doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com brownells barrel thickness gauge

I have the brownells gauge and it seems to work just fine for me. I use it horizontally.
I zero the dial by supporting the bar just behind the ball with my finger and then holding the connecting block with my other hand. If you support the bar farther away from the ball, the dial will move.

I clamp the barrels in my padded stock makers vise and then slide the guage down the barrels making sure to keep the bar centered in the bore ( or at least not touching in the open end). That way, the contact of the ball on the bore is just like me supporting it when zeroing it.
This way of measuring only works on the bottom side of the barrel you are measuring, so changing the position of the barrel is required often. My padded vise allows for the barrels to be clamped in almost any orientation.
I usually measure the tips, bottoms and sides of the tubes. But measurements In between these points can be taken as well if I think needed.

Basically this method of use is very similar to the demo of hosford's tool.

Thanks for your explanation, Mr. Dudley. I have explained this method a dozen times and readers insist on ignoring it, even though it comes directly from Jon Hosford. At least two of us can get some use out of the Manson gauge. It is amazing that Pooch can read this entire thread and still insist that he can't figure out how to use the gauge horizontally. Of course, I have only explained it a few times in this thread.

Mr. Dudley and Eightbore, your description of operation is quite accurate. One thing I use to hold the barrels in a horizontal position on the workbench is a partially full bag of shot, laid over the barrels. The bag of shot seems to hold the barrels well in any rotation position.

I don't have it yet but I recently won a Clymer Barrel wall gauge on the NOTSSMBBS Christmas charity raffle. I'm excited and looking forward to measuring everything in the county with it. Any tips for a novice operator?

The Clymer gauge should be identical to the Manson gauge. Manson and Clymer worked together and both put their name on the simple tuning fork style gauge.

When you learn snap me in Bob. I'm still wrestling with why you would hang the gauge by a cord then use it horizontally.

pooch, if you hang it vertically that you need spring tension opposite the ball to keep the barrel against the ball as you are reading it. The one advantage of doing it vertically is that you can read from bottom rib to top rib easily by just rotating the barrel. The hard part is you need someone to write the numbers down or else you have to take the barrels off the gage and write down the numbers.
Again this is my opinion, using the Manson, Clymer gage in the horizontal position and holding the barrels down and sliding the gage into them, is that you can only take a partial reading and then have to move the barrels maybe a few more times to get complete readings from bottom rib to top rib. There is only so much you can move the gage before the weight of the bar is not making good contact with the ball bearing on the barrel.

The Galazan gage is a lot easier to use. The hardest thing about making it is milling the area for the spring. It is a tapered slot that when the tapered brass piece is in place and compressed, it is the same size as the shaft (5/8") plus the ball bearing that is drilled into it. I believe the ball bearing I used was 3/16", so less than 3/32" is sticking out.

When you take a horizontal reading, do you have the micrometer gage on the top of the barrel or on the bottom with the dial hanging down? Thanks

in order to get a reading, the indicator would be below the barrel so that the weight of the bar would keep the ball bearing on the barrel.

Instead of putting the gauge down to write measurements just use Siri. I really just want to know the thinnest point and where it is in relationship to my hand position.