Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Which tool to get the best quality 11 deg. target crown?

Jkob,

I do not have the speed and talent of Redneck, so:

1. If I'm to get a completely assembled scoped rifle from the customer, it would take me close to an hour to CAREFULLY (you know what it means?) assemble and disassemble. And rifles are different in design (big surprise for you?), so you may need to look up and figure a few things before you've done, right?

2. $45 for a crowning job is pretty much the standard rate.
How did you figure out I'm ripping the customers off? Because I was smart enough to get an exceptionally productive toolkit from Dave Manson and complete the job much faster? Do you want me to do it for $5 and kill my brother Redneck's business?

Customers are happy to pay $45 and don't give a damn which technology I'm using as long as it's a quality job. And they are very happy to get it done next day.

BTW, I've done lots of revolvers with absolutely amazing results.
Good luck to you doing revolver barrel crowning on the lathe.

I won't get into the discussion about how long it should take. I'm retired and at least for my own guns, I have all the time it takes to do the job. From what I understand that is part of the secret in avoiding chatter? Use lots of honing oil, and a very light pressure, and take your time?

As for doing it on a lathe, I don't have one, but certainly if done that way using a 4-jaw and zeroing it on a pilot in the bore is the right way to get it concentric. I suspect the factory doesn't do it that way and centers on the OD which in most cases will not be concentric with the bore. Using a hand cutter which is accurately piloted in the bore seems like the other good way of getting a concentric cut.

What tweaked my interest in this was a post by a regular at the Savage forum at RFC. His grammer and spelling are not so great, but I've read many of his posts, and he is real practical, knowlegeable about Savages and an accuracy fanatic. I respect his views, but with all testimonials, one always wonders a bit. I don't think he has any connection with the supplier of the tool. See this post:

http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238630

If you are not familiar with the Suhl 150 he talks about see this:

http://accurateshooter.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/suhl-150-match-rifles-at-centuryarmscom/

I'm being careful about this as this is not a situation where my gun is a dog for accuracy. It can shoot down to 0.25" groups at 50 yards with very good ammo, but cannot average at the level. I'm thinking it may have the potential though. Here is a group I shot at 25 yards for an on line fun challenge. It requires four 5 shot groups on one target, all under 1/4". Seems like it should be easy, but it is not all that easy. Took about 4 attempts and I just squeaked in with one group real close to 1/4".



Any comments on the various cutters are appreciated. I see they differ in the number of blades on the cutter, and wondered if more is better, or is technique the secret to getting a clean chatter free cut?

Ron

Ron,

Chatter is a complex phenomena. Depth of cut, properties of barrel material, number and angular spacing of flutes, type of coolant, feed pressure, RPM, RIGIDITY of the system in general,
any one of these factors is important. There are only three ways to get chatter free crown - on the lathe, with Manson tools or by grinding/lapping, and only two of them will give you accurate and square crown. Any other cutter sold in the market may give you chatter, or may not, if you're very lucky. What you call "honing oil" is not really a chatter fix, it is not required, for example, if you do crowning with use of above mentioned three methods. And light pressure is not as important as limiting the depth of cut and keeping CONSISTENT feed pressure and rate. If you want quality finish and square crown, you got two options - lathe (assuming setup is done relative to the barrel bore) or Manson tools. Brass screws, balls and other kindergarden technologies...you actually figured that by yorself - is a joke.

You mentioned RIGIDITY. I am not so sure you are that rigid with what I suspect is a method using the Manson tool with a hand held drill motor. Different barrel makers have different sized bores in their rifle's barrels. Unless you have a tight fitting bushing on the end of your tool AND do it in a properly set up lathe operation, you CANNOT get as good a job using your method. You don't need a cutting oil or any extra added rigidity on a lathe, just a properly sharpened single point tool bit. I have a lot of respect for Manson's tooling but have no use for the crowning tool

I am aware of different types of actions, I have re-crowned most all of them at one time or another and not one single one took me even close to an hour to disassemble it

Jkob,

You are obviosuly not familiar at all with Manson crowning tools and principle of their operation. If you're interested, you can find more details on the web. Thre is also a complete manual posted on the web. Also, rigidity is only one of factors palying role in "chatter" problem. Did you ever use a Dremel tool? Got any chatter with it? I bet not. Dremel tool and your hand holding it has zero rigidity as a system.

Also, did you read my posts carefully? I said one hour for DISASSEMBLY AND ASSEMBLY. Can you ASSEMBLE rifle in 0 seconds?
Would you agree that assembly takes longer than disaasembly?
Are you familiar with assembly/disassembly of any firearm?

I think it is "Obvious" that you know nothing of my qualifications and whether or not I am familiar with the Manson tooling.

End of discussion

WOW... 134 crowns in 3 months.. That's over 2 crowns every working day... Must be a new franchise in town: 'Crowns R Us'... Sure must be a bunch of terrible crowns on firearms in your area..

Considering all the other types of jobs most smiths do, you must be busier than a one-armed paper hanger...

