Barrel Inletting

[Bill Raby]

   I am starting on my first build from a plank. I am almost finished inletting the barrel. The big surprise is that is that there is nothing hard at all about it. From the way some people talk I was expecting this to be some terribly complicated task. Having started it, I fail to see how anyone can be intimidated by it. So what is all the fuss about? It is going quite slow, but I don't care about that. I have good vise. I have great lighting in the shop. I have good chisels and I keep them very, very sharp. Everything is going smooth. If inletting the lock turns out to be this simple, the gun is going to turn out great. Don't know why I ever bothered starting with kits. I should take that back. The kits was very good for learning how these things go together.

[smylee grouch]

Was it a swamped barrel,oct./to round/oct./to round swamped, tapered, Round straight,round swamped, or straight oct?

[SingleMalt]

You're saying what I've said all along. It's not difficult, just time consuming. The lock has its own set of problems to overcome. It must be square to the barrel both along its axis and to the top flat. It must also work freely without binding. I think you'll get it done just fine.

[webradbury]

I too anticipated inletting my first barrel to be daunting task. It was definetly challenging but nothing made me cuss more than inletting the buttplate. Will

[Bill Raby]

   Its a straight octagon barrel. I know, the easy one. I was tempted to cut it with the milling machine. But no. I wanted to do it with chisels. Swamped barrel would be more work. I don't think it would be any harder. It would just take longer.

   I have inlet lock on pre-carve stock. And once again, I suspect doing it on plank will take a lot longer, but not really be any harder. The pre-carve has the bulk material removed for you, but you still have to get it in there straight with no gaps around the edges. The pre-carve did not have any work done for the buttplate. Had to do that all on my own. It took a long time.

   I am new to gun building. The biggest thing that I have learned so far is that pretty every problem that you hit is going to be one caused by yourself. As long as you go slow, everything goes nice and smooth. I am in no hurry. I am a hobby builder and have no intention of ever trying to make any money by building guns. I have no reason to rush anything. I would rather focus on just doing it right.

[smylee grouch]

Bill, I think your right in that it just takes more time, which a hobby builder has. I am also one of those but been so for 40+ years. Some days I get more done than others but I still enjoy the work even if it get frustrating at times. Good luck on your build.

[David Rase]

I find inletting barrels not that difficult either.
David

[smallpatch]

Me either, I send them to Dave!

[little joe]

Putting the bbl, is not too difficult however you do not have it mastered until you get the rr grove cut and the hole drilled with a  proper web front and rear, then sit back and have a smoke or pepsi or beer or whatever relaxes you.When you can do the above on a swampted  or oct. to round bbl. with out screwing up you will be well on the road to being gun stocker. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Long John]

Bill,

I agree with you 100%.  While I don't like straight octagon barrels and usually use swamped barrels, the actual process is fairly simple.  With good, sharp chisels and a inletting saw I average about 4 hours per foot for a finished inlet.  I find the work therapeutic and pleasurable.  But--------if you are building a gun for someone else, especially for money, then the TIME required is an issue.  I don't begrudge the folks that have barrels machine inlet by one of the folks that provide that service.  If they want to pay someone else to have the fun for them that's their choice.  But I prefer to let in my barrels in the first-person with mallet and chisels and saw.  I like knowing that I own that skill.  But I've been told I am half a bubble off plumb enough that I've gotten used to it.

Best Regards,

John Cholin

[n stephenson]

There`s nothing wrong with hand inletting barrels , I`ve done a bunch of them , I still do pistols, blunderbuss , etc.  The main reason I hire it done is that  I`d rather spend the time carving , engraving , etc. That`s part of the fun of this whole thing , everybody is at a different point on this trail. I believe everybody that builds should at least try inletting their own barrel once .Like stated earlier it`s not hard ,just time consuming . So far I haven't had a customer refuse a gun because of a machine cut barrel channel.     

[Mike Brooks]

I did my first 15 or so by hand. Then I meet Fred Miller. I don't miss inletting barrels by hand.

[Mark Elliott]

It is not hard if you are used to doing thoughtful, precision work.   It is just time consuming.    However,  I am teaching a young man to build, and his first barrel inlet was kinda rough.    The problem was understanding what to do with the tools.   I could tell him and show him, but until he made his own mistakes,  he didn't understand.   I think mistakes are an essential, if infuriating, part of the learning process.   I really didn't embrace that until I had to teach someone else to do the work.   I thought that I could teach out the mistakes.  That was a big mistake.

[g2608671@verizon.net]

These posts are indeed encouraging.  But the bottom line with these assurances that patience, skill and perseverance are key elements is the fact that, as Dirty Harry said, "A man has to know his limitations".

