# Would a PM-1440E-LB make a good gunsmithing lathe?



## Chip (Sep 24, 2014)

Seems like every time I am close to making a decision on the Grizzly G4003G something new comes up. Namely the PM-1440E-LB.

Given the choice between these two, which would be a better value?


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## zmotorsports (Sep 24, 2014)

Your really not comparing apples to apples with those two choices.  A 12x36 vs. a 14x40 size.  Different secondary gearbox styles.  The two closer comparisons would be a Grizzly G0709 and the Precision Mathews PM1440E-LB.  Those have the same secondary gearbox styles, whereas the G4003G has the Norton style gearbox for threading/IPR.

The 1440E-LB also has a 2" spindle bore compared to 1-9/16" on the G4003G.

Between the two you asked about I would probably go with the PM1440E-LB over the G4003G for the above reasons, but if you are comparing the PM1440E-LB to the G0709 it is about a toss up.

I hope other members who actually own either of these two will chime in and give real first have experience/opinions.


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## Andre (Sep 24, 2014)

I'd go with the PM, IF it has a rear spider. If you want to do some serious gunsmithing work, you should have a spider. It allows you to truly dial in the bore when chambering and crowning.
Plus, the PM has a 3 year warranty, larger capacity, and is 400 pounds heavier. It also comes with a toolpost.


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## wrmiller (Sep 24, 2014)

Gunsmithing isn't hard on a lathe. If both have comparable build quality and accuracy, that extra 400 lbs won't mean much. Unless you have other projects requiring heavier cuts than those typically done in normal gunsmithing, like making cannon or mortars.  

But the other points made are valid. I guess you really have to make you choice based on what you want/need to do with the lathe. A Eisen 12x36 or PM 1340gt will more than fit the bill of a quality lathe that will handle rifle work (these are on my short list). You can make a spider.

Just my $0.02
Bill


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## drs23 (Sep 24, 2014)

Firstly, I'm NOT a gunsmith but bought the G4003G, a gun smithing lathe before knowing about PM. I've been very pleased with it but have had an issue or two. Mainly, the motor went TU just before the warranty expired. Grizzly was very prompt taking care of the issue and the head electrical tech gave me his private line to contact him directly because the replacement motor was not identical to the original unit. They were shipping stuff left and right (caps, relays, transformers and several parts I can't remember right now) to take care of the problem that only a motor replacement would do. In my book it's an excellent bang for the buck. If you can afford to stretch to the PM I'd not dissuade you. Many folks here are very pleased with them although they're not without their occasional hiccup as well (ask the folks that got metric machines when they ordered Imperial, stuff happens). As Mike suggested the PM machine he referenced does have a larger spindle bore. Are you gonna build cannons? The Grizzly does come equipped with a spider and brass tipped bolts for it. I've used mine only once but it worked as advertised. At one time I *just knew* there was an accuracy problem and I finally found it. In the mirror.:rofl: After investing in a DRO I found the dials to be spot on. 

Now that I know a little bit more about what I'm doing I find it to be as accurate as the operator is. I turned three .001" interference fits today and after soaking the female part on the stove burner at lo-medium and the male in the freezer a little tap with my LFH sent it home. After returning to ambient temp, they ain't going anywhere. (Went ahead and pinned a .001" interference fit on one part anyway though. It was on an Ironhead!) I was able to turn the pin to 0.138" in one shot out of cold rolled.

I'm sure you could do all of the above with either machine as they both seem to have pretty solid reps. Might come down to budget. How much is one unit compared to the other?

P.S. I've been running machines ever since the day I got my lathe and the warranty expired June 12th past. :whistle:


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## dave2176 (Sep 24, 2014)

I have the Grizzly G4003G. It has a spider, QCTP and can easily chamber a 22" barrel held in the 4 jaw and spider. The Norton gear box allows it to go down to .0011/rev on the longitudinal feed. It also has a D1-5 camlock which has 6 pins if that helps with rigidity in the chuck.

The PM also has QCTP, D1-5 camlock, and the spindle length should get you down to a 22" barrel though it looks like you need to add a spider. The specs say it can achieve .0006"/rev on the logitudinal feed which is plenty slow. It weighs 600 pounds more. Seems like a great machine.
Dave


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## Chip (Sep 25, 2014)

First off, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to help me with my questions. Seriously, I really appreciate it.

Considering what has been mentioned above, maybe my focus doesn't point to a gunsmithing lathe necessarily. I have an interest in gunsmithing to some degree, but I am no benchrest shooter. My focus would be more on re-profiling a barrel, cutting muzzle threads, crowning a barrel. My interest in the gunsmithing lathe was the perceived quality and accuracy and large numbers of previous buyers reviews. Figure actual gunsmithing as 30% of my use. Actually, the ability to chuck up a 2" dia tube inside the spindle and fab my own hydraulic cylinder would be pretty darn cool. I am also guessing that a DRO is coming sooner or later regardless of what I buy. Otherwise the frustration level as well as the scrap pile would likely get too deep. That added expense on the 1236 now separates the two apples to apples by $800. Also noticed the 1440e-lb is almost 500lbs heavier.

