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Thread: What is a Gun Smithing Lathe?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Cincinnati Ohio
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    What is a Gun Smithing Lathe?

    I'm not interested in one. Just curious.

    How is a Gunsmithing lathe different than any other metal lathe?

    For example.
    http://www.grizzly.com/products/12-x...h-Stand/G4003G
    "Remember back in the day, when things were made by hand, and people took pride in their work?"
    - Rick Dale

  2. #2
    Ok just from my days as a hobby gunsmith and using a lathe. A gunsmith needs to be able to turn rifle barrels and shotgun barrels. That means needing a longer distance between centers than many lathes. It needs to be capable of turning tapers, and the spindle bore in the head stock needs to be capable of accommodating a large rifle barrel's diameter for shank threading and chamber reaming. I had an old vintage lathe with 38 inch between centers, but the spindle bore was only 3/4 inch. It was not really capable of holding more than a 22 rim fire barrel. I did a lot with it considering it's limitations. I worked mostly with black powder guns and they are very low pressure compared to the barrel walls and tough steel a smokeless barrel requires. I made ram rods, cleaning jags, turned some barrels for muskets, made some dies and equipment for reloading old obsolete black powder cartridges. I was really just self taught from books and magazines. I threaded barrel breeches for plugs, tapped drum and nipple threads. and some other simple threading operations. What I did was just relatively beginner stuff. All my guns, parts and equipment were burned in a fire two years ago and I lost interest in such work.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    The principal differences are a larger bore through the headstock and an adjustable spider on the outboard end. The spider allows you to securely hold a gun barrel at both ends of the headstock.
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  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Porter,TX
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    1,520
    Having a lathe myself what little I have learn so far researching the net some lathes are more accurate than others.My dials are setup to .001 per mark while others (gunsmith?) are .0001 I'm kinda guessing at this cause I'm new at metal turning---Carroll

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