Gunsmithing Barrel vise

What’s wrong with the viper? Works great for me.

SAC Bravo w/ a piece of drywall joint tape wrapped around the barrel for added grip and to protect the finish.

CanisLupus said:

SAC Bravo w/ a piece of drywall joint tape wrapped around the barrel for added grip and to protect the finish.

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Similarly, I have the SAC Modular Vise kit and use drywall tape - works beautifully!

The SAC Modular is a brilliant piece of kit. Super pricey, but of all the high-priced SAC stuff, it’s the only one that I looked at and thought, “Yeah that one is totally worth it.”

The joy of only torquing one screw to clamp/release instead of two or four…

I’ve got the SAC Bravo. Its pretty sweet

SAC. Pricey, but SO worth it. I broke my first one.. sent a pic, Mr Gordon sent a new one to me.. in Australia.

Current one has done several hundred, perfectly. Even wore out the single clamp bolt. Got a new one (locally) and it's all smooth sailing. The cylindrical nut thing in the lower half, 100% perfect. Was just the bolt.

Another vote for the SAC vice. Have all the inserts, plus a 1.13 and tikka sporter contour. Tikkas are generally a bitch to remove, and I've had no issues with the SAC unit and proper inserts removing several factory pipes. There's only one barrel I couldn't break, a friend's ancient rem700 from the 70s that was pretty rusted up. The smith ended up cutting the barrel out.

12 years and counting. We average around 110 barrels a month and they go on/off the receiver 4-6 times before final assembly. That equates to around 72,000 duty cycles. I did have to replace the grade 8 bolts once.

As an old friend who's gone now once said: "Anything worth making is worth making out of steel."

Skip the Bravo and get the Modular if you go SAC. Do it once do it right.

LongRifles Inc. said:

12 years and counting. We average around 110 barrels a month and they go on/off the receiver 4-6 times before final assembly. That equates to around 72,000 duty cycles. I did have to replace the grade 8 bolts once.

As an old friend who's gone now once said: "Anything worth making is worth making out of steel."

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how does it do with taper barrels?

LongRifles Inc. said:

12 years and counting. We average around 110 barrels a month and they go on/off the receiver 4-6 times before final assembly. That equates to around 72,000 duty cycles. I did have to replace the grade 8 bolts once.

As an old friend who's gone now once said: "Anything worth making is worth making out of steel."

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Right on!

Steel is real. I’d never buy a vice made of anything other than steel or ductile cast iron.

I’ve never taken a barrel off. I own a Wilton C1. I imagine the C1’s pipe jaws would not provide even enough pressure on a barrel and maybe ovalize it? And with the pipe jaw’s serrations they’d dent it too.

Btw for vise fans, this dude is making some krazy new shop vises. https://fireballtool.com/pages/exclusive-video-content

SAC with a ARCA base. Easy to throw on a tripod for barrel cleaning.