Barrel Vise

M

max.burgess

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Who makes the best Barrel Vise ? Do you prefer all metal are the type with the wooden blocks? Thank you .
 
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I use a farrell bbl vise(sometimes with al bushings), a rear entry wrench for ASSEMBLY, and
an action wrench similar to jackie's for disassembly of some rifles.
 
Thanks Jackie ill be taking barrels off of 700 Rem . and a Bat Benchrest Gun .
 
max.burgess said:
Thanks Jackie ill be taking barrels off of 700 Rem . and a Bat Benchrest Gun .
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I made a vise to take off Rem700's....... or more specifically to take off Weatherby's. Compared to Weatherby's 700's are easy. And my own are even tighter yet.....

The problem with all the vises I've tried from the Brownell's to the hydraulics and several from various BR guys is that either they have too few or too small bolts. Or in the case of the hydraulics they're just too awful wimpy. Biggest issue is that the assembly must have enough play and enough bolts to pivot and follow the contour of a barrel.

I've turned bushings, resin-cast bushings, epoxy-cast bushings and even made them from Cerrosafe. I've used oak blocks and aluminum blocks and rosin and sugar and playing cards and I think every other "trick" in the books but until I made a vise which is 3" wide with three 1/2" diameter Grade 8 bolts on each side I slipped barrels and scarred bluing. Now I can clamp onto a skinny blued barrel with any surface finish from smooth to sandblasted and not slip it. Grade 8 bolts with 3/4" nuts and the option of fine or coarse threads lubricated with medical grade lanolin. I've tried every other lube from Anti-Sieze to Axle-Greeze and lanolin wins. (I do still use Davey Dohrrmannn's white stuff on my bbl joints though ;) )

I've also bought rear-entry action wrenches from every maker on earth and they've all proven inadequate. I've bent every rear-entry wrench made except my BAT and that's only because BATs are so bloody soft and malleable that the action starts to deform before the wrench does. And the stupid liddle side entry entries???

snap.

Outside wrenches ROCK!!

Only the Brownell's action wrench with a 4ft pipe is sufficient. With my setup Remington 700 barrels are literally finger tight. NO hammers, NO heat, NO flex and NO slippage.

ooops..... can't send it cuz BRC won't take the pic.

ohh well

al
 
alinwa said:
I made a vise to take off Rem700's....... or more specifically to take off Weatherby's. Compared to Weatherby's 700's are easy. And my own are even tighter yet.....

The problem with all the vises I've tried from the Brownell's to the hydraulics and several from various BR guys is that either they have too few or too small bolts. Or in the case of the hydraulics they're just too awful wimpy. Biggest issue is that the assembly must have enough play and enough bolts to pivot and follow the contour of a barrel.

I've turned bushings, resin-cast bushings, epoxy-cast bushings and even made them from Cerrosafe. I've used oak blocks and aluminum blocks and rosin and sugar and playing cards and I think every other "trick" in the books but until I made a vise which is 3" wide with three 1/2" diameter Grade 8 bolts on each side I slipped barrels and scarred bluing. Now I can clamp onto a skinny blued barrel with any surface finish from smooth to sandblasted and not slip it. Grade 8 bolts with 3/4" nuts and the option of fine or coarse threads lubricated with medical grade lanolin. I've tried every other lube from Anti-Sieze to Axle-Greeze and lanolin wins. (I do still use Davey Dohrrmannn's white stuff on my bbl joints though ;) )

I've also bought rear-entry action wrenches from every maker on earth and they've all proven inadequate. I've bent every rear-entry wrench made except my BAT and that's only because BATs are so bloody soft and malleable that the action starts to deform before the wrench does. And the stupid liddle side entry entries???

snap.

Outside wrenches ROCK!!

Only the Brownell's action wrench with a 4ft pipe is sufficient. With my setup Remington 700 barrels are literally finger tight. NO hammers, NO heat, NO flex and NO slippage.

ooops..... can't send it cuz BRC won't take the pic.

ohh well

al
Click to expand...

I have never had a Remington Barrel I could not break loose with my big Brownell.

Of course, I do use my own aluminum bushings thing that fit the barrel taper.

I look at barrel vises like I do hammers. You can do just about anything with a big hammer that you can a little hammer, but not the other way around.:eek:

Rear entry wrenches should only be used on solid bottom actions. Unless it is a Kelbly that does place all of the force on the front where it belongs.
 
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jackie schmidt said:
I have never had a Remington Barrel I could not break loose with my big Brownell.

Of course, I do use my own aluminum bushings thing that fit the barrel taper.

I look at barrel vises like I do hammers. You can do just about anything with a big hammer that you can a little hammer, but not the other way around.:eek:

Rear entry wrenches should only be used on solid bottom actions. Unless it is a Kelbly that does place all of the force on the front where it belongs.
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I agree that the Brownell does work OK with properly fitted bushings. It is just big enough....But I've got only a small lathe and a Bridgeport and between fitting the barrel tapers on the bushings with no taper drive and then slitting the stupid things (I can't ever get quick/easy slitting results on my Bridgeport....) it's just a long painful process to make all the bushings for various barrels.

With the three inch wide setup I can just slip dead soft AL shimstock into the square hole, squish it onto the barrels and voila', no slippage. And no marks.
 
