looking for a cut rifling machine

I am looking for a cut rifling machine if anyone can help I would appreciate it.

Not many options. You can either build your own, get lucky and stumble across an old P&W or more obscure (possibly home built) machine, or spend mega-bucks getting one custom built.

I haven't looked incredibly hard, but I've only seen exactly one listed for sale in the last 20 years. It was a P&W hydraulic, and they wanted 10k for it back in the mid 80's.

Zane;
most of the rifling machines i have seen are for a dedicated pitch. a lot of the older Pratts were for 1:48 twist much too slow for modern calibers.

if i may make a suggestion.
go to the CNC section here and inquire from those guys, some are very sharp and others think they are, about the things to build a CNC rifling machine that way you could program any rate of twist you want, right hand or left hand,and the number of grooves you wish.
hope this helps some...jim

So what type of barrel do you want to rifle? Every so on there is one on e_bay. The Machice is the easy part it is the Dam cutter that drive me to drink.
David

Hmmmm.... Is it actually more common to cut them?
I've worked on the chillers at Cation Industries
where they cut the rifling for a large portion Winchester's barrels. They do it by electrically etching the rifling out. It was rather interesting because they were making the etching bits and then mounting them on rather old
American lathes.

harley;
actually its quicker and more cost effective to button rifle.
cut rifling shaves a slice .0002" per pass.
so if you wished to cut a groove .004" deep per side on a 8 groove barrel it would take 160 passes to rifle a barrel.
button rifle one pass...jim

The only barrels I've heard of being electro-chemically machined are a few custom pistol barrels, and rifled slug barrels for shotguns.

Never heard of anyone using it for a high power rifle. I can't imagine it would be economically viable. A shotgun barrel, yeah. Too big and thin to button, and probably not practical to hammer forge. Broaching might be good, but kind of expensive to tool for.

Guy Latard,author of the Machinist Bedside Reader series of books has a video tape of a home built rifling machine for $90. I would love to see it

Boots Obermeyer taught Jack Krieger how to make fine cut rifled barrels, then Krieger struck out on his own. Chanlyn in Colorado is about the only other well-known cut rifle barrel maker I'm aware of. I've heard that the wait for an Obermeyer barrel is well over a year, while Krieger's in the more popular bore sizes (like 6mm) are 12-14 weeks. Don't know about Chanlyn's backlog. Randy Gregory of Medford, Wi. is in the process of starting a cut-rifling business - the last time I talked to him, he was about to head over to Boots' shop for a couple of weeks to try to learn some of the finer points of the cut-rifling process. A lot of highpower shooters feel an average cut rifled barrel will last longer than your average button rifled one. I can only commnet on two AR15 SS (416R) bbls. - the 1st a Douglas (buttoned) that was still shooting decent groups at 100 (though it was throwing shots out at 300 & 600yds.) with 5800+rds. through it; the 2nd was a Krieger with over 8200rds. The Douglas' throat was toast when viewed through a Hawkeye borescope - stress cracked so badly that it resembled dried mud flats, chunks gone out of the lands, approx. .250" of land erosion to the point you couldn't tell there'd ever been lands. The Krieger's throat appeared much better by comparison, though there was also some stress checking/cracking. Only noticed one tiny chunk gone out of a land, and no where near the throat erosion compared to the Douglas. Two barrels is no scientific study - for all I know, there was enough difference in the two lots of 416R to account for some of the difference in barrels - but many shooters don't mind coughing up the extra $100 or so for a Krieger when it comes time to rebarrel - evidently, what I saw in my two barrels is considered the norm.

Zane:

D.Selfridge just about hit it on the money. Between WWI and WWII the Unites States govenrment contracted with Pratt and Whitney to make about 20 rifle cutting machines in different sizes. Today there are about 5 still in operation. One is in Germany, one is in England and I know of 3 in the United States. Mark Chanlyn of Longmont, CO, (303) 823-6270, Kreiger, and Obermyer(sp). The rest are pushed or pulled button rifling. There are a few DOM hammer forged barrel makers out there. I know of no cut barrel makers who stock a quantity of barrel blanks. They all are made to order and take between 6 and 24 months lead time. They also demand a premium price. You get what you pay for.
Rustystud

There is another cut barrel maker and that is Morrison, they are in AZ I believe. I know of one benchrest competitor that has a good barrel from them. I wish I knew more about them.

