Barrel straightening.

[J E Custom]

There have been many post about straight barrel and testing them before starting a project. Before the shooting world saw many improvements in machining and tooling, most barrels had to be straightened after boring and rifling.

Here are some of the old tools and methods required to end up with a straight barrel. I saw one of these early barrel straighteners and was fascinated by the skill of the Gunsmith and the fact that this process required true north light. The tool had a large hand wheel that applied forced in the center of the bend of the barrel between two points and the gunsmith looked down the bore and had to judge how far past straight he had to go to allow for the barrel to spring back to be straight.

We are very fortunate to have the quality of present day barrel makers and with a little testing we can find a near perfectly straight barrel.

The link below shows some of the tool that were used and a barrel straightener that was used and one of the best of them.

https://www.nps.gov/spar/learn/historyculture/machines.htm

enjoy

J E CUSTOM

 

[tobnpr]

Unless they've changed very recently, Savage still straightens barrels the "old fashioned way" with a handwheel press.

 

[sable tireur]

This was taken in a 'German military rifle factory'.

 

[david g ranes]

Unless they've changed very recently, Savage still straightens barrels the "old fashioned way" with a handwheel press.

View attachment 185601

I seen the guy for savage do it on tv said he used a light to show shadows would bend barrel until no more shadow they said the man that done it for them was unbelievable on how straight he could get a barrel. David

 

[cohunt]

And then there is the krummlauf

 

[Bob Wright]

The colonial shop in Williamsburg VA, is really nice to see. The processes they used building muzzleloaders was pretty impressive.

 

[david g ranes]

Good thing there is smarter people out there than me or we would be in a world of hurt David

 

[Radman]

Good thing there is smarter people out there than me or we would be in a world of hurt David

Ditto.

 

[ntsqd]

Watched a wizard straighten a forged Big Block Chevy stroker crank after it warped in heat-treating. It was out of true by almost .015"TIR when measured at the middle bearing journal and supported by the front and rear bearing journals. Took him about 20 mins to bring it down to within .0001" TIR He did it entirely with a 24 oz. hammer and a big chisel that had it's point carefully hand ground to a specific radius that matched journal's radii.

That a barrel can be straightened by such a seemingly crude method is not a surprise. I'm also sure that not just anyone can do that job!

 

[JMW67]

Watched a wizard straighten a forged Big Block Chevy stroker crank after it warped in heat-treating. It was out of true by almost .015"TIR when measured at the middle bearing journal and supported by the front and rear bearing journals. Took him about 20 mins to bring it down to within .0001" TIR He did it entirely with a 24 oz. hammer and a big chisel that had it's point carefully hand ground to a specific radius that matched journal's radii.

That a barrel can be straightened by such a seemingly crude method is not a surprise. I'm also sure that not just anyone can do that job!

thing would look like a horse shoe when I got through

 

[ntsqd]

thing would look like a horse shoe when I got through

Maybe that's all that barrel was good for anyway! LOL
I'm pretty sure that I could make a straight barrel less so, myself.

 

[338 dude]

Unless they've changed very recently, Savage still straightens barrels the "old fashioned way" with a handwheel press.

View attachment 185601

Most manufacturers seem to have basically the same process but this is new to me I wonder if that's what makes savages shoot so well to look through their barrels with the borescope they are not much different than any manufacturer but they are known to be Shooter's I wonder if this is what makes the difference

 

[tobnpr]

Most manufacturers seem to have basically the same process but this is new to me I wonder if that's what makes savages shoot so well to look through their barrels with the borescope they are not much different than any manufacturer but they are known to be Shooter's I wonder if this is what makes the difference

I've yet to see a Savage barrel through a borescope that didn't scare the hell out of me.
This includes a recently acquired .338 LM that somehow manages to shoot sub minute (barely so) despite some of the worst chatter from a rifling button I've ever seen...

I don't know of any other production mfr. that does it, so it's certainly feasible that this combined with the floating bolthead contributes to the out-of-the-box accuracy that's generally pretty good.

JMO, YMMV.

 

[RYEWSKY25284]

Check this video out... I was amazed how he straighten a BBL. Very primative.