A Gunsmith’s Education

In initiating my recently-published series on precision barrel fitting I made a decision not to make an attempt to relate the full content of John Hinnant’s book verbatim. It was tempting to tackle but it presented a risk I was unwilling to take. I didn’t want to omit any vital data by error. Another decision was made. It was to cherry pick the book, by passing long sections of the working guide, some articles covering basic information, and others focused on more advanced topics.

This greatly reduced the danger of omissions. The subject volume in all the articles in my barrel fitting series is the second John Hinnant has written. It is an expansion of his initial work that I had leaned heavily upon in performing my first barrel/receiver/chambering job. Never mind how far back that was. I am not yet older than dirt.

Just be satisfied with this: The population of the state in which this is being written has become so dense per mile that hunting with centerfire, smokeless powder rifles became forbidden quite a few years ago. As a result, my large caliber rifle work declined to such a degree I was obliged to retire, and eventually sell, my trusted machine lathe.

This moral of that story is to check out the hunt- Additional Reading and Sources Reference The Complete Illustrated Guide to Precision Rifle Barrel Benchrest Actions and Triggers "Blueprinting" "Lathe Installation & Check Procedure" Precision tooling Author/Publisher Date/Contact Fitting John Hinnant Stuart Otteson amazon.com Shooting Times November 2003 Precision Shooting May 1991 Manson Precision Reamers ing regulations in your state before investing large in tooling.

Add the regs in adjacent states as added protection for your bank account and added assurance against unpleasant legalities befalling the hunters among your customers. I’ll offer one example demonstrating such legalities area distinct possibility. In my home state, no high power rifle can be used to hunt anything. It is either black powder, shotgun, bowhunting, or nothing. In addition, no firearm can be discharged closer than 400 yards from an inhabited dwelling.

In an adjacent state not quite so densely populated, high power rifles may be used but black powder rifles must be flintlocks. No percussion caps allowed. Fortunately, if you area whitetail, the deer population in that next door state stands a better chance of living longer than in this one. All members of the Bambi cult will rejoice at learning of the flintlock restriction.

But hear this, you revelers: All those handsomely landscaped homes in said next door state face a higher risk than yours of having their expensive shrubbery become deer food. I hope that fact might dampen your partying a bit. On second thought, I doubt it. I think now is a good time to mention something about the American Pistolsmiths Guild (americanpistolsmithsguild.com, Pistolsmiths? Don’t sneer. You ought to see some of the rifles that come out of their shops.

That might well come as front page news to quite a few people but Guild members are widely known for keeping tolerances to plus or minus thousandths of an inch. They’ve been doing it for years. What’s the real surprise? Few of those members attended a formal school, resident or otherwise, in acquiring their machine tool skills. Nope, they began learning these necessary skills by reading. The reading was followed by practice, practice, and more practice.

All of that was preceded by the countless hours spent holding to close tolerances with hand tooling. Some of the machine tooling you’ll be wanting is demonstrated in John Hinnant’s guide. All of it shown, and more, is available from Dave Manson Precision Reamers (mansonreamers.com, Dave is a member of the Guild and personally mans his booth at the SHOT Show. I never miss stopping by to say hello, listen in, and watch him demonstrate his newest offering in tooling.

He’s a fountain of knowledge and readily shares what he knows with the knot of people who always seem to be present at

the Manson Precision exhibit, be they gunsmiths, student gunsmiths, or simply folks interested to hear all about and/or see what’s new. First, a confession. I admitted in the first article appearing in this barrel fitting series and will repeat here exactly why I chose not to attempt what would amount to a word-for-word copy. Frankly, you only received a taste to whet your appetites for getting serious about getting in on the potentially profitable practice of precision barrel fitting.

To prove my point, and give you an additional whet, read the immediately upcoming list. Taken from the top it reveals all the material detailed in the guide. A subject-by-subject list starts with learning the accessory tools for fitting rifle barrels. These include reamer wrenches, bolt lug lapping tool, receiver facing mandrel, dial indicator tail stock fixture, barrel vises, receiver wrenches. For your lathe work, learn lathe cutting tools, lathe cutting speeds and feeds, and about squaring the receiver face.

Next up is barrel turning and fitting procedure. Topics include facing off the center holes, drilling new center holes, turning a relief cut on the muzzle, the basic lathe step, turning the breech O.

D., marking the breech and thread tenon length, turning the thread tenon diameter, turning the thread relief groove, facing the thread tenon to length, counter boring the breech face, shaping a coned breech, reaming a chamber, threading the thread tenon, determining correct chamber depth/headspace, finish chamber reaming and headspacing, chamber throat length, crowning the muzzle, milling the extractor cut, assembly of the barrel and receiver.

In addition to all the above, other useful topics include fitting a barrel to the single action, blueprinting a rifle action, chambering for the twenty-two rimfire cartridge, specifically the Ruger Models 10/22 and 77/22. Congratulations. You have just gained a far better understanding and appreciation of why this writer, your courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent technical editor, was more than a wee bit shy regarding omissions. AG American Gunsmithing Association