The Eisen 1236GH looks exactly like the G4003G. (wonder if both are made in Taiwan?)

Decisions, decisions...


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## zmotorsports (Sep 25, 2014)

Chip said:


> First off, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to help me with my questions. Seriously, I really appreciate it.
> 
> Considering what has been mentioned above, maybe my focus doesn't point to a gunsmithing lathe necessarily. I have an interest in gunsmithing to some degree, but I am no benchrest shooter. My focus would be more on re-profiling a barrel, cutting muzzle threads, crowning a barrel. My interest in the gunsmithing lathe was the perceived quality and accuracy and large numbers of previous buyers reviews. Figure actual gunsmithing as 30% of my use. Actually, the ability to chuck up a 2" dia tube inside the spindle and fab my own hydraulic cylinder would be pretty darn cool. I am also guessing that a DRO is coming sooner or later regardless of what I buy. Otherwise the frustration level as well as the scrap pile would likely get too deep. That added expense on the 1236 now separates the two apples to apples by $800. Also noticed the 1440e-lb is almost 500lbs heavier.
> 
> ...



Actually the Grizzly G4003G is a Chinese lathe.  The Eisen 1236GH is more comparable to the Precision Mathews PM1340GT just a little smaller.  Both Eisen and PM are Taiwanese as origin and quality.


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## zmotorsports (Sep 25, 2014)

Chip said:


> First off, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to help me with my questions. Seriously, I really appreciate it.
> 
> Considering what has been mentioned above, maybe my focus doesn't point to a gunsmithing lathe necessarily. I have an interest in gunsmithing to some degree, but I am no benchrest shooter. My focus would be more on re-profiling a barrel, cutting muzzle threads, crowning a barrel. My interest in the gunsmithing lathe was the perceived quality and accuracy and large numbers of previous buyers reviews. Figure actual gunsmithing as 30% of my use. Actually, the ability to chuck up a 2" dia tube inside the spindle and fab my own hydraulic cylinder would be pretty darn cool. I am also guessing that a DRO is coming sooner or later regardless of what I buy. Otherwise the frustration level as well as the scrap pile would likely get too deep. That added expense on the 1236 now separates the two apples to apples by $800. Also noticed the 1440e-lb is almost 500lbs heavier.
> 
> ...



Actually the Grizzly G4003G is a Chinese lathe.  The Eisen 1236GH is more comparable to the Precision Mathews PM1340GT just a little smaller.  Both Eisen and PM are Taiwanese as origin and quality.

If you are looking at the Eisen 1236 take a look at the Precision Mathew PM1340GT.  It is a high quality lathe and I can actually speak from personal experience on that particular lathe.


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## coolidge (Sep 25, 2014)

I own a G4003G and I'm happy with my purchase. I'm in the G4003 fan club and I have tricked mine out with a kick ass DroPro's EL400 DRO are you with me so far? Yes the 'gunsmith' version of this lathe gets some nice upgrades like the D1-5 cam lock vs the more puny cam lock on the G4003. Worth the added cost I say yes. 

Now lets get to the flaws so you are not surprised if you purchase this lathe. This lathe is CHINA so go into it with your eyes open. That means CHINA QCTP and holders, CHINA paint job, CHINA assembly, and CHINA quality in some areas. In no particular order...

1. The stand is too tall unless you are 6'6" and too shallow, it will not inspire confidence in terms of tipping over, more so if you install leveling pads which makes it even shallower. I'd bolt it down if I were in an earth quake zone. I'm going to have to build a shorter more stable stand for mine.

2. The paint job was average, I had to finish painting the stands and the paint job on the lathe is sub-par in areas with flaking.

3. Assembly in some areas was poor, I had to re-drill and tap the motor mounts because the motor was positioned too far towards the tailstock to align the motor pulley with the spindle pulley. The factory just hung the motor pulley half off the motor shaft instead of fixing the problem.

4. The motor pulley was so horribly machined it wobbled on the motor shaft in cartoon like fashion. Grizzly sent me a replacement pulley that runs dead nuts true so problem solved but this does speak to quality of assembly and component quality.

5. The motor was installed so visibly crooked I question the QC inspection. In the picture below you can see that I have fixed the issues and mounted the motor square and parallel.

6. The head stock oil drain plug is located in a retarded position guaranteed to make draining the oil a mess.

7. The area where the bolts hold the gap in the ways down is a chip magnet, I fashioned a stainless sheet metal cover for that area to ease cleanup.

