Dies & Taps?

[Awgeodude]

What are the dies & taps used for? [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]
And when I say dies I don't mean the type of dies that you use for bullet reloading.
- Alan

[Dave King]

Threading metal, male and female type parts. A die put threads on a metal rod (male), a tap puts threads in a hole (female).

[Awgeodude]

Thanx, Are there any websites that tells you or shows you how to thread a rifle barrel and other gun related items?

-Alan

[Dave King]

I imaging there are but I'm not aware of any right off hand.

A rifle barrel is generally threaded on a lathe and not with a die I believe but I could be wrong and I imaging there are some exceptions.

[chris matthews]

You're not imagining things, they are single point cut on a lathe.

[4ked Horn]

I have a question chris. Is there any secret to threading a bbl for mounting it in a remington type receiver? When I was in college machine shop class I had a desire to make a copy of a 14" rem xp100 in .223 but I was going to add a 3 rnd blind mag. (now savage has this for sale).

I went in search of advice to a local gunsmith shop that I found out later was disliked by all who crossed their threshold. They asked me who was going to thread the bbl? I was the best student in the class so I confidently told them that I was going to do all the work myself short of making a rifled tube. I was going to machine everything except the springs. They laughed and walked away.

Needless to say I never launched this project after learning that it was against the law to make my own guns. And I never went back to that shop either. But I always wondered what is so hard about threading a bbl as opposed to any other item I single pointed as a machinist.

[chris matthews]

The big secret is to get the threads perfectly concentric with the bore.
The actual cutting of the threads is the same as what you did, but there is a lot more involved.