Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing 6-48 Tap and drill set ?

Years ago when I had my gun shop I used to buy tap and drill sets from Badger Shooters Supply, I think they were a Weaver product. I have a little project and have to drill and tap five holes, I don't know if they will be through holes or blind holes so will need both a plug and bottom tap and the appropriate drill. Looking around I see taps for $2.49 at Midway and $17.00 at Brownell's.

Any suggestions on where to get a reasonably priced decent quality taps. I will be putting a Weaver base on a sxs shotgun rib.

Thanks

erich

Brownells also has another brNd of taps for less$$. I use the cheaper brand brownells carries and they work fine for 90% of jobs. I believe the last time I ordered they were under $2 each.

Grizzly also carries a pretty big line of gunsmith tools these days, might check with them.

Might also try MSC for machining tools.

Victor Machinery Exchange has them for about $7 a pop. They also have a lot of odd ball taps and if you can't find one, they'll custom grind it for you.

http://www.victornet.com/cgi-bin/victor/productlist.html?subdepartments=Special+Thread+Taps:618%2C1170%2C1171

Brownells sells the taps for $2.49. Part number is 395-648-001 for the taper tap. The plug and bottom taps are the same price, and you can look up the numbers for those.

You won't find a better price for a decent tap. The taps are made by Hanson.

Thanks for the help guys,

gzig5, you don't see that for a hometown very often, I hope they are going to have a 50yr class reunion at Homestead next year, if so I'll be in town for a few days.

I don't know why they wouldn't. They seem to stay on top of that sort of thing. You probably won't recognize the place. They are looking to do a 4.5 million dollar upgrade to the outdoor sports facilities. Need to get you old guys back to donate. ;-)

While the Brownell's (Hanson made) tap is a quality made tap that in most cases will be perfectly adequate to get the job done. The "Premium" tap that Brownell's offers is made by an 80 yr. old American company Reiff & Nestor. What sets R&N taps apart from others is that the tooth to tooth spacing is controlled more tightly than other tap manufacturers in the industry. That makes a huge difference when tapping hardened steel encountered in firearms. Yes, the R&N tap is priced at $7.00-$8.00 but I have never broken an R&N tap. As for a Hanson tap I cannot make the same claim, I find the added cost of the R&N tap well worth not having to deal with removing a broken tap. The R&N is the "go to" tap when tapping the tough jobs like Savage 99, Krag and other known tough jobs. The less expensive Hanson makes sense when tapping other jobs, I always use a new tap when tapping a customer gun I build the cost into my price for a drill & tap job. Experience has proved this to be a cost effective way to avoid having to deal with a broken tap. Keep the used taps for thread clean-up jobs, running threads a couple of threads deeper and other less critical jobs.

A follow-up suggestion to the above post is to use a "screw machine length" drill to drill holes for tapping. Screw machine or "stub length" drills are shorter and therefor stiffer and lass prone to wander than standard length drills. Also, if possible start the hole with a center drill especially when drilling into a curved surface like a barrel or receiver. Drill deep enough so that the angled portion makes a chamfer at the top of the hole. You will gain three benefits from doing this, #1- the drill will start true in the countersink produced by the center drill, #2-The tap will start more easily in the countersunk hole, and #3-The small amount of countersink left after tapping will leave a burr free hole will allow the screw to start easily and will give your work a professional appearance. The depth of the center drill is by trial and error, check the diameter with your caliper set to .010" bigger than the tap O.D., this done set the depth stop on your mill or drill press so all holes are center drilled uniformly. When tapping, never run a tap into the hole dry, ALWAYS use tapping fluid. After tapping degrease the holes & screws with acetone prior to applying Loc-tite.

No experience with the procedure proposed and curious. Are the D&T holes made in the rib of the monobloc (if the SxS is so constructed)? Or is the soldered on rib robust enough to hang a scope on it?

I would suggest NOT mounting a scope on a soldered on rib as in nearly all cases they are soldered with soft lead solder definately not intended to withstand having a scope mounted on them. If you can mount on the monobloc and eyerelief not be an issue that would be a better way to go. Having not seen your shotgun/scopemount/scope I cannot give further suggestion.

The gun n question is a German drilling and already has a set of claw mounts on the rib so strength is not an issue. I want to mount a scope lower than can be done with the claw mounts. The drilling already has a Hensoldt 4x fitted to it and I want to add a 1x4 variable to it with out disturbing the original claw mounts. I'm either going to use a Weaver base and Weaver low rings(about 1/10" lower than Tally one piece lows) or make a set of very low rings like a Talley one piece and mount them on the rib just ahead of the claw mounts. I'm not worried about quick removal of the scope as it will be a dedicated predator gun shooting slugs(I have an ample supply of Brenneke 2 1/2") or NP "F" and "BB" shot.

I've already have done the same to another drilling by making a new set of low claw rings but this one claw bases are higher than the other.

The first drilling with low mounted scope, the 6x48 Nichol and the 1.5x Weaver are inter-changeable.



With the original scope in place. Just too high for close in fast action work.

gunswizard, find anything better than Do-Drill for a tapping fluid? Has worked well for me so far but the can is finally getting low.

I use Rapid Tap. It is more cost effective than Do-Drill.

Bill Jscobs

Before the EPA banned them, tapping fluids contained Trichlorethylene whose high evaporative rate cooled the tapping action therefor making it easier to tap. They switched to Trichlorethane which was not as good and finally removed the Trichlor entirely. About this time the water soluble crap came in, tried several of these, most were better than nothing. I am now retired, I use some of the old Trichlor containing stuff from a stash of cans obtained at machine tool shows when they gave away cans of the stuff as samples. I've used Do Drill in the past but it really stinks, Rapid Tap is OK too.

It does have a great odor to it, reminds me of humid nights in Texas downwind from a drilling rig. High school days, a good memory or two.