Do you believe Kimber is chucking up the barrels in a lathe and indicating off the bore as set up to threading?
Given that bores wander and often the OD of the barrel isn't concentric for [bleep] with the bore at the muzzle, they've gotta be doing something. If they are profiling the barrels between centers
with the bore at the muzzle on one center, they could thread the muzzle on that setup and nail it. I doubt that's how it's done though given how many factory muzzles are off at the muzzle relative to the OD.
Indexing in a "thing" to decent tolerances can happen FAST with an operator who's practiced at it. If the only consideration is concentricity right at the muzzle, I.E. you aren't trying to really nail it axially to the ten-thousandth both at the opening AND a couple inches into the bore, like in chambering, I could dial a muzzle in on my 3-jaw Bison w/Set-Tru in a couple minutes to under .001". Same with a 4-jaw and it might be even faster depending on the 4-jaw. I wouldn't indicate off the bore either in a production situation, I'd have a set of extremely precise bronze slugs that fit into the bore and indicate off the OD of that.
I think your concern about stresses induced by the threading is a valid one but I certainly can't quantify it. Can you, mathman?
