Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Good price for recrown?

I was talking to the local gunsmith (with whom I have no experience) and was quoted $75 for recrowning the barrel on a sporterized enfield 1917 that I recently aquired. Is this a reasonible price?

I am guessing that he is going to reblue the end of the barrel some how, probably a cold blue. If so the price seems reasonible, to me.

Thanks for any input!!

I charge between 40-50$ for crowns, max...

Hey Redneck,turns out you have done work( lots of it) for one of the suppliers of my "bad "habbits....rifles,

Very possible.. LOL..

If it's who I think it is, he's quite a guy and a lot of fun to work with...

I got a hunch if I said "Ace",you'd know who I mean..over the years what haven't I bought there....

LOL.. Well, join the crowd...

I consider that very high if not outrageous. Brownells sells a Brass mussle crowning lap. You just insert the thing in your drill, plug the barrel about 1 inch from the end with a tight patch, apply some 600 grit lapping compound and start drilling using a gentle rocking motion. After about 10 seconds, reverse the drill and repeate until you have cut down to the lands and groves. Stop often and check your progress. When you have a nice coincentric ring all the way to the lands and groves, your done. I think the tool and grit runs around 15 bucks. Then you can use some cold blue to finish the job....it's as easy as falling in love! Regards, Rick. OBTW having said all that, is the crown damaged? If so, you are doing the first thing I would do to restore accuracy.

$35 max if he's re-cutting it.
$20-$25 if he's just lapping it with the brass lap.
$75 is WAY off base. PM Sent

Thanks for the infomation. I thought it was high...

The reason I want to recrown is that whomever sporterized this rifle , cut down the barrel length and there appears to be no crown at all. I can get this rifle to group around 3" at 100 yards. I have a timney trigger on the way along with some glass bedding material. I figure that if I spend this $$ on this, includeing the purchase price of the gun which was $50, and it still doesn't shoot then I should be able to recoup my losses fairly easy.

If you can get it done properly for less all the better but $75 is hardly "Way" off base. Some shops have a $70 to $80 per hour rate minimum of 1 hour. If the smith has to disassemble the gun, pull the barrel, setup on lathe, indicate in etc. it probably won't take the full hour but could take up a good part of it.
If you bring the action in ready to pull the barrel, setup and cut you might be more likely to get it done a lot cheaper. Good Luck...........DJ

THe $75 quote was to bring in the barrelead action, not the complete gun.

Well they are probably on the high side then and it might be worth spending the time to pack it up, pay for the gas to drive to the post office, pay for shipping and send it to somewhere it will be cheaper to have the work done.
I kinda see both sides of the price issue, I'm always for getting the same work done as reasonably as possible. But I also hang around a machine shop and understand what it takes to stop doing one thing schedule in and do another even small job while trying to pay the bills on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. When I saw the repair bill on the Wire EDM machine I thought $80 an hour seemed cheap!..... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />.......DJ