Hard to chamber barrels with a mill. I’d think an aspiring gunsmith might look for a lathe first.
Ya know you can also do that by going to the top of the thread and click on the “Watch” box thingy
If you have about a quarter million bucks you can buy the late, great, Jerry Fisher's entire shop.
www.gunsinternational.com
Just a cool $200K
There are used equipment brokers around the country that have a lot of used industrial lathes. Every year old guys kick the bucket and their wife or kids don’t know much about how to get rid of it other than Craigslist, fb marketplace, or even eBay. A good deal will have have guys from out of state ready to pounce so it helps to have an idea of what type of machine would work well for you. I’ve seen the most being sold by local businesses on Craigslist as they either go belly up, or upgrade. If a machine is worn out make sure you can afford new headstock bearings - some are ridiculously expensive.
Gordy Gritters seems to be at the forefront of education for accuracy gunsmithing, from books, dvds, online classes, in person classes, and if you have the money one-on-one training. All this information can be pieced together from online sources, but it cuts through a bunch of online forum fog and I would have loved having it when figuring out my head from rear end, but you don’t know what you don’t know.
gordysprecision.com
YouTube is a gold mine of useful tidbits. lots of how to videos of guys doing unique things that you may not have thought of on your own.
John Hinnant gunsmithing book. Has tons of setups and plans for tooling. Some of it might be considered outdated by today’s methods but a lot of it is still valid and you should see the old way anyway. Brownells used to sell it.
A guy that used to do all of them (Greg Walley, who left Keblys many years ago) at one time discussed their method and posted a bunch of photos showing and explaining the how’s and whys. You really couldn’t argue with the method or results that they they had. Many BR winning barrels were chambered by Greg. Now would I or do I do it that way? No, but their method was still valid. His post might still be able to be dug up on BR Central. It’d be a good read for you if it was.I’ll get the argument started:
Last I heard Kelblys still chambers between centers
It would be interesting to know what percentage of gunsmiths use different methods.
