AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Gun Building => Topic started by: Canute Rex on August 24, 2025, 07:11:52 AM
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Hi All,
I've just started draw filing a Rice barrel. It's a 38" .50 caliber B weight Traditions swamped. What I'm seeing is a consistent concavity to the flats. I mean, "flats." I'll do a few passes and there will be filed areas on the edges and a trough down the middle. I thought I would be just doing some smoothing but I'm really removing some material. I've done three flats so far with the same pattern.
Also, there are two rings of extra low spots around the barrel, centered in each flat. One ring is about 6" from the muzzle and the other is about 9" from the breech.
Is this normal?
Thanks!
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Is this normal?
No, and I've never heard of such. If it was me, I would stop filing and call Jason at Rice to discuss it. He's a good guy and stands behind his work.
Ron
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I have seen some slight concavity when I was draw filing one of their barrels recently. Must be the cutters. In my experience it might be 0.002” or so; files away pretty quickly.
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Any chance you’re flexing your file a bit?
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Any chance you’re flexing your file a bit?
First thing that came to mind for me, too. I reduced downward pressure and held hands close to the flat as possible. Same result - took several passes to get the middle of the flat to file. No biggie for me.
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I will take concave over convex any day. All the original barrels I have seen are less than perfect.
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I will take concave over convex any day. All the original barrels I have seen are less than perfect.
We sure do have it good nowadays. The new smoothbore profiles from Rice are outstanding.
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I've seen the same things before when draw filing a barrel. I think you're either not exactly even with the flat or you're flexing the file. Either way the error is very small and shouldn't effect the fit of your barrel to the stock.
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Any chance you’re flexing your file a bit?
I'm holding the file close in, about half an inch either side of the barrel. I have reasonable arm strength, but no S on my chest.
I'm wondering whether the rings of low spots have to do with the fixtures for holding the barrel in place while machining. Academic curiosity - they aren't that deep. Just the last areas to flatten out.
Here's what the concavity looks like:
(https://i.ibb.co/6cWQrbHd/Barrel-filing.jpg) (https://ibb.co/qLr679NZ)
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Unacceptable additional work to an already labor intensive endevour.I planed a lot of barrels in Bill Large's shop in years past and never heard or saw of this condition and he made his barrels from 1144 also called "Stressproof.I used it for lock tumblers because it's easy to work with and hardens in oil like drill rod.are ALL 8 flats like this???
Bob Roller
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If I had to guess, the milling head's shaft was not quite perpendicular to the barrel but tilting ever so slightly towardsthe muzzleor breech. This would cause such a scooping effect.
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Is this being done on a vertical milling machine. or maybe a modified planer WITH a milling attachment. I remember hearing about them but don't remember ever seeing one. Thank you for the reminder.
Bob Roller
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Unacceptable additional work to an already labor intensive endevour.I planed a lot of barrels in Bill Large's shop in years past and never heard or saw of this condition and he made his barrels from 1144 also called "Stressproof.I used it for lock tumblers because it's easy to work with and hardens in oil like drill rod.are ALL 8 flats like this???
Bob Roller
I started on the hidden flats to get some practice in but once I encountered the concavity I stopped at three. I sent a message to Rice to ask about it.
Hand planed Japanese matchlock barrels from the 19th c and before had concave flats. Maybe Rice was just going for a traditional look.
I wonder if it's from a resharpened cutter that didn't end up square.
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Any chance you’re flexing your file a bit?
I'm holding the file close in, about half an inch either side of the barrel. I have reasonable arm strength, but no S on my chest.
I'm wondering whether the rings of low spots have to do with the fixtures for holding the barrel in place while machining. Academic curiosity - they aren't that deep. Just the last areas to flatten out.
Here's what the concavity looks like:
(https://i.ibb.co/6cWQrbHd/Barrel-filing.jpg) (https://ibb.co/qLr679NZ)
I have never seen a Rice barrel that bad. I would have stopped long ago on the filing. Sure the gunmakers barrels need some work, but I think that one slipped by them. I have bought dozens
of barrels from them & never received anything like that.
Call Jason at Rice & send him a photo. He has always been more than fair with me.
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I came across this exact thing with a barrel from a kit last month. Also Rice. I do the initial striking with a 14" mill file, it only took a few extra swipes.
The machine marks indicate a horizontal mill to my eye.
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It would be interesting to lay a straight edge across one of the unfiled flats to get an idea of how deep the concavity is.
Ron
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In my case about 0.001" . Insignificant, but it does show when you are draw filing.
