Gunsmithing Barrel Vice

[Twisted300Win MAG]

I'v been working on making the fixtures needed to get started building my own rifles. Here is the barrel vise I finished last night. Currently i do not have a mill of my own so i made this on a friends 1970's bridgeport that is in less then good shape. but i'm pretty happy with it. I have several other projects started including an action wrench, action v block for mill work, an action truing jig that threads directly to the spindle nose on my SB 13" and front and rear spiders that will allow a 22" barrel through the hedstock. Will update with pictures as soon as they are finished. tell me what you think, be easy i'm self educated when it comes to machining.
Donald

 

[my human host]

I'd call it a win. I pussed out and bought mine from Brownells. Yours looks quite similar.

 

[kraigWY]

Looks like it will work to me.

Good Job. I made mine about 35 years ago, not as pretty as your's any more, but it still works.

 

[Twisted300Win MAG]

Thanks. I modeled it after the Brownells' vise. I had to guess at dimensions because I've never actually seen a barrel vise in person.

 

[Dennis_in_VA]

Thanks. I modeled it after the Brownells' vise. I had to guess at dimensions because I've never actually seen a barrel vise in person.

BARREL VISE | Brownells

They give some dimensions under the "SPECS" tab.
The rest you should be able to figure out.

If I were to make some more, I would only go 2" wide instead of 3".

 

[Twisted300Win MAG]

Mine is 2 1/8" wide 2 1/8" deep 6" long base 4" long top 1 1/2" hole to acomadate bushings for different contours. Hopefully the narrower footprint will save me from having to cut crazy bushings on sporter barrels.

 

[STR]

That looks great, and will work just as well as it looks. How long did it take to mill all that metal off of there. Those Bridgeport mills are awesome, especially the older one with manual speed change/belt driven. Congrats.

 

[MikeeBooshay]

When you get your own Bridgeport, bolt the barrel vise with T Blocks, to one end of the table. You hardly ever use the ends of the table, and it's attached to something you aren't going to overturn by muscling up on a difficult barrel.

Nice work on the vise, made a couple bushings also?

 

[Twisted300Win MAG]

Thanks for the kind words. I have about five hours into making the vise. the biggest part was squaring up the bar stock that I used. I ended up taking 0.060 off each side just to get it back square. Another challenge was laying out my holes with an x axis dial with numbers so rusty you couldn't read them. also This was my first attempt using a surface grinder. Kinda overkill for a barrel vise but I wanted to play with a new machine. I' made a couple bushings, one for my stock Remington and one for a M24 barrel I have for another build. The ones I'v made are aluminum but I may make a few outta some brass that I have laying around, I think the brass may grip better.

 

[rdinak]

That Dawg looks might happy. Dont think I would try to get him off the couch unless there was a ham biscuit involved.

Nice work on the barrel vice.