See, I treat gunsmithing as a hobby business, my main job is in engineering. So, I only elect to do things which give me income per unit of time (I mean pay rate) higher than my current daytime job pays. So, I do not do, for example, barrel chambering or other things which require lots of labor or I'm not familiar with. I do crowning, scopes, sometimes muzzle brake installations and some very special projects that I can have fun with, like aluminum stocks.

It was actually more than 6000/45=134 crowns. After local people got an idea of improvement thru re-crowning, some guys were bringing 3-4 guns at once - they would get some discount, of course. So, it was, probably, close to 160-170 crowns. I also sold lots of crowning work right at the firing range of Conservation Club - you can do crowns with Manson toolkit anywhere you go, as long as having gun around is legal.

Piece of cake.

So, with all these people bringing scads of rifles for recrowns, what did you tell them when the 'new' crown did bupkis, since there are many firearms out there with no need? Or did you fully inspect the area first and advise against wasting the money?

If you're doing muzzle brake installs, that means you're using a lathe.. That also means you probably have to keep firearms overnight.. That means an FFL is a requirement. You have one?

Nothing personal, just askin'...

I think Lee24 changed his name!!

I'm not so bad. If crown looks even in width and concentric to the bore, and has no damage, I advise not to re-crown. One of the reasons I absolutely like to do it is because re-crowned gun with originally "correct" crown is not likely to show condsiderable accuracy improvement, which is main selling point of this procedure. Customer should see improvement, then I have business. I never touch custom guns, of course, no matter what. Approximately 1/3 of guns I see have decent crowns.
Nearly all milsurplus rifles need work, many revolvers too.
Many factory rifles have crappy crowns right from the factory.
Commercial pistols are not bad, I've noticed Glocks have a particularly good crowns. So, I'm being decent here. I do not need every buck I see, I get enought respect as is.

You got to realize something - with PORTABLE toolkit from Manson I'm not trapped in a shop waiting for the customer. I just take it with me and do a couple of crowns between a couple of vodka
shots with my budies, kind of extreme example, but you should get the picture...

Your second question is personal.
I can assure you I'm in compliance.

BTW, revolvers with fixed signts proved to be a great marketing tool. I had one guy with 2.5"(?) snubnose, which was hitting like 3 feet to the left of POA at 15 yards. Re-cut the crown, brought POI to like 4" from POA. Guy was so impressed, brought ALL his 5 guns for crowning job. I did 3. His Glock and Kimber pistolas were fine as is, but .22 and two Mauser sporters needed work. That guy then got so happy with what I did, he probably made me famous by himself.

I also put 11 deg. crowns on 12 gauge Rem 870 slug barrels.
Waiting for a feed back from those two guys.

LMAO....

'Nuff said..

I'm outta here....

Why LMAO?

Slug barrels with 11 degree target crown? Makes no sense to you?

Unless you should have had a chance to see those two barrels before - muzzle ends looked like a real POS, was not even round to the eye, and with a couple of dings right at the bore edges. Sold at Walmart, what do you want for $290 for a combo.

Kinda intereted to see how, as you said, you can tell if a crown is concentric to the bore!!!!!

Well, pretty much in the same way as everybody else.

Can you tell if crown needs to be re-cut?

LMFAO

It's a bit weird. All you guys do is LMFAO. Do you do any gunsmithing at all?

Now THAT'S funny, since we were about to ask you the same thing..

Ok, so a 'crown' is gonna fix that?? ROTFLMAO... 'Bore edges'?? Maybe you mean muzzle. .. That often happens, but the PROPER fix is a muzzle refacing...

Oh, and your post above replying to my query re: muzzle brakes. Your reply went right to PORTABLE tools.. I didn't ASK about the portable Manson tools.. I'm well aware of them and have a couple sets myself for those few firearms I cannot work with in a lathe.. I was specific in asking about your muzzle brake installs.. You ignored that. I wonder why??

I'm smelling a whole pile of BS...

Oh, and BTW, asking if you have an FFL is not a personal question. Jkob has one. I have one. So do the other smiths on this board.. You say you're ' in compliance'.. Ok, so what's your FFL number?

Imperfections at the muzzle end of shotgun barrels were removed by using shotgun refacer (zero degree cutter), then 11 degree
cutter was mounted onto the spindle of shotgun refacer, to give
additional protection to the bore at the muzzle. It was a fix for bad barrel muzzle appearance. It was not done under promise to improve accuracy, although it may potentially contribute.

I bit more reading for you from respectable source:

www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/GunTech/NewsletterArchive.aspx?p=0&t=1&i=656 - 55k -

Like I said, I'm in compliance as far as I'm concerned. You point of view on this subject is irrelevant. I owe you nothing, and I'm not interested to know your FFL number. I can not see how you'll be benefiting from knowning somebody's else FFL number in discussing best 11 deg. crown. You just seems to be mean for the reasons I do not understand.

But I do have a question: Why do you need a couple of Manson toolkits? They are expensive. I have one with all 15 pilots and other accesories, it was not cheap, but it made bunch of money for me. So, why do you have two of them? I'm puzzled...