I have some lathe and mill experience, but, plan on taking some classes on barrel work and clambering etc. Wondering what you guys might suggest for decent lathe and mill for hobby gunsmithing. Looked at some Grizzy models, just wondering if there are other units to look at. Thanks in advance!

Your budget will determine a lot. That said, I had a Clausing 12x48 (high school surplus) and 'upgraded' to the Grizzly Gunsmith lathe. For a mill, I have a Bridgeport that I 'stole' a few years ago.

You sure you didn't downgrade?

We old farts born in the 40's think alike.

Considering the Clausing was a high school surplus purchase, and had been beat to 'chit' and wouldn't hold a tolerance, the Grizzly was an upgrade. Just playing with the Clasuing one day after I'd purchased it, I turned a length of cold rolled. By the time I'd run the cutter a foot or so, the piece looked more like a screw than a smooth turning. Nothing was tight on that lathe, nor could it be tightened up. That said, the Grizzly was an upgrade.

Guys, I figure $7000.00-10,000.00 for both items, does that help any? mainly want to do barrel and chambering work, would use the mill for stock work and maybe simple extractor cuts and maybe some fluting etc. I have heard good and bad about the grizzly lathe.......mostly good with good customer service, just wondering what else to consider.......thanks again...goodshot.

Follow this thread. The Tiawanese lathes are very good.
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...e-gunsmithing-lathe-finally-here-229480/
If you do a search on the Practical Machinest classified portion they have a guy with a good reputation that sells renovated Bridgeports for around $2500.
The fellow in NZ that bought the lathe,Dean, is a friend. I can get comments from him if you like.

Save about $2,000 of that for jigs, fixtures, mandrels, indicators and tooling to get started. I see you are in wa, look up cal hopper in spray, or.....he has a lot of machine tools for sale. Last time I was down there, he had a heavy 10, a maxturn and a few le blonds.....and a bunch of tree mills.

Unless you have alot of mill work planned, you'd be better off putting that $7-10k in a lathe, tooling and metrology. Reamers and headspace gauges have a way of eating up funds pretty quickly. Plus with a mill the tooling costs add up really fast.

It would be pert near impossible to get a decent 13X40 lathe, mill and tool them up for $7-10k, and if you take shortcuts on the tools, you'll be fighting them to do good work. And whatever you do, don't get a combo lathe/mill, they it's a jack of all trades master of none that you'll spend more time converting back and forth vs. making chips.

Actually, if you shop carefully and are patient, you can buy good used machines complete w/ tooling for a fraction of new cost. Particularly in this economy, w/ so many businesses failing.

Guess I'm a little different. I do a lot more mill work than lathe work.

I have equipped several employer's shops with Supermax lathes and mills. Another good lathe is an Emco Maier, made in Austria and top quality. I can recommend both of these brands without reservation having used them with complete satisfaction for the past 20 yrs.. I buy most of my tooling on the secondary market, lots of good values out there as most in industry have gone to CNC. MSC is a good source of cutting tools, lots of choices from "world sourced" inexpensive stuff to top quality made in the USA. In many instances for light intermittant use that home shop tools see the inexpensive suits the purpose just fine. Grizzly and Harbor Freight are a couple of others to consider.

Funny. I put in about 15 hours the past five days on the vertical mill.

Machining parts for motorcycles!!!

No wonder the gun projects are not getting done.

A good Heavy 10 or a 10" Logan is a great start for a lathe. I just picked up a nice Millrite MV vertical knee mill for under $1K. I use a Logan 1820 with a 6' extended bed for my lathe. Both are single phase 230V. Both can be outfitted with DROs and will be, down the road.

A heavy 10 Southbend or the afore mentioned Emco Maier are great. I have used a Rockwell and know several smiths that have them. I would not want a single phase machine. I have DROs on both of my Bridgeports as well as VFD. I see no need for a DRO on a lathe. I have a Trav A Dial on the lathe.

Sargon DRO on my mill. Like Butch says, a DRO on a gun builders lathe just gets in the way. With a DRO you gotta check everything with a micrometer anyway, so why have the DRO. If you are machining to a shoulder or boring or internal threading, just clamp on a indicator. Now if I was doing a lot of big shafting work, with multiple shoulders, bearing fits, threads, etc, a DRO would be handy, wish I had a DRO way back in the dark ages when I ran a 30"x240" Monarch in a job shop.

I have owned two Rockwell vertical mills, they are scaled down copies of a Bridgeport. O.K. for smaller work but lack the power and rigidity for larger work. As regards a DRO on the lathe, I have used a Trav A Dial for many years once you install a DRO on your lathe you will wonder how you got along without it. Far less mental math along with the chance for errors, vastly improved speed getting things done. As valuable on the lathe as the mill in my opinion. No need for a DRO with a lot of fancy functions, a simple unit that is just a counter is all you need. BTW I have more than 40 yrs. in the Tool & Die and gunsmithing trades, so I speak from experience.

