use. I respect experience a lot, it's my number 1 qualifier when considering an answer but.... my dad was a welder all his life. when i was a kid he told me on day i would meet guys that would be telling me something and say "Son i got 30 years of experience!". Dad told me something i ain't never forgot and it's true, "Some people have 1 year experience -30 times". It takes a while to figure out who those people are. joe :)
 
Not much knowledge on my part, but what little I have, if you change a BR Barrel, and give it a good snap to bring it up tight, if things are square and straight as they should be, you will not be able to unscrew it by hand.
I another case building a Rimfire BR run using a custom Action, I bought "barrelled" and having another very good BR Gunsmith put the stock on, he found when he put enough torque on the Action to line up the extractor cuts, it broke the epoxy loose that held the gun in the stock.
 
Harold Vaughn in his book recommended 250 ft/lb. That is a bit tight IMO for well fitted benchrest barrel joints on well machined custom actions. I have been using about 125 ft/lb for several years.

As to the "snap" tight then having to loosen with a wrench, is snap then tight? Don't count on it. The threaded joint has to be loaded to make an integral fit. Snapping tight is not loading the joint.

In some cases I can move the snap joint further in the tightening direction with as little as a measured 10 ft/lb and that amount of torque sure doesn't load a 1"-1 1/16" 16-18 TPI threaded joint.

German, as to settling on a torque "standard" would be difficult since some threaded tenons and their adjacent shoulder and other threaded tenons and their adjacent shoulders are not apples-to-apples, IMO.

As to "changing" the headspace with too much torque, I seriously doubt that happening. Besides, most of us don't resize to a headspace gage, we resize to a shoulder setback dimension generally.
 
I wasn't trying to make the point that snapping makes it tight enough, I was along the lines if you snap it and you can unscrew it by hand, things most likely are not square, and it for sure is NOT tight enough. I like the 50 60 foot pound range myself.
 
My experience

I tried the snapping proceedure, but had a few barrels work loose during a match. Since then I use a minimum of 1/18" more turn, after I hit the shoulder. I don't know what torque that equates to, but I haven't had any work loose since. This is for RF only.
 
Fred J said:
I tried the snapping proceedure, but had a few barrels work loose during a match. Since then I use a minimum of 1/18" more turn, after I hit the shoulder. I don't know what torque that equates to, but I haven't had any work loose since. This is for RF only.
Click to expand...

Mr. Fred do you have an opinion or observation towards accuracy from a "snaped in" bbl to one tightened 1/8" past shoulder contact?

Does one shoot more accurate -the same -or hard to say? thanks joe :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top