I scrounged up a used barrel at a gunshow, to practice on, and maybe make a walking barrel out of. I was expecting to get a .224, 14 twist, and a .172, 9 twist barrel out of Brownell's, both the fairly inexpensive GM blanks, in CM steel, and not tapered.
Turns out they were out of the .224 blanks and not planning to bring any more in, compounded by the export regulation requirements, which require that I have a permit in place which specifies a part number.... Bleh!
I have been slowly dragging together the stuff I need, though. I have a .22 H. reamer, that I am not sure if I will use, due to it appearing to be a SAAMI spec reamer, and have been pondering sending it in for a tighter fit rework, or just doctoring up a reamer on my own.
I have a .172, 9 twist CM blank that is about 1 1/16 dia, that I was planning on leaving full size for now, that I wish to eventually chamber in a Hornet derivative as well.
Hadn't considered the larger bores on a Hornet case, or the Bee's , or anything else, really. Would have to find a decent barrel on the cheap, I guess.
I did pick up a Treebone buttplate. Kinda shocked at the price doubling between the time it was ordered and when I got it. Ouch. Oh well. Been filing on that a whole lot, too, to bring the checkering into line, and to generally clean it up. Dunno yet whether I'll take the rust bluing path, or try case hardening. Don't think I'd have bought it if I had seen it first, but them's the breaks dealing mail order. Gotta factor in the hassle and wait time on the probability of getting something better on a return, and adding customs, etc into the whole mess...I'll just file it till I'm happy or it's no longer in large enough pieces to bother me...
Eventually I'll get this project to a point where I'll have to muckle on to the wood... Been putting that off for a while.
I should have taken pictures of my set-up that I used to thread the barrel in my Myford lathe! I took the barrel out and test fitted it a couple times, too! Then cleaned up the shoulder enough to get the screw holes up to the top, when snugged home.
Next barrel job is to cut the back end to length (need to do some work on the breech block first) and get the extractor cut-out done. So far, still looking at the same style extractor as is there, or modifying the rimfire one.
My plan at this point for the taper pin is to grind a reamer down, with a long enough pilot to allow me to center it up under a mill spindle, and feed it down, running in until I get my engagement. Backup plan is to build a straight pin, rather than the taper, and cut the hole accordingly. Still planning.
Cheers
Trev
