rifling button pusher

Maybe you need that big of a press to get the button out when it gets cocked half way through?

:)

follow up

found long HSS rounds here:

The vendor told me you need a 5 ton press. I'll watch PSI when i run to know actual force.

Karl

On Fri, 20 Sep 2013 12:18:22 -0500, Karl Townsend wrote: ...

As a matter of curiosity, will you use a 9mm / .3543" push rod (to rifle the 9mm barrel) or go with something a little smaller, like

I went 8.5mm, almost went 11/32 then decided a couple thou clearance might not be enough, not sure what ruff ID the button leaves before honing

Ah...I do have a gun drill available....shrug

Gunner

"The socialist movement takes great pains to circulate frequently new labels for its ideally constructed state. Each worn-out label is replaced by another which raises hopes of an ultimate solution of the insoluble basic problem of Socialism, until it becomes obvious that nothing has been changed but the name. The most recent slogan is "State Capitalism."[Fascism] It is not commonly realized that this covers nothing more than what used to be called Planned Economy and State Socialism, and that State Capitalism, Planned Economy, and State Socialism diverge only in non-essentials from the "classic" ideal of egalitarian Socialism. - Ludwig von Mises (1922)

How are you planning to avoid any bowing of the pusher rod? How are you going to make sure the pusher travels perfectly in line with the barrel bore at the beginning of the pushing? I have done a lot of work on a hydraulic press and have seen what happens when stuff comes out of the press or breaks and then comes out of the press. I think if I wanted to do what you are doing I would put the HSS rod into a cylinder and thread the barrel into one end of the cylinder. I would then seal the cylinder holding the pusher with a seal incorporated into a piston, thread a fitting into the cylinder portion above the piston and use oil and a port-a-power pump, or even a grease gun filled with thin grease, to force the pusher into the barrel. Just my two cents. Let us know how it works. Eric

I plan to use a press brake bottom die as a "V" block. Then two barrels clamped and held straight. Top one is just scrap for a guide. bottom of top barrel bored out just a bit to hold the button. Put button in bottom of top barrel and the long HSS push rod. Clamp it all together in line. Press a bit, retract, put in short piece of HSS - maybe 4", press a bit, put in another HSS stick, repeat.

Karl

How will you ensure the button rotates at the proper twist rate? I know it should self rotate, but with all that force pressing on the back there had better be some good lube to let it turn.

The head of the pusher needs to be ground to 0.25" and there's a special pressing lube to keep it flooded in. Other than that, its on its own.

I'll know a lot more about this after doing it. The author of the book "Rifling Machines and Methods", Cliff LaBounty, contacted me today with suggestions. Looks like he's willing to mentor me. And he'd like to see how folks have followed his work for a possible book addition.

Karl

Interesting. Post pics when you get it all set up, please.

The cutter heads are probably angled to obtain the proper twist, right? (SWAG)

Hey, that's cool. As an author on the subject, he sounds like a good mentor for the project. Congrats.

does that 0.25" head fit into a socket on the button? Is there some sort of thrust bearing?

I have to say, this is a process totally foreign to me, but I have long won dered about it. I also pretty surprised that nobody in this group seems to have tackled this before. Lots of gunsmithing going on, but this is the fir st barrel rifling I can remember.

So will the rest of us, I hope. Really adventurous project. It'll also be i nteresting to hear how well it shoots.

That is truly excellent. How did he find you? Did he read about it here? Or did you find him? It's always good to have a mentor, and the mentor can le arn a lot from you, too.

block. Then two > barrels clamped and held straight. Top one is just scrap for a guide. > bottom of top barrel bored out just a bit to hold the button . Put > button in bottom of top barrel and the long HSS push rod. Clamp it all > together in line. Press a bit, retract, put in short piece of HSS - > maybe 4", press a bit, put in another HSS stick, repeat. > > Karl How will you ensure the button rotates at the proper twist rate? I know it should s elf rotate, but with all that force pressing on the back there had better b e some good lube to let it turn.

The book I've got on setting up for button rifling had the button ground fo r the proper lead, it was PULLED, not pushed, and the rod that it was attac hed to had a thrust bearing at the ram end so the works rotated at the butt on's lead rate. A universal cutter grinder with diamond wheels was used fo r making the buttons, then the button was polished afterwards with finer an d finer grades of diamond lapping compound. If the joint to the pulling rod broke halfway through the barrel, the barrel blank got bandsawed apart to recover the button.