Although the DRO is really nice on a mill, it is pretty dang handy on a lathe as well. I never felt like it got in the way. I don't have one on mine but my uncle's shop is a mile away and I use his stuff a lot. He has a DRO on his lathe and it sure does speed some stuff up. On his, it is a need as his lathe has way too much lash in it. We are trying to upgrade his lathe right now. You can wear a 12x36" 1400# lathe out in a hurry if you work it. They are just very light duty.

No flies on the Supermax mills, I have 6 of them in my shop. Square ways, great rigidity, decent spindles and 3hp motors...They would be worth a look on the used market. The earliest of mine are 24 yrs old and still working every day.

Personally, I wouldn't be without a DRO on a lathe...even a hobby machine....but ya know what they say about opinions...lol.

Do you blink your eyes in tune with the digital display when you are threading? I have used a DRO or 2 on a lathe. They are nice for somethings but I can't thread with them.

Well boys, as you get older, your eyes play funny tricks with those tiny little dials on a lathe. Not only that, it makes up for wear and backlash in the lead screws.

CAFR,
How is a DRO easier to read than a Trav A Dial on a lathe for threading? Have you threaded a barrel or 3 with a DRO?
If you do this for money, why are you using a worn out machine?

Beeeeg Dials Senior.


Put some oil on those crossfeed screws and they will last forever.

Down boy... I don't have a trav a dial on my machine. DRO is just as easy to install and digits are easier to read than marks on a dial. My machines aren't worn out, either. When working in .001 tolerances, any machine with any wear at all will have a bit of backlash in the screws. The dials on my lathe crossfeed and compound are very small and can be difficult to read. I do quite well threading barrels, etc. just as I'm set up now. I just think a DRO would make my life a bit easier. Just sayin'. At any rate, goodshot was asking for suggestions for a "Hobby Gun Shop" lathe and mill. Perhaps we have gone a bit off the subject and are causing confusion, here.

It appears you would be better served painting weapons rather than using machinery.

I love the dro on my lathe. It is easy to count timing on a thread. My machine is variable speed, so I can feather in to the last bit of threads. I do have mag mount indicators that I can double check against, but for most of the work I do, the dro is an asset. I have yet to see it in the way.

i find the DRO handy when making parts from a drawing. It isnt for threading for sure!

I'm not sure why you think you can make any judgement about my skills without having seen my work, but if you want to be an a$$hole, your problem.

I may be an [bleep], but I have done a little bit of machining. When you are threading with your DRO you must have your tool upside down and threading to the right? So now you are threading to a shoulder. Do you adjust your compound or do you just plunge cut your threads?

I agree with the comments regarding DRO's sometimes getting in the way. I have always used TRAK DRO's on lathe and mills, they utilize a rotary encoder like a Trav-a-dial. No glass scale to get in the way, far less troublesome than glass scaled DRO's as long as you maintain them. Clean and change wiper(s) about once a year. As regards threading with a DRO I don't understand the negative comments, what's the difference if the cross slide zero is set on a dial or a DRO display? The tool is fed in with the compound and withdrawn at the end of the cut by visual observation. What's not to like about the DRO? I thread up to a shoulder both ways, conventional feeding up to the shoulder and mounting the tool upside down and feeding away from the shoulder. BTW, I also bore on the "back side" of a blind hole, feeding out of the hole running the lathe in reverse with the compound set to the left rather than the right. Takes a little getting used to but saves a lot of stress & worry about running into the bottom of the hole. Try it, you'll like it!

I thread upside down and backwards using the compound. I never said that I needed the DRO for threading, but I use the lathe for more than threading and I still think that a DRO would be beneficial. If you don't, that's fine. Just leave your thoughts about how I should be making a living out of the discussion.

Pretty thin skinned to be on the fire. DROs are great, just not for threading.

Back to lathes: Any one of them is better than not having one, some are just better than others. Do your research.

Not to sound ignorant but there are no dumb questions. What is the DRO?

Movement on the lathe is controlled by mechanical items, ie the feed screws and respective nuts. Usually these items are square type threading, ACME. The dials on the crossfeed and compound have numbers on them, typically in 0.001" marks.

The DRO is a set of instrumentation that tracks actual movements on the lathe and presents it to the operator on a hexidecimal display system. So one sees actual movements of the crossfeed and the horizontal feeds of the lathe on the display system, whatever type of display technology you bought.

The nuts and acme shafts get worn over time, and develop backlash, ie slop. One can get around such by going past the position you desire with the control dials, and then coming back to put a touch in the mechanisms, ie no slack in that direction. Of course, one has to keep track of how cutting pressure is applied to these things to keep the nut/acme interface in contact. Especially true if one is using a mill adapter on the lathe.

DRO's, direct read outs, digital read outs, are fairly expensive but some really like them. Way too expensive for me and my old machine. With a DRO you watch the display for critical movements rather than watching a dial indicator or manually controlling the control dials.

You might just google or bing........ "lathe DRO" to see some pictures and links to peruse if you so desire.

Digital Read Out

Thanks redz06. Always room to learn new stuff. Technology has come a long way since I left the tool room.