That about covers my annoyances with the lathe, it has performed well with no issues. I did spend some time eliminating vibration from the spindle due to the V belts. Mind you made in USA Napa V belts were no better than the factory V belts. I switched to linked belts for a nice improvement. So if you go this route just plan on having to address some quality and assembly issues. I feel for the money it was still a good value and have purchased enough CHINA machines to know what I would be getting into. I don't know anything about the PM lathe but took a look, I was hoping it had a lower RPM for threading but both lathes are 70 RPM's.


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## wrmiller (Sep 25, 2014)

Is the 1440E Chinese or Taiwan?

Bill


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## zmotorsports (Sep 25, 2014)

wrmiller19 said:


> Is the 1440E Chinese or Taiwan?
> 
> Bill



The PM1440E-LB is Chinese.  Also the "LB" indicates Large Bore.  Just in case you were unsure the nomenclature.

On edit, I probably shouldn't have mentioned those as they are well beyond the realm or scope of this forum truly are production machines.


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## Chip (Sep 25, 2014)

zmotorsports said:


> Actually the Grizzly G4003G is a Chinese lathe.  The Eisen 1236GH is more comparable to the Precision Mathews PM1340GT just a little smaller.  Both Eisen and PM are Taiwanese as origin and quality.
> 
> If you are looking at the Eisen 1236 take a look at the Precision Mathew PM1340GT.  It is a high quality lathe and I can actually speak from personal experience on that particular lathe.



You're right, the Eisen 1236gh IS the exact duplicate of your 1340, only a smaller version. Im not gonna lie, spending thousands on a Chinese lathe makes me nervous about buying a lemon. Read one story where a guy discovered a strip from a tape measure installed in his machine as a bearing shim. Another where his bearing was not fully (1/2) supported by the race. As with the gentleman with the beautiful G4003g above who found one of the most basic assembly needs (mounting the motor pulley properly in line with the driven pulley fubar'd.

That Eisen 1236 can be had for around $4200 with stand and chucks and stuff. 5K with DRO. Taiwan made..............Too bad I can't view much of anything in Austin


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## GA Gyro (Sep 25, 2014)

I have been in that dilemma of which machine(s) to get... 
I took the approach of determining the company I thought made the better products, and settled on Precision Matthews products.
I understand in the early days of Quality Machine Tools; the owner of the company, a guy named Matt, was talking to the Chinese about specs of a machine. They nicknamed the machine a Precision Matthew... and the name stuck.
After choosing a company, then to choosing a lathe and mill worked it down to these: 

Lathe: PM 1236 or 1340GT
Mill: PM 932 or 936 (Note this is a larger difference, as one mill is a head mill, the other is a knee mill).

Did exhaustive research, had the chance to look at a few machines, and determined I would go this route:

Lathe: PM1340GT
Mill: For now, a PM932PDF (power down feed), and later find a Bridgeport and rebuild it.  

The reasoning for the lathe is the Taiwanese made; Fit, detail, careful assembly, and the Norton gearbox... not having to hassle with gears to do threads (I probably will rarely do Metric threads).  
On the mill... it was a more difficult decision: The PM936 is a Taiwanese 2/3 or 3/4 size (cannot remember at this point) Bridgeport design, knee mill... and a rather nice one at that!  This would really be a nice machine to own and make chips on, however there are space and moving issues in the current basement shop which would make moving a knee mill design both difficult and potentially dangerous (size, top-heave design, and weight).  Also, in the future, I may CNC the benchtop 932, depending on paying projects.  
And having two mills, a smaller one and a larger one, made sense to me.  
At this point, there are no plans for a second lathe, so getting a higher quality lathe made sense to me.

There may be a small amount of gun-smithing in my future, so having machines that are capable of tighter tolerances (the operator is the REAL tool), made sense also.  

It took me over 2 months of reading, studying, and looking... to come anywhere near a decision... I think I have read every thread at this and another forum that has to do with the PM machines I was interested in; as well as talked to a number of forum members, visited a few forum members who have machines, and visited shops that sell Jet, Grizzly, and other machines. (I still think the PM machines are the better deal).  

So my advise:  Define what you want to do (most important)... then take your time.  You will know when you have done enough research and will make the right decision... and will be thankful you did enough research to satisfy your own needs.  

Then let us know what you came up with, and at this forum, we (grin) require a receive/unpack/setup/first chips thread, with LOTS of pictures.  No thread, it did not happen... LOL

BTW: RayC, at this forum, is a source of information... PM him.  Sometimes he is busy, give him a few days to get back with you.


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## dave2176 (Sep 25, 2014)

After Coolidge posted is trouble with the pulley and belts I inspected my G4003G motor, pulley and belts. Never did have a vibration problem and the motor and pulley looked great. As far as the paint, I agree, it could be better. Mine peeled some and has primer showing in spots where it came off during original cleaning. All in all it works great.

