Locating top of round barrel for sight mounting

[deerstalkert]

yeah i know don't give up my day job for graphic arts!

 

[doubleset]

This is getting good, all right. Well, I'm out of popcorn now.

 

[Billy Boy]

Once the barrel is leveled, across and lengthwise, put a very small drill bit in the chuck and bring it down on the barrel-machine off. It will deflect if not perfectly centered. Move the table in the direction of the deflection. When it doesn’t deflect at all, you have it centered.

 

[doubleset]

Assuming your table is level and square to the bit?

 

[Mark Herman]

How about a real old fashioned method. Hold the barrel tight into the corner of a door jamb and draw a line down the barrel along the edge of the jamb. The tang can then be installed and adjusted to your guide line.

 

[doubleset]

I would humbly offer this advice ...

Unless you have the knowledge and EXPERIENCE to do this yourself, you might really consider taking it to someone who does. It would probably save you a lot of time, effort, and expense (including having to buy another barrel and then take that one to a gunsmith). If you really do want to do it yourself, don't assume that there are just one or two tricks to it, but spend the time to develop the actual KNOWLEDGE and SKILL to do it without butchering your barrel. This will take some time and effort, and should involve some genuine PRACTICE of those skills (say using a length of steel rod of the appropriate diameter, or even a piece of pipe). That way you'll learn what to do (both in terms of making reliable measurements and layout, and in using the correct tools) and what not to do, make some (harmless and inexpensive) mistakes, and settle on the tools you need to do an acceptable job.

Just a thought, and it's your barrel to do with as you like, but having made mistakes in this area myself, I did finally learn to stop making assumptions about picking up some beliefs about techniques and skills, and then proceed directly to applying cutting tools to metal. Mea culpa. The array of suggestions you've already seen might give you some pause in proceeding too hastily. Maybe.

 

[Wildrangeringreen]

"Jackson Safety Pipe Marker Centering Tool, Curv O Standard #6, 14775 - Use to measure Pipes 0.5" and Up, Standard 4" Y-Type Head, Adjustable Dial Set Level" can be purchased from the "evil empire" (Amazon ) for $87.

Level the gun in a vise, the use this tool to mark center.

There are cheaper ones, this is just the first that popped up. This tool is literally designed to do what you want to do.

Let the comments flood in about how you don't need some dadgum tool, you can eyeball it just as well

 

[doubleset]

"Jackson Safety Pipe Marker Centering Tool, Curv O Standard #6, 14775 - Use to measure Pipes 0.5" and Up, Standard 4" Y-Type Head, Adjustable Dial Set Level" can be purchased from the "evil empire" (Amazon ) for $87.

Yeah, so now you're $90 (including tax, at least) into this for a tool you'll use how many times? I love collecting tools, but try to keep it to tools I know I'll use more than once. And that's just for ONE of the tools you need. By the time you've got everything you need (and have maybe thrown in some other costs) for "practicing" materials, how much are you looking at? $200? Maybe. And how much would a smith charge to cut the dovetail on his nice milling machine and professional set-up? Worth thinking about at that point.

Let the comments flood in about how you don't need some dadgum tool, you can eyeball it just as well

Or just use a 2x4 or maybe a construction square and a couple of line levels. A lot of choices.

 

[Wildrangeringreen]

Yeah, so now you're $90 (including tax, at least) into this for a tool you'll use how many times? I love collecting tools, but try to keep it to tools I know I'll use more than once. And that's just for ONE of the tools you need. By the time you've got everything you need (and have maybe thrown in some other costs) for "practicing" materials, how much are you looking at? $200? Maybe. And how much would a smith charge to cut the dovetail on his nice milling machine and professional set-up? Worth thinking about at that point.

Or just use a 2x4 or maybe a construction square and a couple of line levels. A lot of choices.
[/QUOTE]
why would you need to practice? it's pretty simple to mark a pipe. If you can't figure out how to use such a simple tool, a short section of blackpipe at Menards costs what, $5? Amazon also has other brands for $45, and I'm sure if you wanted, you can find them even cheaper, all they are essentially is a compass with a center punch and a level.

Simple is usually best, the more clamps, boards (which unless you true them, aren't perfectly straight due to warping), extra levels and squares, while holding a punch or scribe is a recipe for stuff not being straight. Largely illiterate people did this kind of stuff with more-or-less medieval technology, stop being afraid to do it yourself with the internet and good tools.

caliper (you should have this for ammo anyway, useful ones are cheap), pipe marking tool, hacksaw, square or flat file, triangle file with one side ground smooth, a hammer and a cold-chisel. That's it. simple tools that hold up and are useful for other things.

Not to mention the issue of finding a "gunsmith" (that title has largely lost its weight in the last 30 years) that actually has a "professional" set up.

 

[doubleset]

why would you need to practice? it's pretty simple to mark a pipe. If you can't figure out how to use such a simple tool, a short section of blackpipe at Menards costs what, $5? Amazon also has other brands for $45, and I'm sure if you wanted, you can find them even cheaper, all they are essentially is a compass with a center punch and a level.

Yeah, that would be the practice. But it wasn't practice for marking I had in mind. It was practice for cutting the dovetail.

