Rifling a barrel by hand

[Hunterwild]

Wow that's amazing great info . Thank you so much

Hunterwild

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Here is a link showing the rifling machine I have used for over 40 years, rifled lots of barrels on it.

Jim

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=33134.msg317737#msg317737

[Hunterwild]

Thanks for your link amazing info

Hunterwild

[DutchGramps]

Excuse my ignorance, but why are there so many grooves in the guide? Would one not be sufficient, and could the number of grooves be found in the index head?

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

DutchGramps is certainly not ignorant at all, probably a deep thinker!  Yes, a rifling machine could be made with the guide having only a single groove and the indexing performed by a head mechanism.  However, this machine was copied/adapted from an original in a private collection in W. Pa. which used 7 grooves in the guide.  A head mechanism as was used by the Fry Brothers and by Charles Knupp/Daniel Border in W. Pa. had indexes that were independent of the number of grooves in the guide, so are a bit closer to your idea.  Here are links to these two original rifling machines:

Jim

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=41863.msg407440#msg407440

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=27878.msg265860#msg265860

[tim crowe]

Rich Pierce,  from the time the cutter box is in the bore and everything set .  If no problems encountered (  cutter break, barrel move, etc) 2hours rifling work =440 passes +or -, rifled barrel done.

[rich pierce]

Thanks, Tim!  Impressive.