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To me that barrel is totally unacceptable especially for the price that they are charging for them. If I paid half price for that barrel I would not complain and just file it flat. That workmanship is terrible, and I would complain. :(
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I have draw filed a couple hundred or more barrels over the years and I have never encountered one that had perfectly flat flats. All of the flats were slightly concave to some degree. Nothing that a good smooth cut bastard file couldn’t take care of in short order. I always draw file as part of the finishing process. Never has draw filing caused enough metal removal to cause a fit problem. When Green Mountain started making swamped barrels there were definite hard breaks in the profile changes in the barrel. I have used several of Jason’s barrels and the swamping profiles were smooth.
The reason I save the draw filing to do during the finishing process because here in the south a good clean barrel will rust while you’re looking at it. So I do it once and don’t sweat the surface rust, inletting black and file marks until I get ready to finish.
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I have never heard of a file flexing and used a long angle lathe file on the few I draw filed in my shop.They leave a better finish and a new one makes the task much easier.Files are a bench craftsman's friends if used properly and with a variety of shapes and cuts a lot can be done with them.The people who made the fine locks seen on English guns were called "Lock Filers".Not long after I came on this forum I bought the file inventory of a local industrial supply business that they had ordered for someone who never came to get them and I sold all except the ones I kept in this forum and I think all of them were made in the USA.
Bob Roller
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In recent years, swamped octagon barrels from Rice have not been finished like they once were with the octagon profile milled dead flat and the milling marks removed by sanding with 120 grit or so. All of the Rice barrels that I have seen in the last 3-5 years or so, whether mine or those ordered by others, have noticable concave flats with swirled milling marks that have not been removed.Put a square on the barrel and some chalk on a flat. You will see what I have described.
To avoid a gap between the barrel wall and barrel channel, the side flats have to be draw filed and sanded smooth before attempting to inlet the barrel. Although the top flat and oblique side flats can be dressed later, I prefer to draw file and sand the entire barrel to 320 grit with no scratches before sending it off to Rase for inletting. It takes me about 8 hours, i.e. an hour a flat.
The barrels are still good barrels. They are just not being finished to the same quality that they were in the past.
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It's reasonable to talk with Jason. But at the same time, I don't see it as poor craftsmanship on his part. Cleaning up a barrel is just part of gun building.
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If I had to guess, the milling head's shaft was not quite perpendicular to the barrel but tilting ever so slightly towardsthe muzzleor breech. This would cause such a scooping effect.
Given that it's a swamped barrel, there's only one possible point on the barrel that it could be perpendicular. In all other places it will always be gouging a little, either with the leading or trailing side of the cutter. That's probably it.
I tried to measure the concavity, but I just don't have the right tool for it.
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The last barrel I got from Rice was just machine finished with visible mill marks and took little clean up. I usually make brass plugs and fit in both ends of the barrel with a tap fit, I dial both ends in on the bore when in the lathe. I found one top flat off .018 from the centered bore. When spinning the barrel there was run out toward one end not excessive I believe but left me a bit uncomfortable. Not an expert in deep whole drilling but thinking the drill dulled or was being pushed too hard. Rumor has it that Rise Is behind in orders and pushing there machinery to the limit. With all the barrels I have had from Rice I never had one like this before.
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Just draw file the barrel and move on. It's what we do.
David
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Just draw file the barrel and move on. It's what we do.
David
100%. Way better than some corncob looking barrels from days gone by.
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dealing with the same thing on my Kibler fowler, rice makes the barrels for that one i believe. just part of the game.
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Has this condition been reported on other makers barrel ? As I said earlier,the planer I used to help Bill Large cut straight across and no concave radius ever occurred.I have no idea how many times I came into Bill's shop and the planer was running and had finished the cut and I would shut it off and index the barrel and start the next cut.
Bob Roller
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Since our product was brought up, I will speak for it. If there is any concavity to the flats it is VERY small. We produce flats by side cutting with carbide endmills so it's hard to envision how this occurs. With this said, I have seen a TINY amount on barrels we have produced. I would guess this is no more than .001" and probably less than .0005".
Another big thing to consider... Is your file flat and straight. Very few are. I would suggest sighting down your file to determine the curve and using the convex side on the barrel. Believe me, it makes a considerable difference.
Finally files can bow when drawfiling. This can influence results.
I can honestly say, our barrels have a FANTASTIC finish and any small deviations are insignificant. Watch my videos on drawfiling. Learn to do it well and get after it. I can have the top five flats filed in around 20 minutes. I hear of some taking hours and hours to draw file a barrel and it's hard to imagine.
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I would rather have .002-.003" of concave in the flats with straight off the mill finish vs some of the other barrels out there that get a 40 grit belt sander to take the machine marks out. The one or two flats that remain kinda straight after the belt sander aren't bad but the others that wander off axis are a real bugger to get back on axis. The straight but concave flats come in pretty fast if you are using a good sharp file. Use a file that is aggressive enough that it doesn't fill and stop cutting, it needs deep enough gullets to pass the chips and continue to cut. Once it's flat you can use finer files to clean the last marks out.
