Jesus Christ, SH does not f'n change... someone asks a questions... 10 pages ensue how their QUESTION was wrong in the first place, and they should be doing something totally different. This place has more know-it-alls per square inch outside of f'n Washington DC in the entire US.
I know how to take a barrel off, as you pointed out, its not rocket science. When I rebuilt my Land Cruiser, I did everything... minus having the diffs re-geared and lockers installed. Couldn't I have done the same thing as my guy, if I bought the tools and followed the instructions? Yes... but he's done it 5 thousand times, he already has the tools, and I was more than happy to pay for his expertise.
LRI (and other smiths) have big, beefy 500 dollar barrel vises (LRI sells them
here) secured to a very stable workspace with tons of room to apply leverage, etc. I do not. Not all of us have 4,000 sq ft pole barns, or even garages with tons of work space. I have the 80 dollar barrel vise from ebay (that everyone recommends) that I put in my Wilton Vise that works great to install barrels, but does not allow the torque necessary to remove a Tikka barrel. I could buy the LRI vise (or the high end SAC, etc), reconfigure my damn garage and build a new workbench to mount it, and remove it myself...
Or I could send it to LRI for 50 dollars per action/barrel. Which is
actually the more logical solution?
Now that you know my life story, I hope my decision making around Tikka barrel removal and preference to send them out makes sense to you. I know it will help me sleep at night if it does.
Yeah, he was tons of help. Good call.