 

 

[deepcreekdale]

I have inletted about 130 barrels by hand since the 1970's. The first dozen or so were slow and tedious, sometimes taking weeks, mainly because at the time, all I had was a 1/4 inch chisel and a rawhide mallet to do the job. There is a slow learning curve on this.  I think Mark makes an excellent point, the only way to learn is to make mistakes. It does take a few different hand tools to speed up the job.
The way I tackle it is to first draw the barrel profile on top of the stock with the plug removed and then, using a large # 9 gouge hog out the wood inside those lines, pretty much to final depth. Then, when you lay the barrel into your rough mortise, your barrel side flats should be very close to the top surface. Then, draw the outline with a sharp razor knife, remove the barrel and go over those lines a few times with the same razor knife. Don't try using a pencil it will not be precise enough. Using this line and using a wide chisel, cut straight down to establish your side flats. Obviously for a round barrel you would not perform  that step.Then you can start using your inletting black, candle smoke or whatever to finish fit. I find that a variety of dogleg chisels (bought at flea markets and reshaped) help greatly as well a few skew chisels.
With practice, the procedure can go quickly, I completed a 46 inch, oct to round barrel this weekend, in a piece of nice hard curly maple, I had about 4 and half hours in it to complete. I recently had a project with a 38 inch, straight barrel, in the hardest, curliest, most cussed piece of maple I have ever seen and it took over 15 hours as it was impossible to make more than tiny shaving cuts at any time to avoid any tear out. It would have been easier to inlet the barrel into the concrete floor of my shop. But it will be a spectacular piece of wood when done, the customer had been hanging on to it for over 40 years. It is nice and stable for sure.
I don't find that straight barrels are any easier that swamped or oct/round, the process is pretty much identical.

[Bill Raby]

   Got a bit further on it tonight. Seems like a good idea to describe how I am doing it. I am always open to criticism and welcome any advice that may help. And I know that there are good number of guys reading this that are thinking about their first rifle build and trying to learn all that they can about it. So here it is. All gouge size are for the Pfeil gouges. Other brands probably use some different system to measure the sizes.

   I started out by drawing outline of the barrel channel with a razor knife. Then cut straight down with a 25mm flat chisel. Have to get a bigger one for next time. Then just start scooping out wood with a 18mm #9 gouge. Then put inletting black on the barrel and lay it in. It would transfer only on the edges of the barrel. So I cut that out with a 6mm V gouge. I got quite a lot of use out of that gouge. Just tip it a little to one side or the other to take off wood where the flat would start to come into contact. Once curve from the #9 gouge started to flatten out on the barrel flats I went over that part again 8mm #7 gouge. At that point I was getting a good idea of how much wood was left to remove. Flats are about 8mm across and #7 gave about the depth that I needed across that width. Back to the V gouge again. When I was starting to get close I put aside the v gouge and now I am using 8mm flat gouge. The barrel channel matches the shape of the barrel and I have less than 1/16 inch to go. Getting close. I am using a 4mm skew chisel at the breech end.

   I used the oil stones for sharpening for most of my life. A few years ago I switched to those Japanese water stones. That was a big improvement. Recently bought a set of the diamond sharpening stones. Over $100 each, but worth the money. Chisels are as sharp off the stone as I used to get off the strop. But I went totally nuts. I got a new set of strops and charged them with diamond powder instead of stropping compound. It gets the chisels sharper than I ever thought possible. No need for a mallet. Forget about that diamond paste nonsense. Its a whole lot more paste than diamond. $19 for a little syringe of the stuff that has about a carat of diamond in there. I bought 100 carats of diamond powder for $25.

[Woodsrunner79]

Mr. Elliott, that last post resonated with me. I know just how you friend's mind works. I can read it, I can hear it and you can show it to me but till I do it (and mess it up) I font quite understand it.

So, from all the guys look me me thanks and keep teaching, we'll get it...... Eventually.

[flehto]

After the first 4 bbl inlets and drilling the RR stuff,  sat myself down and did some thinking. Having built 4 LRs and having been very interested in each build to the point of being obsessed, zeroed in on the one operation that was the most boring....inletting the bbl  along w/ the RR hole.

So, having noticed that Fred Miller's name popped up a lot w/ his bbl and RR work, sent #5 to him and after looking at his work, sent many more until he retired.

Many of my builds have been Bucks County LRs which are very slim, bordering on petite and one way to achieve this slimness is w/ very thin webs. Dave Rase  is able to produce these thin webs so he's been doing this work. The BC LR shown below has a web at the breech  of 1/16".

W/ Dave Rase doing this work, would never even consider doing the bbl./RR work.....Fred