Rifling???

Hi,
Can I make my own rifling button? If so,
how?

Another question might be: can you pull it through a barrel and turn it appropriately? If you have the means to do that cut rifling is superior and easier to set up. In cut rifling the grooves are cut one at a time. The barrell is indexed to the necessary positions and the cuts made in multiple passes, removing .001 or so each pass. This reduces the chatter lines caused by a button. A cut rifling cutter can be ground out of HSS like you'd use for a lathe tool. A button is like a broach and significantly more difficult to make. You may make one to shape in drill rod, then heat treat it and grind to size and sharpness, but that would be substantially harder.

There is a lttle book "Barrels and Action" by Harold Hoffman that describes button rifling, as well as cut rifling. There are various sources dealing with cut rifling; this is the only one I've seen dealing with button rifling. How many barrels of what type were you wanting to rifle? The basic cut rifling process, as used in muzzleloading barrels, can be performed without great difficulty; an existing barrel can even be used as the guide.
Dick

Check out my post further up the board, there's a link to a good page with pics of button and gang style rifling broaches.

Mike

Being a major supplier of barrel blanks to precision gunsmiths through out the USA and Canada. Shilen barrels only.I spend a lot of time in their shop and my traveling companion to the benchrest matches has run their barrel shop for over 15 yrs. They make their own buttons out of carbide. They make a new button for each new lot of steal as it all machines differently. The reamers are ground accordingly. It is tune up time on tooling on each lot of metal. The twist is ground into each button and a sine bar helps regulate the twist. Stainless used to be copper plated on the inside for the lube for the button. Most of those chemicals are not friendly anymore and many,many differently lubes have been tried. A good button will not make a good rifling job by itself. Butch

The best stuff I have seen on this subject is published by Guy Lautard of Vancouver, BC (www.lautard.com). It´s a two (or three) hour video, featuring Bill Webb´s drilling, reaming and cutrifling machine. The video is sold for USD 89:95 together with small booklet. I can recommend it to all interested in barrelmaking. Guy also has some interesting stuff on reamers in the third edition of The Machinist Bedside Reader. The chapter alone (written by Bill Webb and Keith Francis) is well worth the price of the book (in my humble opinion, that is).
.

The best stuff I have seen on this subject is published by Guy Lautard of Vancouver, BC (www.lautard.com). It´s a two (or three) hour video, featuring Bill Webb´s drilling, reaming and cutrifling machine. The video is sold for USD 89:95 together with small booklet. I can recommend it to all interested in barrelmaking. Guy also has some interesting stuff on reamers in the third edition of The Machinist Bedside Reader. The chapter alone (written by Bill Webb and Keith Francis) is well worth the price of the book (in my humble opinion, that is).
.

Hey guys,

New to this site, looks pretty good so far.. this topic caught my eye as I am a barrelmaker here in Scotland, thought I'd clear a few minor details up..

Cut rifling, yes, it makes one cut per groove at .0001(not .001) per pass, so it is by and far the slowest(but most accurate) form of rifling. It is more of a matter of finding the machines necessary to cut, as the zenith of cut rifling machine technology was in the late '40's early '50's.. Cut rifling is single point broach rifling, you are broaching the groove.

Button rifling is not broaching, it removes no metal, but is more of a forming tool, it irons the form of the button into the reamed hole. To make buttons, you'd need to invest several pounds in grinding machines, heat treat ovens for stress relieving the barrels, the list goes on.

A good summary of rifling in general is found at www.border-barrels.com, look in the articles section.

hope this helps