Simple is usually best, the more clamps, boards (which unless you true them, aren't perfectly straight due to warping), extra levels and squares, while holding a punch or scribe is a recipe for stuff not being straight.

You do know that the remark about the 2x4, square, and levels was a joke, right? Just a response to some of the more Rube Goldberg approaches being suggested here with a pretense to any degree of precision at all. It's a measure of what's gone on in this thread if you took that seriously. Sorry. Should have flagged it with an obvious emoji.

Largely illiterate people did this kind of stuff with more-or-less medieval technology, stop being afraid to do it yourself with the internet and good tools.

And those largely illiterate people who succeeded at it did so after learning the skills through practice -- often as an apprentice. This has nothing to do with literacy or intelligence, but with physical skill and experience. But sure, people should do to their own barrels whatever they want, and fear shouldn't be involved. But maybe a bit of thought and caution and practice and preparation might be wise if you've never done it before.

Not to mention the issue of finding a "gunsmith" (that title has largely lost its weight in the last 30 years) that actually has a "professional" set up.

True enough. My last attempted interaction with a gunsmith (who'd completed one of the reasonably well-recognized gunsmithing courses in the US) was to ask him to fix the ejecter on my son's Mauser 96 American (a somewhat unusual rifle and the last one that Mauser Werke Oberndorf developed prior to closing). This gunsmith had a very professional set-up. Beautiful set of tools and shop, etc. He said he couldn't get the parts, but if I could, then he'd take a crack at fixing it. Great. I got the parts from the company in Germany that had bought all the Mauser parts and installed it in about 5 minutes. But there still ARE some real gunsmiths around. You just have to work at finding them.

 

[gustrolland]

You find a place on the receiver you can level off of like feed rails or recoil lug. I use a B Square sight drilling jig. Barrel is held in (V) blocks and receiver is held square with a support. For drilling and tapping it has drill bushings on a sliding arm. Milling dovetails it is leveled both ways in (V) block sideways in milling machine vise.

Brownnells has a tool that has a level and a center punch. Set the gun up level and get the level centered, and with the punch over where you want the sight, tap with small hammer ect.

 

[M. De Land]

Hello all,
I have a round rifle barrel that I will ultimately be mounting front and rear sights on. What is the best way to determine the top of the barrel for fitting dovetails? Thanks.

Quite often you can use the side of the breech plug or underside of the tang on the breech plug to establish top dead center of a round barrel.

 

[Bad Karma]

Back in "the day" they used "the bones". Two pieces of flat stock, lay one on the flat of the tang and , with an assistant position the other at the end of the barrel and sighting down the barrel, when "the bones" are aligned horizontally, the assistant marks the intersection of the round barrel and "the bone". Or do what I do, use a Forster sight jig to mark the dead center on the top of the barrel vs. the flat of the tang. But those jigs are kinda spendy for one dovetail operation.

I’ve always called them “winding sticks” cause that’s what grandpa called them… and yes, this seems like a shade tree smithing technique but if your sticks are true and you have average eyesight you’ll struggle to get better accuracy from a machine shop.

 

[doubleset]

I’ve always called them “winding sticks” cause that’s what grandpa called them… and yes, this seems like a shade tree smithing technique but if your sticks are true and you have average eyesight you’ll struggle to get better accuracy from a machine shop.

Winding sticks have a long history in woodworking for squaring, flattening, and dimensioning boards.

 

[Colonial Boy]

Or you could try a couple of combination squares using the 45 deg. body.
Everyone has two combination squares; don’t they?

 

[Bad Karma]

Winding sticks have a long history in woodworking for squaring, flattening, and dimensioning boards.

Useful for straightening wooden self bow limbs too…

 

[doubleset]

Or you could try a couple of combination squares using the 45 deg. body.
Everyone has two combination squares; don’t they?

I have three (6", 12", 18"), plus center heads and protractor head. Not sure how good they'd be for this application, but the combination head could give you at least one end point.

 

[BadDaditood]

Dovetailing round bbl by hand Takes a lot of practice but no special tools.
I’ve found that finding center of an octo to round bbl is the easiest (and cheapest) part of the job.
A flat surface and a file, bbl upside down and ‘Violincello!’ a centerline.
For me the hard part is “Checking my filing Often!”, before it’s too crooked or too deep.
My last one is too deep, but only a hair crooked- which you can’t see until you sight down the bbl. Drives me nuts every time I shoot it!
I use a sharpie to mark the low spots and try not to hit them again!
However, reading after two pages of posts It sounds like it’s not as simple as I thought!

 

[oreclan]

Hello all,
I have a round rifle barrel that I will ultimately be mounting front and rear sights on. What is the best way to determine the top of the barrel for fitting dovetails? Thanks.

Of the four original muskets/ fowlers I own only one has an extremely shallow dovetail cut for the front sight, the others are soldered on. One has had a shotgun style bead front sight installed.

 

[windini]

I was just surfin' the ol' web & came across this, from The Kitchen Table Gunsmith. (Modifying a Winchester 97 for Competition)

Author shortened a shotgun bbl & installed a new front bead. He made a jig to guide a center punch & used a variation of winding sticks to find his CL.