I looked back in my posts and it was December 2019 when I last posted on this build. I have had three back surgeries and multiple injections since April 2020, so I haven't really felt like working on it. I am able to work a couple hours a day now, so I would like to make some headway on this. This build is for my youngest son and he will be leaving in March for his sixth deployment with the US Army, so I would like to have this finished for him before he leaves.
Don Stith graciously measured the barrel on his original pistol so that I could make a barrel to match. I made a barrel, that I posted photos of here in a previous post, but I was not happy with it. I breeched the barrel with a 1/2" long plug and fitted a 1/4" White Lightening liner just ahead of the plug. This made the touch hole about 1/4" too far forward.
I started a new barrel that I will install a longer chambered plug into so that I can install the touch hole in the correct position. I am adding some photos of the process that I used for reaming the bore as there was some interest on how I did that on the other barrel. I drilled the blank thru with a 17/32" drill which left me a little over .020" to ream for the finished bore of .560.
This is the finished bore.
The square reamer entering the bore.
The hickory backing strip and the paper shims, The paper is .004" thick and with increase the bore .003" per pass.
The last two photos are of the flour like shavings that come from one pass.
I ran the reamer at 32 RPM and with a feed rate of .0274" per revolution. The first photo doesn't show well, but the bore is glass smooth. I pushed a patced round ball thru and there are no tight or loose spots. Now to fit the breech and profile the blank.
Thanks for looking, Mark
