precision mathews

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dony

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I farm in ND and have done long range shooting for years. I decided to get a lathe for my shop and use it for farm repair and start to do my own gunsmithing as a hobby, I ordered a PM1660 and am wondering if that will work in the gunsmith area or should I have gotten something else, it has taken along time to get ordered it in march and it still is on a slow boat. seller told me If i wanted he would give me a refund etc. so I can look for something else. need some advise. thanks
 
Hey Dony,

I am not a gunsmith but have been doing my own work on a buddies lathe for several years. I ordered a PM 1440 BV about six weeks ago and it has shipped and I should be picking it up in a day or two. I looked at the specs of the 1660 and from my limited knowledge should be everything you need other than the specific tools for threading, chambering and such.

I had originally ordered a Grizzly about six months ago that was listed in their catalog and on the net, but was backordered four times and no one at Grizzly had any clue as to when it would arrive. I looked around again and got the PM 1440 BV with the DRO and taper attachment and a larger spindle bore for about the same money as the Grizzly.

Matt at PM is usually the first person to answer the phone, and took the time to answer all of my questions regarding his and other machines. He told me the unit I wanted was not in stock but was coming in and would be about a month to six weeks before delivery. He was spot on.

I know how you feel, when you finally "pull the trigger" on the purchase and then can't get the dang thing.

Good luck.

Jim
 
Jim,
thanks for your reply, I am working with matt,I was told the first lathe was damaged and they had to reorder so I had some questions about the business, but thought we would try them again now it will be the end of sept. before it will be here. nice to hear you had good luck, I was worried for awhile. also was worried the PM1660 would be too big for gun work but I wanted a larger one for farm use.
looking at grizzly the G0494 Is comparible to the PM1660 anyone have any preferences ? the grizzly is more dollars though if its worth the extra its attainable. thanks don
 
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Personally, I think it's too big for barrel work. Something lie a 13x40 or 14x40 would serve you better, although you want it for other uses as well.

There are many makes/models that will do well. I would look at the headstock hole size and width as considerations.
 
I have a Leblond 15x58 lathe and a Kent 1340V lathe. The Kent is too long through the headstock and so is the Leblond. You can work around the length through the headstock on either one. I use the smaller lathe for barrel work and the main thing I do on the Leblond is true Rem. 700 receivers. The larger lathe is awful nice when making a barrel block for a rail gun or doing things that are a little large for the smaller lathe. The biggest drawback to the LeBlond is changing out chucks. There's a lot of difference in weight between a 10" 4 jaw chuck and a 6" 3 or 6 jaw chuck. The 8" 3 jaw and the 10" 4 jaw are about as heavy as I want to lift to put in place. It also takes more effort to move the tail stock. I don't have a 4 jaw chuck for the Kent, so anything that I need to do with a 4 jaw, gets done on the Leblond. Just about anything you can do in the smaller lathe, you can do in the larger lathe. My son wonders how anyone farms without a lathe and a milling machine.
 
I have an alliant milling machine, my father-in-law has two lathes and there is a machine shop close by in town. I can see were the PM1660 might be too long in the headstock area. so now I am thinking of also getting a much smaller one for bbl. work thanks for the input. Is the grizzly G4003G any good in the bbl. work area. I really want a larger lathe for other things, maybe the G0509G will take the place and work fine for all my work. it's just that the 60" center would be nice but maybe not needed
 
The Issue of a spindle too long

can be aleviated by making a douple spider fastned to a backing plate. You end up with a very nice fixture you can do more then barrels with and it is all right out in front of you.
 
Dony,

My two cents: You can do small work on a big lathe but it may be impossible to do big work on a small lathe. As your lathe will be dual purpose and I imagine you will be working with bigger stuff (farm implements), I would err on the big lathe side. If you do a search of "through the headstock" or something similar, you will find several examples of how the too long of a headstock problem has been dealt with.

Justin
 
I've been watching this forum a while, just never post, I cut the spindle off of my 13 X 40 by over 2 1/4 inches, built a spider for the outboard end, makes it just about perfect for chambering.
 
Mike Bryant said:
I have a Leblond 15x58 lathe and a Kent 1340V lathe. The Kent is too long through the headstock and so is the Leblond. You can work around the length through the headstock on either one. I use the smaller lathe for barrel work and the main thing I do on the Leblond is true Rem. 700 receivers. The larger lathe is awful nice when making a barrel block for a rail gun or doing things that are a little large for the smaller lathe. The biggest drawback to the LeBlond is changing out chucks. There's a lot of difference in weight between a 10" 4 jaw chuck and a 6" 3 or 6 jaw chuck. The 8" 3 jaw and the 10" 4 jaw are about as heavy as I want to lift to put in place. It also takes more effort to move the tail stock. I don't have a 4 jaw chuck for the Kent, so anything that I need to do with a 4 jaw, gets done on the Leblond. Just about anything you can do in the smaller lathe, you can do in the larger lathe. My son wonders how anyone farms without a lathe and a milling machine.
Click to expand...

Mike I have a couple of 16" swing lathes and regularly lift a 12" 4 jaw and 10" 6 jaw, a 6" 3 jaw feels like a toy compared to them..........I really need to make a lifting arm for the heavy chucks as the older I get the heavier they seem to get.......Ian
 
I bought the Leblond at a local machine shop when they went out of business. Their larger lathes had lifting arms on them, but not the Leblond. They had a 24" swing Leblond and an American, I think, that was around that size with somewhere around 10 feet between centers that sold for well under $1000. I think the large Leblond sold for $550 and the American somewhat above that. An American that was a little larger than the Leblond I bought went for $5000. I think it was a 16". The tailstock was moved back and forth with a rack and pinion as it was too heavy to just push back and forth. I was interested in it, but the guy that bought it came to buy it and owned a machine shop. He hit every bid he needed, so no telling what it would have sold for if he would have had more bidders against him. When I started shooting benchrest, my shooting buddy worked at that machine shop and he would install my barrels and his using the Leblond I bought after hours. The only other lathe they had that was smaller than it was a WWII era Pratt & Whitney that was pretty well wore out.
 
Gents,

Speaking of heavy tailstocks, I was in a shop a few years back wherein the owner had some beast of a lathe with a heavy tailstock. He did some drilling and tapping, a fitting or two, and ran compressed air to it. The air came out between the ways of the lathe bed and the tailstock, so the tailstock floated on a bed of air until locked down. You could push the tailstock to and fro with one finger and minimal effort. I don't know if that was his original idea or a common practice in machine shops, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Justin
 
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