Swamped barrel pricing

[Runner]

Why is a swamped barrel more expensive than a straight barrel?

 

[scott k]

It is harder to machine,It needs a special machine to make the long tapers on them. A straight barrel can be done on a regular horizontal mill with nothing special added to it.
Lehigh...

 

[Runner]

90 percent of modern machining is done on CNC machines where such is not even a consideration. Since most are drilling round stock and then cutting the flats after it is bored on such modern machines, cutting the flats is almost the same job on a swamped as it is a straight or a taper. Heck, it isn't that big of a problem on my 1920 Southbend with a taper attachment and a toolpost grinder. An indexing fixture is all that is required. No where near enough difference to justify the price difference in anyway I can see. That is why I asked. The main thing required, a machine big enough and rigid enough to cut the entire pass in one movement, is already a requirement unless they are moving the stock thru a special machine to cut the flats on the other barrels. I could cut a 48 inch on my Southbend. If they are using special machines to do the work, and the swamped barrel can not be cut on those machines, there could be additional labor. It would just make sense that such a station would be set up and left set up. That is the part that has me wondering.

 

[Mike Brooks]

Getz has no CNC machine, and I doubt any of the other swamped barrel makers do either.
Runner, if you can make these cheaper, I would suggest you get into the business and make your first million.
LC Rice thought he could do it cheaper too, and found out it was alot more work than he thought it would be.....I don't think he's made his first million yet.

 

[scott k]

I worked with 3 axis machining centers and could not see one doing a nice smooth taper like you see on a swamped barrel. Without special attachments I would think a 5 axis machine would be needed.
One of those tracer machines from before the time of nc machines could probably do it :hmm:
A straight barrel can be done fast and easy with a old horizontal mill and a index head.
Lehigh..

 

[Slowpoke]

I have no idea how Getz, Rice, and etc stay in business with their prices so low. In an 8 hour day, you can only do about 5 barrels. Let say they have a 100% mark up that's only $600 per day, and for a 2-3 man business that's nothing. Plus with breakdowns and traveling to show that a tough row to hoe.

SP

 

[Pork Chop]

I wish that I were making $600 per day. Sigh...

But I have no desire to buy the stuff and become a barrel maker...

 

[Mike Brooks]

I wish that I were making $600 per day. Sigh...

But I have no desire to buy the stuff and become a barrel maker...

That's $600 per day. Out of that you have to pay a couple of employee's wages, you need to purchase the material to make the barrels out of , pay utilities, taxes, social security, insurance and set enough money aside to fix the machinery when it breaks down or replce it when it wears out.
Doesn't sound like a get rich scheme to me. :shake:

 

[Darkhorse]

I think I could make a pretty good swamped barrel on a 3 axis milling machine.
I'd build a fixture utilizing an indexing head for the flats. In fact some of the Cinncinatti Milacron centers came with a Numerical Control indexing unit.
The secret to the smooth blends in the tapers is using G02 or G03 circular interpolation and trigonometry to find the intersecting coordinates in the quadrants.
After all this was done and proved out I could spit out bunches of them cheap.
Now all I need is 2 or 3 hundred thousand dollars for the machine and tooling. Another 2 hundred thousand for programming and setup, prove out time, and I could go into buisness. Not to mention the building, electricity and labor. Of course I could save a little by doing all the fixturing, tooling, programming and setup time myself.
Simple. Why didn't I think of this sooner? :crackup:

 

[Runner]

Actually, you can buy the machine for less than 20,000 with the latest CNC controllers if you are willing to program a two pass system. The cheap machines are not rigid enough to do it in one pass I don't think. The software is $1,100. If you want to purchase used and have it moved, you can buy a machine that will do it in one pass for less than it will cost you to get the riggers to load it, move it , and set it back up. Of course you have will have to upgrade the CNC most likely. I watched a full CNC center with tool changer and all sell for less than 5000$ a while back. No one wanted to move it. It was big enough to have done full length stocks. I don't know what the rifling machine would cost you. You would need the machines to cut cherries and would need to know what you are doing. Once the setup was done, one man could do a lot of barrels a week. If you set up to polish, lap, and deliver as perfect a barrel as you could, you could still do more than 5 a day in a one man shop with the right equipment. Using the index jig, on the fifth cut, you would almost need a mirror image support bridge to put under the already cut barrel contour to stop the flex from changing when you stop having a solid side down. It is definately doable. That is why I asked the question. The money you mentioned will get you an EDM machine that is accurate to the 10 micron level now.

 

[GobblerKnob]

All this talk about the outside profile of the barrel is fine and dandy, but what about the inside? To me, how it's bored and rifled is more important than the ease with which one can mill the flats.

I understand the original question dealt with the cost of the swamped profile, but spending the kind of money you must to buy the equipment to mill those flats is a monumental waste if the barrel isn't a shooter.

If I'm going to pay the kind of money swamped barrels are bringing, I want it to shoot as well as look aesthetically pleasing to the eye. :imo:
Rick

 

[loophole]

I'm no machinist, but I've seen the L&R shop, and I can tell you that the barrel flats are cut up to 6 barrels at a time with a machine that pulls a cutter(looks a lot like a tool you'd use in a lath) from one end of the barrel to the other--sort of a plainer. To get the swamp they use a fixture which allows the bed which holds the cutting tools to move up and down to follow the proper contour. It takes hundreds of passes to get one flat, then the barrel blanks are turned and shimed to do the next one.
They tell me that if they try to cut too deep with one pass they heat and stress the barrel, which is bad for accuracy.
Most of the equiptment they use is modified and adapted by Liston Rice, who is a master machinist.
These boys got into the business because they love rifles and they would rather be making barrels than making more money doing something else--you have to talk to them to appreciate the pride and craftsmanship that goes into their work.
The work is done in a little shop behind a small house out in the country. You could drive by it every day for a year and never guess that some of the best muzzleloading barrels in the world are made in that little garage--true American craftsmanship and enterprise.
I once bought a straight barrel and swamped it using mill files--never again. I'm very happy that we can get L&R and Getz and other great barrels as cheaply as we can.

 

[Runner]

I figured a bridge shim would be needed once a cut side ended up down. I did not figure they would do it in many passes. Would seem that cutting it and then running a second button slightly larger than the first afterwards would be the ticket, but I am not a barrel maker. With cut rifling it would seem that the outside contouring would change the rifling a little anyway as the stresses changed.

 

[scott k]

That machine there are using Sounds like a shaper. Didn't even think of that. :hmm: That would take a long time to do.
Most of my machine shop experience was with vertical machining centers. Worked on high speed(10,000 rpm spindle speed) and accurate within or - .00002 of a inch. And big ones that had tables that moved 6' X 4' Y 4' Z.
A long tape on them would have bin very choppy. Leaving a lot to finish.
But I've bin out of it for a few years. So I don't know whats going on with it anymore as things changed a lot in the last few years.
On a side note I have a Bridgeport mill in my basement so I still have some interests in machining too.
Lehigh..

 

[flashpanner]

I wonder if anyone thought about swamp machining a barrel with TWEDM or LASER?