Working on shorter barrels

I'm on a quest for an easy and accurate solution for working on shorter barrels. In the past, I would make aluminum bushings for each barrel and run them in a steady rest. The bushing was to prevent marring on the barrel as I spend a fair amount of time working on finished barrels. Obviously that is unsustainable and I need to find a better way. I actually disassembled my steady rest in an attempt to build a cathead only to realize the steady rest would need some machine work done to it that I don't have machinery capable of doing. I may end up trying to sort this out but till then I am wondering if there is an easy option. Is someone out there making machine-specific catheads or something else to make this easy?

FYI my machine has outboard spiders and the distance between the spiders and chuck jaws is 20". So this is to work on those >20" barrels.

I have a piece of delrin that is turned to fit in my spindle bore. I fit a brass center to one end. I split the other end and threaded a hole for a screw to expand the delrin and hold the whole works in place. Works well if you take care in manufacturing it.

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Pat Jones
Firestone CO

Make an action truing fixture and use it for the short barrels.

A “viper” type action fixture as mil gunsmith stated above will allow you to work on barrels 8” or longer. Next is the True bore alignment system.

There was a thread on this a few years ago that can be found here.

Threading barrel tenon and pulling my hair out!

Bob Pastor's (aka The Viper) fixture works but has its limits. Because the end of the barrel is so far from the chuck, you must work at low speeds and take light cuts.

Pastor's fixture is nice, but as mentioned, it sticks out a long way and rigidity suffers. The best of both worlds is to eliminate the chuck. I built a fixture based on Pastor's but threaded directly to the spindle. Here it is next to my regular fore and aft spiders:

Thanks for the replies. The truing fixture is not an option for me for several reasons. The most notable reason is that I work on a good bit of carbon barrels and they need to be supported by the ends and not on the carbon its self. I have actually came up with a solution since I posted this thread.
Inspired by the derlin with the dead center I had a buddy use his CNC to spin me up a dead center with a ball radius on the shaft. The OD of the radius and the ID of my spindle are setup to slip fit and I use it as a dead center supported and dialed by my outboard spiders. This works fantastically well. I was able to dial to .0009. Which is more than the .0005 I like to see but well within reason.

I'm a little confused about your setup. If you are using a cathead and a chuck, you could gain about 3" by having a cathead on both sides of your headstock.