Old worn out rifle barrels to practice on

SubMoA

SubMoA

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Jan 3, 2019
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I’m brand new to machining and I’m setting up a home shop and I want to start collecting a few old worn out rifle barrels to practice on. I want to practice indicating, profiling, threading, boring, parting, etc and I figure old rifle barrels are great for this. Let me know what you have and what you want for them. I’m Really excited to start learning...please let me know if you can help this rookie out!
 
Holescreek said:
Just buy some bar stock. Then you can practice your drilling and reaming too.
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Any specific types of steel I should be purchasing for practicing? I’m sure some are more forgiving than others.
 
Cold-rolled 12L14 if you want something easy to machine. Don't make a rifle barrel out of it though.
 
Many good rifle barrels are made out of 4140 steel. Green mountain rifle barrels has cheap rifled blanks if you feel they would be better to play around with. http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/

Another option would be to search "take off barrel" on gunbroker and Ebay.

You're going to discover that the hardest part of turning a barrel to master is turning the OD between centers. There are other options and there are just as many differences in opinion to go along with them.
 
I was able to get several heavy SS and CM barrels from accurateshooter....I’m sure I will have a million more questions for the forum. Thank you all for the advice. I just ordered my lathe today....I’m very excited. New Eisen 1440EV 5HP with VFD drive and DRO.
 
SubMoA said:
I was able to get several heavy SS and CM barrels from accurateshooter....I’m sure I will have a million more questions for the forum. Thank you all for the advice. I just ordered my lathe today....I’m very excited. New Eisen 1440EV 5HP with VFD drive and DRO.
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Post some pictures. if you have any questions check out the weapons section of the forum. What are you planing on building hunting, benchrest, tactical anything for a buck?
 
Man I just looked at the specs on that lathe looks really nice!!!! I’d definitely opt for the “micro carriage stop” option I made my own when I upgraded to a VFD on my grizzly 1440 it makes threading a dream and you can thread in higher RPMs that gets you a better thread finish.
 
killswitch505 said:
Post some pictures. if you have any questions check out the weapons section of the forum. What are you planing on building hunting, benchrest, tactical anything for a buck?
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Varmint hunting is my thing, prairie dogs at 600 yards. Taking it to the next step in doing my own machining. I’m putting a home shop that I can use when I retire in 15 years. Probably will take me that long to become a decent machinist.

BTW, I’m from Gallup and went to school in Las Cruces. My high school best friend was from Hobbs as was my wife’s college roommate. Small world.
 
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