Swivel Vise Recommendation

One place I worked at for 11 years we had a Bridgeport swivel vice mounted on out Bridgeport. In all my years I don't remember us swivel that vice or remove it from our Bridgeport. All we seemed to ever do was tram it every once in a while.
 
I have a swivel on my 4" that I put the locator tabs in I then went to a few hours worth of work to get it to rotate on the swivel & then to get it to rotate smothly. I do use the base to swivel it once in a while but not often. I think I've had it off from the base once that I can remember since I have had it. I can't think of any one time that it was a must to have tho. Even with the base the vise isn't to heavy to be uncomfortable to move & my table on this little mill is never higher then my belt line.

I just got a newer mill that is much bigger & it & bought a 6" vise for it that came with a swivel. It is a few more pounds & I'll be lifting the table about to my cheast. I don't think I'll be using the locator tabs so I can slide it & may take the base off.
 
I have my kurt on the left 1/3 of the mill table and the phase2 rotary table on the right 1/3 leaving the middle 1/3 to table mt stuff. Haven't moved either other than check the tram in a couple of years. I have a 3" sine vise I mt on the rotary table for compound angle work. Works for me
 
I have a 4" swivel vice on my mill that I use frequently. I located the zero and scribed heavily that point and tramed the vise in. I then drilled and reamed a 1/4" hole for a hardened dowel on the lug, (where the vice would bolt to the table) forward of the nut and when move it, I can locate it back to 90 degrees by dropping the pin back in. Been doing it for years and if your careful not to slam the vice around into the pin hole when you reposition,it repeats great!
 
Keep the interstate You can mount it on it side if the need arises, And look for a good deal on a rotary table.
 
Problem solved, I picked up a 5" Shars vise with swivel under it for $50 from CL this weekend. and having two vises will likely come in handy. vise jaws seem pretty parallel just before closing. I notice on this vise and others the vise jaws when closed do not meet seamlessly on the outer edges. On this vise the fron jaw is shifted left about 1/16 (that's a lot), from the back jaw. This was not much of an issue when I made the jaws for my other vise, since I closed the vise and then (since the jaws are a bit larger than the vise) ran an endmill across, and made them mate perfectly. Is this common. I plan on doing the same to the new vise, there is just enough overhang to do it.
 
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