Thread: Bridgeport + what cnc= gun parts

My wood working hobby has skewed paths with my desire for silencers and firearms. Little background. Several months ago I sent in my form 1 and got it back in a most timely manner and purchased a lathe to build a silencer form my ruger. Obviously if you have a lathe you HAVE to have a mill to cut those pesky mouse holes and chambers so I borrowed an idle mill/drill from a buddy. Well, while waiting to get my bbl back from being cut and threaded I tried doing an AR lower forging for fun. This ended in disaster when my first step (decking) failed and ruined my forging due to poor/loose/worn out equipment, live and learn. So I am now at the point where I'm getting a bridgport tomorrow so there is another rebuild project, I'm sure. I would like at some point to fit the mill with a cnc set up so I can do some AR or what evers in billets. No mass production or sales, just some personal toys. So here is the million dollar question(s). If you were going to hang a CNC set up on a series one bridgeport what software would you use and is there a bolt on kit that a person can buy.
I've been reading about retorfits and it is making my head spin so please someone help me out before I lose my mind.

Southwestern Industries makers of Proto-Trak offer complete bolt on kits with all the bits and pieces. There software is one of the easiest to learn especially if your not a machinest.
Terry

Thanks.

No I am not a machinist by any means, metal and wood butcher maybe

I can see metal working like wood working being very addictive.

Flip,
You might contact Uncle Bill on this forum. He has a couple CNC Bridgeports for sale and he is very free with what he has learned over the years on the ones he has converted.
Butch

Wanna sell the ruined forging?

May just tig the deck back up and try again.

"This ended in disaster when my first step (decking) failed and ruined my forging"



Not so RUINED after all is it?

It's all how you look at it.

I still have a bad feeling it is too far gone. $25 forging vs. couple more hours of tigging and milling not so fun sounding. I picked up my mill yesterday so now the process of restoring it begins, lowers will have to wait for a while.

We had a part-timer working in our shop a few years back that made his own lower receiver. Broke the little tiny long drill off in the hole because he didn't peck short enough. Was about to throw it away until I found out. I machined the little swelled "bump" that the hole goes thru off and got the drill out and tigged it back up for him, then re-shaped the bump so you couldn't even tell it had been welded...he wouldn't stop following me around for weeks after that.