Thread: Hawkins plains rifle project

What do you use to cut the barrel so the sights can be mounted?

Hacksaw and file, in the traditional way, or you get a box of sight wedge holes and use one of those

How many hours did you keep a total? I had a guy came in with a model train the other day, amazing work, just like yours, a retired gent, asked him build time and he said 7 years! Told him to write a story on the build and how he did it so his grand kids will have an understanding of the achievement and not sell it off for a few bucks. Gotta become a family heirloom

Wedge holes,! now why diden`t I think of that . Now Toby it was the essaist of all the jobs to do, angle bracket on top slide, vice bolted on to the face, barrel clamped in, a slot cut and then a wedge milling cutter, easypesy. (I made the cutter). Maca49, I would say about 3 years. I tryd a diffrent way at first and then had to get myself a bigger lathe, had a Myford 7, to small a hole in the head stock. My new one is 38mm bore and .900mm b/c.
If you look hard at the rifle cutting gear boxes, the end one looks very much like an angle grinder head,? there`s also a skill saw gearbox and the one holding the gun drill is a 1 turn in 28. And a gun drill needs high pressure oil to flush out the metal chips.
A pic of the chips.homebrew.357

Sing out if you need more power tool parts, have a few around from time to time

Hi, All, a few stuff ups on my part is holding up getting a good group out of this rifle. #one, fired two shots with P/Rball, 3rd shot no powder in the barrel, Aaaah!, I now have a tool for removing a stuck lead ball. Stuff up#two, loading 60gs fffg with 220gr bullet, shot was good at 50m, hit at 2oclock on target, cleaned bore with damp patch, and then dry one ,whole jag end and patch stay in the barrel, AAAaah!, I`m learning. Anyway some more pics of how I drilled the barrel, I used a car power steering pump for the oil pressure feed to the gun drill, pic 175 shows the oil at 200 psi, pic 174 is the set up with the drill going in through the plastic chip and oil box,pic #092 is how I made the lathe for barrel drilling and gearing it down for slow in feed.home brew.357.

Hi, Guys, A bit more on how I cut the rifling in the barrel. The splash guard has two spaced bolts holding it on ,I clamped to upright steel brackets to them, then a long angle piece with clamps welded on to it,this was clamped to the upright brackets and it could move up or down. On top of the angle flat a length of bike chain was bolted on inline with the lathe bed way. The geared head is driven by the large bike sprocket that runs along the chain. The gearbox sits on a sliding assembly that runs up and done the tail stock bed way and it is cranked up and down by a loop of bike chain under the top slide, this is bolted to it. The rifling is only cut form the head stock to the tail stock end,e g left to right on the lathe. At the back end of my lathe head stock at small bit of thread is what I used to attached the barrel holder, this has four grub screws to chuck up the barrel true. Any way a look at the pics should show it all, cheers, Homebrew.357.

Can you post a pic of the cutting tips you used?

Fark Homebrew, thats real hard case 'no 8 wire' kiwi ingenuity right there.....my cap is doffed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi, Yea, it was a lot of stuff from the scrap bin all right. Ok, a look at the rifling cutter head, The round body is four inches long x .422" o/d ,it has a hole through and one end is threaded 6x1.0 metric in the ID. A shaft fits in side with a ramp at one end, then a sliding hut to fit the 6x1.0 thread in the body, locks it in, but it can slide in and out. The next large nut is threaded on the shaft and this is for adjusting the cutter with the fine thread on the small shaft, a end nut is soldered on to hold it all together.
The other end an adapter fits in and is pin to hold it on the long rifling rod, a spring on a small piston holds the cutter head down on the ramp and the cutter is all so pined in place. Adjustment to the cutter is made by screwing out the the large nut, then the ramp assembly can go in a bit more when pushed in, risers the cutter. HOPE you can understand all this, anyway a pic is thousand words, Homegrew.357. PS In #2 thread is a pic of the cutter and shaft, in this pic the cutter is down.

Hell mate, that is indeed some serious DIY genuine kiwi ingenuity right there!

Well done.

Thanks for the pic, you have thought outside the square on this one!

Now hang on a minute mate, I did not design the cutting head, it was Bill Webb`s idea , I copied it for a bore size of .433", for a black powder barrel. Now Bill was making B/Barrels for bench rest shooting and his cutting head was for a 6mm bore!, yik`s, a man would go cross eyed at that size, or a .17!!. It was hard enough a at .433", and I`m now making a new body for my one. Cheers, Homebrew.357.

Beautiful mate

Hi, Guys, a lot of the time doing this was making up the bits to fit on the lathe, and once I had it all sorted making the barrel took only about 3/4 weeks. Now this is the the first barrel, it came out a .440 bore, not what I wanted and it is a bit rough in side. Have made up a new cutter head with a t/c tip this time from an old saw blade, getting the gun drill sharped and getting some 1018 steel for another barrel, this time .450" bore I hope, Cheers ,homebrew .357