My barrel vise. I make my own aluminum bushings also. I use powdered sugar instead of rosin.

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You might see that I have 2 punch press springs to open the vise to make it easier to use.

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With a decent 4-bolt you can match almost any taper.

Some rosin powder or strips of 400 grit take are of the extra 'grip.'

At least 5 grade bolts and an actual torque wrench are part of the solution.
 
I think that something needs to be made clear. Removing factory barrels can require some really stout equipment, and some serious force, BUT once that barrel has been removed, when dealing with barrels that have been put on using generally accepted practices for quality rebarreling work, that is NOT the case. I have a Kelby type rear entry wrench that I use to loosen and tighten barrels on my Viper action, and I have never had a problem. I apply as much tightening torque as I can standing flat footed, keeping my body still,, and working with the force of my arms. There is no twisting, deforming, or any other sort of problem. Some time back, I helped a friend use a one piece port wrench to change barrels on a custom benchrest rifle, because he was a little unsure of himself, having never done it before. We used my Davidson style, aluminum, four bolt, low torque barrel vise, and it and the wrench worked perfectly, no deformation, no problems, certainly no breakage, nothing even slightly scratched. This is not rocket science. On those rare occasions when I have needed to deal with removing a factory barrel, I take it to a local smith, who charges a small fee, and has never scratched a barrel or action,using good equipment that Brownells sells, in conjunction with a very large vise, mounted on a secure base. I don't need to do this very often so it has been more economical to farm that work out.
 
Boyd Allen said:
I think that something needs to be made clear. Removing factory barrels can require some really stout equipment, and some serious force, BUT once that barrel has been removed, when dealing with barrels that have been put on using generally accepted practices for quality rebarreling work, that is NOT the case. I have a Kelby type rear entry wrench that I use to loosen and tighten barrels on my Viper action, and I have never had a problem. I apply as much tightening torque as I can standing flat footed, keeping my body still,, and working with the force of my arms. There is no twisting, deforming, or any other sort of problem. Some time back, I helped a friend use a one piece port wrench to change barrels on a custom benchrest rifle, because he was a little unsure of himself, having never done it before. We used my Davidson style, aluminum, four bolt, low torque barrel vise, and it and the wrench worked perfectly, no deformation, no problems, certainly no breakage, nothing even slightly scratched. This is not rocket science. On those rare occasions when I have needed to deal with removing a factory barrel, I take it to a local smith, who charges a small fee, and has never scratched a barrel or action,using good equipment that Brownells sells, in conjunction with a very large vise, mounted on a secure base. I don't need to do this very often so it has been more economical to farm that work out.
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;)

THE TIGHTEST barrel(s) I've ever removed were (are) on rifles assembled by a certain world-renowned gunsmith with whom you're familiar, both in knowing him personally and in knowing that I've enjoyed his expertise..... this same man, a Giant in the industry, Engineer and author took the time to convince me that it's important. He and The Rocket Scientist.

For that I am thankful.

I now set my shouldered barrels to 120ftlb+ and my nutted barrels to 140+++. (The nutted 140 thang is my own deal BTW, NOT recommended by anyone else. Of course I make my own 1.350 and 1.450 barrel nuts lest anyone try set their savage at 140 realio-trulio pounds/feet LOL)

BTW I took one of his rifles to "the local gunsmith" for barrel removal and the guy chipped the stock trying to get it off, with a HV barrel! He had to take it to a friend and they tag teamed it.



Al
 
A while back, I removed a barrel from a 98 Mauser for a good friend. The Brownell Wrench has a block for it that fits the flat and recoil lug. I finally had to use a slugging hammer on the handle which is designed to take that type of punishment.

I never could get a vice to hold the barrel. I finally chucked it up in the 4-jaw chuck on one of my larger lathes, locked the spindle, and gave it a good whack. Of course, he didn't want to save the barrel, so the big chuck marks didn't matter.
 
With a properly made bushing mine doesn't slip. My wrenches are just like the Brownell action wrench. A mauser was the toughest one that I've removed. I don't mind rear entry wrenches if they work in the front ring only.
 
Plenty of mass produced rifles (especially military models) are an interference / crush fit.

The female threads were cut 'short' so the male threads deformed as the barrel was screwed in.

A slight interference on the thread diameter and a a major part of a thread on the length.
 
I used spherical flange nuts with mating washers on my barrel vise to accommodate some rotation of the upper bar to fit the barrel taper. This evens out the clamping force, and is a bit quicker tightening one nut per side than two.

Flange nut.jpg
 
Spent the last couple daze barreling and took some pix of the vise with my flipphone. This vise started life as a Time Precision BR vise which worked for many yrs on fat-barreled BR rifles. And before I started cranking them on. Now it's an AL liner for a very solid setup with easily switchable bolting and I can pull the "liner" out and it fits in my range box for field use.

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I found this interesting, I took this barrel off a new 338-378 Accumark today and it was smooth like buttahh. No POP! when it disengaged, just slipped off of a guesstimated 100ftlb+ lock. It's well machined and looks to be melonited. The bbl is fluted with blackened flutes. My guess is that the melonite these and then scrub the black off.

perty slick for a factory gun, it'll make a wikkid decorative ter'mater stake

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