Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Is a jig available to drill & tap front sight base screws on Marlin 1895

I plan on shortening the barrel on my 1895SS but my only hesitation is drilling and tapping the holes for the sight base. I searched Brownell's online and did not find a drilling fixture, I would think there is a fixture available.

If not, what are my alternatives?

I would prefer to do the work myself, otherwise, it would make more sense to sell the SS and pick up a Guide Gun. I like the curved grip of my SS though.

RDW

You will be drilling holes extremely close to the bore which requires a high degree of accuracy and control of the depth. This is usually done with a milling machine. Very rigid, accurate and to a tolerance of .001 inch.

There are a few drill guides around which offer a small degree of accuracy centering the drill on a barrel but I am not aware of any with dependable provisions for depth control.

If you don't have the experience and/or tools to use the ramp as a drill guide, take it to a gunsmith who has the proper tools - like a center drill bit whose body would fit the hole(s) while spotting the barrel for the actual screw hole(s), and/or a Forstner jig.

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Don't know what your budget is on this and you do say you want to do the work yourself, but one possible alternative would be to send the rifle back to Marlin and ask them to install a shorter guide gun barrel, complete with front sight (or pre-drilled holes).

I have never sent one back so only have others' experiences to go by but apparently Marlin is quite helpful in replacing parts to modify their rifles, like installing different barrel lengths, even so much as to change calibers if the action is suitable.

B square makes a drill jig that might be what you want - use a drill stop to control your depth

If you want the barrel length at 16 or 18 inch's then cut the barrel first to what ever length it takes to give yourself enough room to do a practice fitting, so if you mess up on your first try then you will be able to cut to the length you wanted before doing the final job, especially if this is your first time at doing this yourself unless you are a qualified machinist. If not careful you will have a crooked mounted sight base or you will drill to deep and get into the bore itself. I would do a practice run on the barrel section you are cutting off. But this is me on a first time project where there is no return if you screw up.

All good ideas and advice. I have confidence I can cut and crown the barrel without a problem. The crown tool would be used for other projects too.

In all honesty, I am probably not qualified to drill and tap the site base screws so I am going to get a few quotes from some local gunsmiths.

If you DO decide to tackle it yourself, or if you want to practice on a scrap barrel first (recommended!) you'll also need to modify a drill bit (ground nearly flat on the tip) to finish the holes in order to get max. usable depth, since the point on a regular bit will leave a taper at the bottom which you won't be able to thread.

Similarly, you'll need to get an extra couple of taps and grind one tip nearly flat to create a "plug tap" with a taper that only affects the last couple of threads. If you are very careful you can start the threads with this. Then grind the second tap even flatter with the minimum of taper to make a "bottoming tap" to finish the threads as close to the bottom of the hole as possible. Brownell's sells plug and bottoming taps, but you can make your own; just be careful not to overheat while grinding.

There are also tap holders with a rotating pin in the handle which you can put in the chuck of your drill press/mill to hold the tap straight while you turn the tap by hand.

Stuart

I called a local gunsmith who performed work on several rifles for a coworker and friend who is very pleased with his work. His price is 100.00 to cut and crown and 25.00 per screw. The crown cutter and pilot would cost at lease a 100.00 from Brownells so I am going to send it out.

GOOD decision