Lathe finally showed!

bigngreen

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Joined
Nov 24, 2008
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8,830
Location
SW Montana
It's been a long time coming having ordered a lathe in the spring I finally got it in place!! Still slowly finishing my work space but I have to spread the dollars thin across all the irons I have in the fire :D

In the end I got a Precision Matthews PM 13x40 GT, it's set up with a 3 phase motor on a VFD, quick change tool post, Easson DRO and all the little goodies that come along. Just getting the hang of it, really dig the DRO and how smooth the lathe runs.
One of my issues I was having with the older lathe I was running was getting good threads on certain barrels, the threads worked OK and did the job but I could not get the smooth even threads that I would get on nicer cutting barrels. Particularly the factory Rem barrels seemed to just not quite dialed in like I wanted, so with the new lathe I wacked a Rem 7mm barrel to pieces and got my tooling set up the on the new lathe. Found the sweet spot and got the threads I've been looking for and in the material I was struggling with the most! Smooth threads that are even all the way sure do feel nice, I fitted a brake that is being moved to a larger cal. Threaded on 4 turns and I have .001 of play at the end of the brake and it spins on like butter all the way down, SUPER happy with the lathe thus far :D
Now I gotta get a rear spider made for it and some jigs.

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Very nice . So when can I send you my REMMY action along with a .338 HART 32" barrel :D:D:D

Looks like you got it dialed in......
 
Look's pretty high techy! I don't know how to operate one, but it could be very satisfying to turn out high precision parts and pieces.

It look's like an expensive piece of machinery. You better start hiring your work out to help pay some portion of it off.
 
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Very nice.

Maybe not the place to ask, but how are you finding zero in a 3 jaw?

I still use a 4 jaw and dial zero off of the bore....then thread tenion or muzzle for brake.
 
Very nice.

Maybe not the place to ask, but how are you finding zero in a 3 jaw?

I still use a 4 jaw and dial zero off of the bore....then thread tenion or muzzle for brake.

I'm just screwing around getting the tooling dialed in so I just have a sawed of chunk of barrel in the three jaw, on barrels I have a 4 jaw or as soon as I can a true bore alignment system form Straight Shot Gunsmithing. There are quite a few guys who use a adjust true 3 jaw chuck so it can be done in a three jaw.

Mike, it's around $7200 list the way it sits I think. There is a couple grand worth of tooling and stuff that you don't see and I'm just getting started really.
 
Probably a dumb question but, and probably asked the wrong way.

Is it for cut or button rifling?

It's just for chambering and fitting rifled barrels and truing actions, does not matter what kind of rifling. A gun drill and rifling machine hurts my brain :D
 
So are you going to start your own gunsmithing company now?:) Thats a good looking machine. I will buy the first barrel, but i want a 1/8th MOA guarentee. :D:D
 
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