I’ve been wanting to get into gunsmithing for a long time and we’ve finally decided to give it a shot. Gonna use a savage 10 action that I already have a plan on truing the receiver and chambering a barrel in 6mm Creedmoor (but less method). Looking for barrel recommendations. I plan on using bartlin in the future but first a more budget barrel to learn on and possibly make mistakes on would be a good idea
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Barrel for first chambering
- Thread starter Ragin_cajun
- Start date
Wilson blanks are $200 a piece. I know a guy that has used several of them and they've all shot decent. Mccgowen's run around $265 I think.
I'm in the same boat as the op and I'll probably pick one up to try as soon as I decide what I wa t to chamber it in. I've chambered one rifle myself, and it was a used barrel of mine thst was pulled off of another rifle.
I'm in the same boat as the op and I'll probably pick one up to try as soon as I decide what I wa t to chamber it in. I've chambered one rifle myself, and it was a used barrel of mine thst was pulled off of another rifle.
Good suggestions on Wilson or Green Mountain (I think Green Mountain blanks are no taper only) blanks. My suggestion is when you turn your barrel for your Savage, turn it with a shoulder. It's good practice to take measurements from the action and turning barrels for non-barrel nut rifles. I suspect after you turn your first Savage shouldered barrel, you won't go back to barrel nuts.
That’s the plan. Savage action is just wasting space in the safe so I will practice on it for when I get another tika or bergara to build off of
Put up a posting here asking for cheap or free 6mm factory take off barrels, or shot out barrels.
It can be hard on the reamer, so a prectice reamer may be worth considering so you dont dull a nice custom reamer.
Chambering used blanks is hard on your reamer. Id recommend a premium barrel in no taper or heavy varmint 28-30” long. If it goes well, you have a premium barrel. If it doesn’t, you have at least three more tries!
After coaching a couple guys with chambering, I'd recommend separating the machining processes into three categories. Note: the first two should be practiced on barrel drops or old barrels with the chamber parted off (make sure diameter after removing full chamber is enough to form a shoulder to test fit on an action.
1. Indicating the bore. Until you wrap your head around this completely, it doesn't matter how well you do any of the other machining operations. There are different ways to indicate, I recommend indicating straight from the bore. It'll save you money on range/grizzly rods, bushings, and stacking tolerance errors.
2. Machining and threading the tenon. Turning, facing and threading. Experiment with different tooling, speeds and feeds. Practice until you can produce good surface finish, thread form, and of course accuracy.
3. Chambering. It's time to move to a fresh barrel blank. Fine to pick a less expensive blank but the rationale is you will need to actually shoot your barrel to determine how well you machined the chamber. If you start with a beater barrel, you won't know if it's your chambering work or a worn out barrel. Go slow, measure often, and check your work with a bore scope. Look for clean chamber walls, defined junctions between sections (body, shoulder, neck, freebore and leade/throat). You will no doubt overshoot your desired headspace at some point. Understand and learn how to set back the shoulder and breech face to bring the headspace back to correct depth. Test fire for accuracy and inspect fired brass for signs of grooves or other defects in the chamber.
There is a lot to learn before becoming competent with a lathe, but machining and chambering a barrel is absolutely something that can be self taught. There are quite a few accomplished self taught barrel turners here, ask questions.
1. Indicating the bore. Until you wrap your head around this completely, it doesn't matter how well you do any of the other machining operations. There are different ways to indicate, I recommend indicating straight from the bore. It'll save you money on range/grizzly rods, bushings, and stacking tolerance errors.
2. Machining and threading the tenon. Turning, facing and threading. Experiment with different tooling, speeds and feeds. Practice until you can produce good surface finish, thread form, and of course accuracy.
3. Chambering. It's time to move to a fresh barrel blank. Fine to pick a less expensive blank but the rationale is you will need to actually shoot your barrel to determine how well you machined the chamber. If you start with a beater barrel, you won't know if it's your chambering work or a worn out barrel. Go slow, measure often, and check your work with a bore scope. Look for clean chamber walls, defined junctions between sections (body, shoulder, neck, freebore and leade/throat). You will no doubt overshoot your desired headspace at some point. Understand and learn how to set back the shoulder and breech face to bring the headspace back to correct depth. Test fire for accuracy and inspect fired brass for signs of grooves or other defects in the chamber.
There is a lot to learn before becoming competent with a lathe, but machining and chambering a barrel is absolutely something that can be self taught. There are quite a few accomplished self taught barrel turners here, ask questions.