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Yes I have complained about the belt sander finish also for many yrs. I particularly don't like the wash board or waves it can create. Hrs. of draw filing is not pleasant work. Side milling can and does leave a much better finish and leaves a flat surface.
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Just to give some specifics to what Jim K has said, here is a section from and old post of mine ( https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=57140.0 ). This is about a Rice barrel.....
I had an hour today and thought I would try and get the barrel draw filed. Now right out of the crate, the barrel had the expected tool marks full length along all of the flats....not really deep but significant enough that I thought I might not be able to get all the draw filing done in the hour I had. In addition, there was some discontinuity in the surfaces near the waist where the barrel was moved in the machine to complete the milling of each flat. Again, no criticism here, I just thought it would take a little more time in those areas to get the surface discrepancy filed out.
Just for fun, I took out my phone and opened the stop watch function. I hit the button on the stop watch and started in on one flat. It went really well and when I finished I reached over and hit the "stop" button.....5 minutes and 35 seconds. I timed each of the next four flats.....all less than 6 minutes. All five primary flats draw filed in less than 30 minutes. It went so quickly and well, I had time to finish up all eight flats...just for kicks. ;)
One last point of interest....as I was sweeping up the steel filings on the bench and floor I looked over and saw a gram scale on my bench that I use for making detonators for explosive charges. I weighed the steel filings to see how much metal I had removed......9.8 grams. So just in case anyone else out there was wondering how much metal you are taking off draw filing a barrel, there is is......right about 1.1 grams for each flat on a 43" barrel.
I did convert the 1.1 grams of steel removed per flat to a thickness. Assuming an average flat width of 0.4", a barrel length of 43", and a density for mild steel of 0.2904 lbs / in^3, the 1.1 grams of steel removed per flat to clean up the surface equates to 0.00053" in thickness. So, on average, the removal of a half a thousandth of an inch of material results in a smooth file finish with no remaining tool marks.
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I'd rather have to go after the slight concave in the middle of a length of a flat than trying to straighten out a bbl length of up and down & side-to-side waves from a belt grinder or other set up.
But if the bbl is advertised as perfectly finished, or normally shipped as that, I would let the mfg'r know of the issue.
I wouldn't demand a replacement, or think anything more of it.
Stuff happens when making things. Good mfg'rs make adjustments and make things right again to stay in biz.
They like to keep customers happy.
In other words,,Not a big deal in my way of thinking
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That is about how long it takes me too. Maybe some folks are making a bigger job out of it than it actually is.
I use a 14"single cut mill file. For browning prep I do not mess around with finer files or sand paper. The browning action obliterates the filing marks. I do a quick blend of whatever marks are left from the file with maroon scochbrite.
Lately I have been using a bronze suede brush for carding. Some fine rust texture does build in the surface but I think I like the look of it that way. I used to bring it to at least #400 grit then blend and finish. That is fine for a rust blue but for browning not so much. It ends up looking to smooth and reflective for what I want now.
On my last build my son and I did it together. His natural inclination was to be very fussy. Once I showed him how to get after it with the big file and how to draw file properly it went smoother. I showed him how to use a marker to make sure he was staying level and how to make the stroke with his whole body rather than his arms.
I find that the larger file does not pin and therefore saves time because I do not get the gouges in the file texture from the pins stuck in the file teeth.
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Well I can tell you that if you want a fine rust blue or brown finish on a higher class rifle, you don't want to have to mess with scallops, waves, concave flats ect. There will be enough hours in metal prep to get the file marks out and polished up.
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dealing with the same thing on my Kibler fowler, rice makes the barrels for that one i believe. just part of the game.
please note: this is in no way a complaint about Kibler kits, i was just saying i ran into the same situation as the o/p. i love both of my Kiblers.
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As a capper to this discussion, today I decided to just put my head down and file. File, card, file, card. There are still a couple of depressions around the breech I have to finesse, but I have a pile of filings and a smooth barrel. More material removal than I expected, but not a functionally disqualifying amount.
I'm trying to decide whether to put some fine sandpaper over a steel block and refine it, but that's a whole new discussion.
Thanks for all the input.
CR
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Mostly a product of geometry from using the end of the end of an endmill making the cut instead of side milling. Try to envision a milling cutter taking a long pass on a round bbl blank. If there is no taper the cut will be flat’ but if the machine is a CNC machine and the head or table is going up and down ( to produce a swamped profile) the flat portion of the endmill is no longer parallel to the desired shape and this will leave a concave cut. The steeper the profile the more concave the cut will be.
Cheers Richard
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I have seen that to some degree on almost every barrel I've used. There were a few Colerain barrels which were pretty much concave to the same degree as yours.
I have always thought that it was a result of the fixtures utilized in the machining process. Adds a few minutes to the draw filing work, but not a real problem.
Barrels that were hand forged and hammered octagonal would take a lot longer to file :)