shot gun barrel shortening?

[twowheelinjim]

If you guys are done pissing in the wind I have a few other ideas to help with a barrel shortening...

I ran into a situation while cutting the barrel on a Remington 870 with a 28'' ventelated rib barrel. The rib is soldered in place and unless it's completely removed, you may be forced to cut the barrel just in front of the nearest soldered section. If a ventalated section is left dangling, it could get caught on something and snag the shotgun away from you. A friend decided he needed his barrel shortened as well. We turned a piece of CRS into a slip-on front sight/glass breaker on the lathe that tightly slipped over the barrel held on with a very small set screw. It gave the shotgun a finished look plus it beefed up the thin barrel. I enjoy any project that can be made even more interesting with some creative machining.

 

[ranch23]

That is creative and cool. I'll remember that.

 

[hardhatdiver]

I want to shorten one of my shot gun barrels to 0.500" longer than the Florida legal length. I will likely do it on the G0704. I need some ideas on the tooling, doc and rpm, please. I have Prime Cut to use as a cutting fluid that I can mix as needed with water. I have never milled gun metal before.

Thanks

cg 2005,

I was wondering how your barrel shortening went? I've shortened many, many shotgun barrels over the years. I generally use the mill for side-by-sides and the lathes for single barrel varieties. Setting up the brass shim wrapped barrel in a four jaw with a spider at the back end generally only takes a few minutes. The 18" barrels are just long enough. I've also used the steady rest with a collar around the barrel, but I find it to be more work than the four jaw since I don't have a collar for every barrel diameter I may be truing (FULL, MOD, CYL, and different lengths:22, 20, 18, etc.). I place a couple of small marks with a scratch awl after measuring it with a steel rule. I'll leave no more than 0.1" when cutting it with the saw. I generally cut dry on the lathe with carbide at my lowest non back geared rpm and with a slow cross feed rate and then finish with a light ID and OD chamfer. For double barrels, I'll initially shorten them with the same method. I'll refill the area under the rib and between the barrels with lead (generally that area is filled on the end of full length barrels). In the mill, I'll set up one of the barrels between centers (all depends on how the barrels are set up) and then remove the tailstock after supporting the barrels in a number of different ways, mill across to my desired length, and then chamfer the ID and OD with some fine grit sandpaper. I rebead all barrels in the mill. I usually put the barrel back in the receiver of single barrel shotguns before rebeading. Double barrels are a little easier. These are just my methods that work for me, and I've simplified them a bit or course. Just my two bits. Hope yours worked out well.

Regards,
Jeremy