If I were to go into the barrel supplying business, it might be worth my ti me to create all the gubbins to do button rifling. A sine-bar machine is a whole lot more flexible as far as what twist rates can be done on it, leav es a lot less stress in the barrel, but is a whole lot slower. For my barr el needs, it's just a lot cheaper and easier to buy a premium blank from a name outfit that already has the skill than to make one on my own, satisfyi ng though that might be. These days, I only machine up what I can't buy. Life's just not long enough to make everything from scratch.

Stan

hello how i can 9mm dying for my gun ?

It isn't likely that someone can homebrew a button-rifling rig without a press and some knowledge about how it's done. The "old-school" way, and the way that one CAN do it at home, is to pull-cut the grooves, rather than cold-forge them by pushing a button. The force needed to button-rifle a barrel is pretty fierce.

I have done this, about 40 years ago, in a BP pistol barrel. My rifling rig was a piece of 5/8" square bar, which I twisted with a vise holding one end and a big pipe wrnech on the other. This is pulled though a piece of steel plate (mine was 3/8", IIRC) with a square hole in it. I drilled, chiseled, and filed the square hole. Then I set the whole thing up on the bed of my lathe for convenience, pulling through the tailstock with the guts removed.. The barrel was held at the other end in a three-jaw chuck and I jury-rigged the square-hole plate to my steady rest.

The square rod is drilled and tapped on one end. Thread a piece of drill rod to fit. Cut one lengthwise groove in the other end of the drill rod to hold cut-off pieces of a hand hacksaw blade, about 1-1/2" or 2" long (I cut the groove with a slitting saw and a milling attachment in my lathe, and cut the pieces of hacksaw blades to fit with a cutoff wheel in a Dremel) . I used three, side-by-side, in the groove, with a capscrew threaded into the end to keep the blades from pulling out. Ideally, taper the depth of the groove so the blade pieces are about 0.001" higher at the extreme end.

Then you pull, not push. Cut a thousanth to two thousanths deep, put shims under the blades, and cut again until you have the depth you want. After cutting one groove to depth, index the rig to cut each of three more grooves.

Lap the barrel to smooth out the saw grooves. They're a little rough.

This all takes much longer than it's worth, but if time doesn't matter, it's educational.

Ed, things are a bit easier today.

The big job is gundrilling. I turned my Hardinge CHNC into a gun drill with the use of a car wash high pressure pump and a special fixture to hold the gun drill.

Push rifling buttons are available on eBay for about $200. I used my

I made a few just to prove I can.

Still, Green Mountain sells barrel blanks VERY inexpensively. This is by far the best way to go for the home weapons builder.

Karl

Oh, yeah. That's the hard part.

Ah, as I said, if you have a press and a spare $200 for a tool...what's the cost of a gun barrel today?

You bet. It's a great exercise and a good learning experience. But after you've done it once (or enough to prove to yourself that you can do it), it's a lot like cutting your own nails.

I've done that, too. Once. d8-)

Out of curiosity, how well did it shoot?

I'm sorry to say that we never got to shoot it. I was making it under the tutelage of my partner in the machine shop, who had served his apprenticeship with an old builder and restorer of Pennsylvania rifles, in Buck's County, PA. My partner was one hell of a gunsmith -- cops came to him regularly to repair or tune their target guns, and he could do a great accurizing job on 1911 pistols.

Anyway, he had me making a lock from scratch and I left the shop before I got very far with it. It's now illegal here to do that kind of work without a gunsmith's license and FFL.

I saved the parts for years but eventually scrapped them. My partner built several rifles on barrels he rifled, BTW. He'd buy smoothbore barrels from Douglas Barrels and rifle them himself, using exactly the rig I described. I shot his .45 cal. fast-twist slug gun -- his deer rifle -- and it shot very well.

He also built a .28 cal. pea rifle that way, back when Douglas still sold .28 cal. barrels. It fouled so badly that you had to swab it with Moose Milk after each shot. Maybe that's why Douglas stopped making them.