Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Draw Filing

Working up a rifle with a tapered octagonal barrel from Green Mountain. Any fine pointers on how to smooth the flats on the barrel? It's a bit rougher than I'd anticipated.

Wiley, you answered your own question. Draw file it to get the flats flat. Then 220 wet or dry on a block. Then 320. A 320 surface is fine enough for rust bluing but maybe 600 for hot caustic. Do all the sanding lengthwise and don't quit that grit until you get out all the marks from the last grit.. Also either sand it wet (with oil) or wear a dust mask to avoid having to deal with black buggers

Thanks! Any picks for files? I usually do round barrels in a lathe and this one has all of those little flats to mess up!!
Wiley the masked filer

I use a common 8", flat, bastard cut file. A second cut or smooth cut might be better. Brownell's sells a draw file. Their stuff is first rate in my opinion so it would probably be better, but I haven't tried one. It's not particularly difficult, but no matter how often I brush away filings and bump the file, I get some pinning. That just means more effort to polish out the marks with 220.

I haven't done any draw filing in quite awhile but I used to use chalk on the file and it helped keep the file from loading up.