I had a 1950's Reed & Prentice 16" geared head "heavy toolroom lathe". By the time I got it, it was not a "toolroom lathe", just an old workhorse. For 700 bucks, I got the lathe (which, by the 1950's, had Timken Roller Bearings on the spindle, and a long-taper spindle nose rather than a threaded nose). With the lathe I got:
-micrometer carriage stop
-3 jaw chuck
-4 jaw chuck
-steady rest
-sleeve and center for headstock spindle
-a couple of toolholders for the "lantern" style toolpost
-miscellaneous wrenches
The lathe did have a taper attachment. It was a well-used lathe. R & P had a nasty habit of using a softer alloy of iron for the lathe beds, so more wear than other manufacturers (Monarch, L & S, come to mind) of lathes of similar design/age would have had.
I am no gunsmith. I needed a workhorse of an old engine lathe to hog out parts for a steam locomotive restoration and similar work. Think in terms of cutting a freight car axle in chunks and making parts out of it, or softening up a heavy truck rear end axle shaft and making parts from it. The R & P I had would run maybe 450 rpm or thereabouts for top speed. It was a lathe designed to use high speed steel tools rather than carbide. It was a lathe designed for heavy work of larger diameters.
I had no problem peeling off steel until the toolpost started to turn in the compound's tee slot. Think in terms of taking off 0.300" at a rip on 4" or thereabouts diameter nickel alloy steel with coarse feed. I had no problem working to within 0.001", but I am old school and used to worn old machine tools.
Would I recommend this type of Reed and Prentice lathe to someone who wants to do gunsmithing ? If that person were making parts for field artillery or smaller naval guns, I'd say "yes". If that person were making parts for sporting rifles and pistols, I'd be hesitant to recommend the R & P lathe. I suspect if you want the lathe for gunsmithing, you want to turn barrel blanks and thread the barrel shanks to fit various actions. As long as the barrel shank thread is an "inch pitch", you are OK. If you have to match up a metric pitch, you are S.O.L. and will have to come up with a set of "transposing gears" and do the math for them. FWIW: When I was an undergraduate engineering student (1968-72), I was working P/T in machine shops. As a "government job", a classmate and I got into building sporting rifles on Mauser 98 actions. I would turn a "Douglas" barrel blank in the desired caliber in a Lodge & Shipley "war production board" 16" engine lathe, putting the desired taper and muzzle diameter on the blank. I began with the turning and threading of the barrel "shank". Ignorance is bliss, as all I knew to do was to take some copper to protect the barrels and set them up in a 4 jaw chuck, indicating off a turned drill rod locator pin in the bore of the barrel. No use of a "cathead" on the outboard end of the spindle to also center and support the barrel. But, the 4 jaw chuck on a 16" L & S lathe is big enough to have deep jaws, so plenty of area bearing on the barrel.
I remember initially thinking we were S.O.L. with working with the 98 Mauser actions, thinking the barrel thread would be metric. It turned out to be 12 threads/inch, and years later, I learned the story of Paul Mauser and his licensing a US manufacturer to build rifles with his actions. Hence, the 12 threads/inch on a 98 Mauser barrel shank. At first, I was in disbelief, no internet back then, so I could not figure why a German military action would use a barrel shank thread with a pitch measured in threads/inch. I barrelled 5 actions using that old L & S lathe for customers (no FFL laws or other hurdles back then). The sixth action I barrelled was a US 1903 A 3 Springfield, built by Remington and nearly destroyed by the college's ROTC. I fished the barrelled action out of the trash, finding a plug welded in the muzzle and another jammed in the chamber, and a tack weld across the face of the bolt. I salvaged the receiver, and built a sporting rifle on it which I have to this day and have taken a few deer with years ago.
If I wanted to work on smaller parts of firearms actions, I think I'd be looking for a tighter toolroom type of lathe. Something which could run the spindle at higher speeds, use maybe the 5C collets for small parts, and hopefully have inch/metric threading capabilty. Something like a Colchester lathe comes to mind as a nice machine, plenty of iron, and if late enough, will have the inch-metric capability for threading.
Plainly, the old R & P is a workhorse on its best days. It is fine if you are making parts for hit and miss engines, but not a real good choice for small firearms parts or barrel work , IMHO.
I like the old R & P lathes, ran them many times in shops I worked in years ago, and owned one for a time (a buddy has it now). It's a good old lathe, built to a kind of generic engine lathe design US makers used from the 1930's-50's, with a few changes along the way. However, put it next to a Hendey, P & W, or Monarch and it is kind of a low-end machine. I've cut plenty of threads on the old R & P lathes, worked within 0.001", but that was on fairly husky work. Get a small diameter job (say 1/4" diameter) and the old R & P is not the machine to run it in. At that point, a South Bend Heavy 10" lathe will even have the edge over the old R & P, and that's not saying much.