Add Dan Peterson who works with Fred Wells. He cut rifles. I believe he purchased Paul Marquarts equipment who used to cut rifle. Dan did some rechambering for me on a Short action Model 70 in 7mm08 to .284 Winchester. On my request he popped the magazine block out and ground back the ejector so I can load the rounds out to 3"s. A nice set up. Big plus for Krieger too. I also had a 23" featherweight Krieger barrel in .257 roberts installed on another M-70 short action on which I did the same magazine treatment. It shot 1/2" groups with just some bench loads I cobbled together. I'd go cut rifle if money permits. Cheers, Dave

This is my first post but I just had to get on board for this topic.

I had the pleasure of visiting the shop of Ron Smith an Alberta Barrel maker and examining his home built cut rifling machine. Ron makes both stainless and chrome moly barrels in a number of calibers. I was there to pick up a barrel he had made for me in 257 Caliber. His workmanship is great and his barrels are known to be great shooters. I think Ron told me he first built his machine in 1967 and has been cutting rifling with it ever since. His machine is somewhat similar to the one in the Guy Lutaurd tapes. It's not very complicated and I think any competent individual with access to a machine shop could duplicate it. IMHO the real difficult part would be mastering how to build the cutter box, cutters and pull tubes. These parts are all very small and I would think getting the geometry correct is crucial. Lots of very fine cutter grinder work. Rons machine uses a cable and drum to drive the tailstock spindle. Changing the drum size changes the rate of twist. Changing the angle of the cable creates a gain twist. Cutting is accomplished by manually pulling the tailstock up and down the bed. The headstock is used to index from groove to groove. I really enjoyed the visit ... maybe I'll have to order another barrel so I can go back and learn some more!

Al Siegrist of Prescott, MI. He uses a Pratt and Whitney Sine Bar rifle machine. An if I could figure out how to post a picture I would show it. Ma rk

See this link for more images.

[ 11-04-2005, 11:15 PM: Message edited by: GGaskill ]

I just purchased a barrel from Krieger, and while in their shop I spotted several (3?) P&W hydraulic rifling machines. I think he has more in another building. H-S Precision makes cut rifled barrels. Bill Atkinson had a P&W sine bar machine in his personal shop 20 years ago but I think he sold it to John Krieger.
Tom

Well.......

I guess I will let the cat out of the bag. I am finishing up a small home shop type sine bar rifling machine. I had visited both the American Precision Museum in Windsor Vermont and the Springfield Armory Museum in Springfield, Mass, where I was able to see first hand examples of sine bar machines made during the mid 19th century. They are really fairly simple in concept and best described as a spiral broaching machine. Anyway, when I was talking about it with a fellow shooter at our local rifle club, I mentioned that it might not be too hard to build a version at home. To make a long story short, he gave me the beginnings of a rifling machine started by his now deceased neigbor many years ago. It consisted of two rails with a machined endstands, and a carriage riding on these two rails that was pulled along by another rod. It has a gear in the carriage for a rack and pinion sytem, the rack following the sine bar as the carriage is moved back. As the rack moves, it turns the rifling rod by way of the pinon gear. I had to build the rack, the adjustable sine bar, a ball bearing handle for the rifling rod, the various mounts, fit it to a piece of aluminum plate six feet long, make an indexing inboard chuck for the barrel, and a free turning outboard chuck for the barrel. I am doing this all out of curiosity. I intend to try to ream out some old barrels and rifle them to a larger caliber. I am not sure I will go any further since it requires a deep drilling set up to make barrels from blanks. I am of the opinion that barrels seem to be the magic part of the rifle and lots of snake oil is spread around about barrels, since so few people know how they are made, and fewer have actually made them. Anyway, I expect that it may not be as mysterious as some would have us believe. I could be wrong, but I'm having fun and learning along the way. When I figure out how to do it and have some time, I will try to post some pictures.

Perk in Cincinnati

I agree that a cnc system would be the most versatile, and you only have 2-3 axis to control, it can all be run from a PC, and you can have gain twist, or loss twist, and any degree of it you wanted with a few keystrokes.

Bill

Mike Rock also makes cut rifled barrels, and I could be mistaken but I believe he trained with Boots.

GGaskill, Thanks!!!! I've wanted to post these pictures for a long time!!! Mark

Ken Johnson (K&P) makes cut-rifled barrels with a CNC rifling machine. Ken learned the barrel making trade from Bill Atkinson.
His barrels are very popular in .50 BMG bench rest competition.