Dave


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## zmotorsports (Sep 25, 2014)

GA said:


> Mill: *PM 932 or 936 (Note this is a larger difference, as one mill is a head mill, the other is a knee mill).*
> 
> Did exhaustive research, had the chance to look at a few machines, and determined I would go this route:
> 
> ...



Slight correction.  Matt/QMT doesn't have a 936, he has an 836 or a 935 knee mill that is a 2/3 size Bridgeport.  The 836 is Chinese and is identical to the JET JVM836 which is a step pulley machine but doesn't have much of a low speed, if memory serves only has a 1.5 hp motor.  It has tilt but does not have nod nor power down feed.

The 935 he carries is Taiwanese and comes in either single or three phase, step pulley or variable speed and has a full featured Bridgeport style head with a 3hp motor.  This mill has tilt and nod features on the head and and power downfeed.


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## tmarks11 (Sep 25, 2014)

zmotorsports said:


> the G4003G has the Norton style gearbox for threading/IPR.


An important part of the comparison.

Not all QCGB are created equal.  The Norton (open with shift levers) is an older style, but that doesn't necessarily make it inferior to the (newer) fully enclosed gearboxes.

Why?

You have to look at the range of threads and feeds allowed without changing gears.  The G4003G allows ALL inch threads AND feeding without changing any gears.

The Grizzly G0750G is a recent Grizzly 12x46 addition, yet it's QCGB is (IMHO) inferior to the (cheaper) G4003G.  It requires you to change gears for almost every thread.  And when you are done threading, to make it go back to feeding, you have to change gears again.  Not really sure were the "Quick" in QCGB is for that scenario.

Guess what?

The PM 1440E-LB looks EXACTLY like the G0750G.  If it has the same QCGB (which I bet it does), than I would look for another machine.  

Strongly consider the PM 1340GT.  From all accounts, it is a good machine, with fewer compromises than the Chinese lathes.  Is it less capable that a 1440?  Consider this: most 1440 lathes are the same machine as a 1236.  The headstock casting is 1" taller (or it gets a spacer), and the bed is 4" longer.  Whoopee.  Doesn't really change the machines capabilities (raise your hand the last time you turned an object greater than 12" in diameter? Nope, me neither). Same weight to the casting. Same bed width.  All the extra length and height does is make the machine slightly less rigid.  go figure.

Full disclosure: I own a Grizzly G0709G.  I think if I had to do it again, I might have spent more time looking at the 1340GT.  The G0709G has a great QCGB, btw.  I can cut ALL inch threads and feed without having to change any gears.  The only time a gear swap is required is to shift over to metric threads.  But it is definitely a chinese machine, with all the care and feeding they put into such things.  The motor mount looks like some one shaped the mold with a machete and not much love, and there are some other similar issues.


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## Chip (Sep 27, 2014)

Thank you all for the outstanding advice! 

You all brought up points in this thread and others that I never considered and that helps me narrow my focus. Looks like I am going to go with the Grizzly G4003G to accompany a Tormach 1100. I suspect that the capabilities of the Grizzly should meet my foreseeable needs, while freeing up some of the budget to outfit the Tormach.

Worse case scenario I would be able to use the Tormach to refine the lathe if necessary, and I should be able to flip the Grizzly locally should I outgrow it.


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## Jamespvill (Sep 28, 2014)

I've had both machines, The 4003G treated me well for quite some time but then I started running into serious problems. I really, really liked the quick-change gearbox. Perhaps I just got a lemon, or maybe I was just incompetent when it came to troubleshooting and fixing the machine.(You can see the entire process here on the forum) I was also very disappointed in the tech support from Grizzly, although they are very pleasant to work with they simply kept transferring me to a new person every day. After two weeks, I was burnt out.

I then proceeded to sell off the grizzly and upgrade to the 1440E-LB. One thing that I did not realize is that it has no quick-change gearbox, which I still miss to the date. Besides that though, I absolutely love the machine. The quality is better than Grizzly in my opinion. The 3-year warranty is also very appealing, as I know that Matt looks out for his customers and machines. 

The 1440LB also came with a three jaw chuck that only has about a thou of runout, which is pretty fantastic. I can't say that I have put the large bore to very much use though!

Good luck with your choice! I always keep in mind that Grizzly is all about high-volume, whereas Precision Matthews is a low-volume seller. I find that this shows in the quality of machinery.


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## vforce61 (Sep 29, 2014)

I own a pm 1440elb lathe and love it,I got it new from Matt and when it arrived I was shocked to see I got more than I expected!!!!The manual is crap but the lathe is very good.I have  had it for about a year now, and it does me very well.


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