Making a sharps barrel in my lathe.

[homebrew .357]

Some more pic`s.

[homebrew .357]

All is up and running, oil presser at 300psi and the chips filling the catcher and the drill is slowly going in. Homebrew357.

[hammermill]

Ah yes progress of the best kind. I love the out of the box thinking to get it done.

[homebrew .357]

It`s good when things work out, now I have a barrel of 4140 steel with a .444" hole through it, cutting off the end, the hole was 0.035" off centre, so machined o/d to the bore and this end will be the muzzle. I reamed it to clean up some scratches with,(out of the box stuff), a adjustable reamer. the square end I tack welded a socket with a 1/4" drive and a adapter fitted on my rifling rod. It was pushed through to ream with lots of oil and cleand up the bore nicely , Homebrew.357. pic`s.

[homebrew .357]

And the end result after a polish with 600 grit paper on a woodened dowel I have the makings of a Sharps barrel. Next job is cut rifling it. But have to find a bike sprocket for a 1-18 twist first, Homebrew.357.

[hammermill]

what size sprockets are you looking for??

[homebrew .357]

Hi Hammermill, It`s never going to be that twist, but if I can come close to it , that would be good enough . The ones I have , the large one gave me 1-33.4" twist and the small one gives a twist of 1-24.5". So working on that I think a 3" one should be some where near to 1-18, but if it`s 1-18.5 or 1-17. 9, that would do. I may hit on some fantastic new twist that's the bees knees.
Now that I have drill the bore with a new gun drill, my rifle cutting body is to small, the body has to be a oiled sliding fit in the bore so the cutter will not grab . So have made a new one of silver steel, hardened it, its .444" dia, with the bore at .445", will be cutting 6 groves, left hand twist,(1`m left handed), , 0.0065" deep to a bore size of .458". Now what`s happen is you guys have coute up to me, so I`M doing this now at real time, will be a lot slower. The gun is coming along great, thinking I may just get it to the range for a shoot, so it`s on my bucket list, but with my back yard machining there is no way I can really do a good job of cutting the breech block hole, so I will look for a tool maker to do this for me and with that help I may get this gun up and shooting. Homebrew.357. pics.

[homebrew .357]

And the last bit of how it works.

[hammermill]

Let's see how far in leftfield I am. How about driving the grinder head with a stepper to slow this vs down. Or adding a Jack shaft.

[homebrew .357]

I think you are way out in right field, haven`t a clue what you are talking about, is it one of the pics. Any way, I have got a sprocket, it will give me a 1-21" twist , should be ok for this rifle. Cheers, Homebrew.357.

[homebrew .357]

The things I got wrong, first, my bore is .445" at the start, should be .450" for a 45 cal, ok, as I`m rifling now, will go to .458" and then hone the bore to .450" to get it right, will leave 0.004" deep rifling. That new sprocket after testing on the lathe gives me a twist of 1-18.1", dam near spot on. The rifling register assy mounted on the back end of my lathe, an arm and pin is what locks the head stock in six places on the disc, have a look. Homebrew.357.

[homebrew .357]

Setting up to do the rifling, first the ali blocks are put back on and the base of my x/y vice is bolted on to them. To drive this assy a loop if bike chain is up between the lathe bead ways with a jockey bearing under the chuck end and a drive sprocket with crank handle at the far end, the top chain is bolted to the vice base, now when the handle turned the assy moves up and down. The rifling gear is clamped on the vice base and with a bracket on the back of my lathe with another length of chain to drive the rifling head sprocket. Rifling rod is fitted to output shaft an this I now found will turn 1-18" twist, great, . So with the barrel mounted with the breech end at the left to start, the cutter is up at .445" bore is well oiled and the hole assy is wound to the back for the first cut and if you get fine cuttings you are good to go. Each grove has 25 passes at the same setting of the cutter and after all six are done the cutter is moved up 0.001" and do it all again. The pic`s should show it all. Homebrew.357.