Hello Airgunners!,
The other day I showed you how Use a fixture in my lathe to machine the end of barrels for either threading or fitting into an action. Today i wanted to show you what that does for me.
I own an FX Ranchero rifle with a custom Steve Corcoran walnut stock. I love this rifle. Its really short and compact. In its day, probably one of the best carbines out there. The only problem with this rifle of course is the shot count on high power. I know that FX sells extensions for making your short pressure cylinder longer and therefore holding more air. So I took the plunge and bought one. and it works great! except for one thing....the new extended cylinder is now longer than my short barrel and now I can't add a moderator to keep it as quite as it used to be. Ill be honest, this really bummed me out! So I decided to do something about it! I checked my barrel inventory and found a BSA barrel that was salvaged from another gun. It was just the right size for this project. I didn't want the gun to too long, but I wanted the barrel to stick far enough from the end of the air cylinder to fit a moderator. So I machined the end of the barrel to fit into the FX action. There is no brass thimble, it is incorporated into the machined end. I had to create an internal o-ring groove, two outside o-ring grooves, and few stepped edges that fit into the action. I ground my own internal grooving tool, which worked well for the internal o-ring which is 1.50mm x 5.5mm. I reamed the back end of the barrel to just under 6mm to allow the pellet free passage till it hit the rifling and cleared the transfer port. The transfer port I reamed to just under 5mm. The barrel turned out perfect and now this rifle is better to me than before! Although I love really really short carbines, this one is combination of both short and still provides more shots. I am not done with this gun yet....a HuMa reg is on the way for it! Thanks for looking!
setting up for cutting the outside o-ring groove.....
setting up for reaming out the transfer port hole to max 5mm, notice i kept the barrel in the fixture even when moving it to the milling machine
finished product
The other day I showed you how Use a fixture in my lathe to machine the end of barrels for either threading or fitting into an action. Today i wanted to show you what that does for me.
I own an FX Ranchero rifle with a custom Steve Corcoran walnut stock. I love this rifle. Its really short and compact. In its day, probably one of the best carbines out there. The only problem with this rifle of course is the shot count on high power. I know that FX sells extensions for making your short pressure cylinder longer and therefore holding more air. So I took the plunge and bought one. and it works great! except for one thing....the new extended cylinder is now longer than my short barrel and now I can't add a moderator to keep it as quite as it used to be. Ill be honest, this really bummed me out! So I decided to do something about it! I checked my barrel inventory and found a BSA barrel that was salvaged from another gun. It was just the right size for this project. I didn't want the gun to too long, but I wanted the barrel to stick far enough from the end of the air cylinder to fit a moderator. So I machined the end of the barrel to fit into the FX action. There is no brass thimble, it is incorporated into the machined end. I had to create an internal o-ring groove, two outside o-ring grooves, and few stepped edges that fit into the action. I ground my own internal grooving tool, which worked well for the internal o-ring which is 1.50mm x 5.5mm. I reamed the back end of the barrel to just under 6mm to allow the pellet free passage till it hit the rifling and cleared the transfer port. The transfer port I reamed to just under 5mm. The barrel turned out perfect and now this rifle is better to me than before! Although I love really really short carbines, this one is combination of both short and still provides more shots. I am not done with this gun yet....a HuMa reg is on the way for it! Thanks for looking!
setting up for cutting the outside o-ring groove.....
setting up for reaming out the transfer port hole to max 5mm, notice i kept the barrel in the fixture even when moving it to the milling machine
finished product
