WiFowler, you are 100% correct. These would be untappered blanks, CM steel at 27" long and 1.2" in diameter. Not for hobby builders, but for gunsmiths with a lathe that know how to use it well. That's why the price would be as low as they are saying. They come in at (I believe) $114 each and would cost about $11 shipping per barrel, so the guess of $125 each is just about right. That's going to be very close to the total price to your door.
I have not been in contact with GM for about 3 weeks now. I told them I'd put the word out and see if there was enough interest in the barrels to cause them to commit to making 100 of them. I am asking interested persons to call Green Mountain directly instead of contacting me so they can hear directly from the buyers instead of someone involved in wishful thinking.
I have an 8 foot LeBlond with a taper attachment, but I did this kind of work for many years on a very small lather and I can cut tapers on it with no taper attachment. What you do is to figure the amount of taper you need in thousandths per 6" section. You turn a ring at the muzzle of the desired diameter and one at the large end of the taper of the correct diameter. I leave them about.005" oversize for a bit of meat for final finishing.
Now lets say you need .030" per 6". That would be .015 at 3" and .0075 at 1.5 inches. So if you use a market and "stripe" the barrel every 1.5 Inches you can hand dial it in every stripe .007 to .008" Start at the muzzle end and come back 3"Cut the first traverse toward the muzzle dialing in the tool about 7-8 thousandths in the 3 inch long cut.
Next go back 6". Do it again but for the 6" of traverse. Next is 9" and so on.
You can even do it in small steps. It's actually pretty easy.
When the barrel is tapered you draw-file it and polish it, and the finished product is as good as one cut on a big lathe with proper support.
It takes more time for sure, but for a hobby builder doing this kind of thin 1-3 times a year, and few extra hours is not important. It is even fun.
And again you are correct, contoured blanks are going to outsell raw blanks, but Shilen and Douglas already do those (for a LOT more money) so GM doesn't think there is enough demand for contoured barrels to justify trying to take that piece of the market away from those other 2 companies, but if full service gunsmiths need blanks there is no reason to pay 2X or 3X the money especially if you are coping the early British and German contours. Shilen and Douglas do modern "American" contours and so if you need to make the 1900 to 1920s style, you would pay the extra money for the nice contours from Shilen or Douglas and then cut them away anyway, so that would be a large waist of money.
I know (and so does GM) that this is going to be a barrel for a small section of the market. But I am guessing that the section is still big enough to get all their barrels sold in short order as long as gunsmiths know they are available. So that's the over view.
As I said before, it's in the talking stage right now, and only interest from consumers is going to make them decide to produce them.
That's the entire reason for the thread in the 1st place.
Last edited by szihn; 01/06/17.
